“The importance of beauty is a myth,” she will say in August of the same year in the New York Journal, which publishes an article entitled “Melina`s point of view”. “For me Hedy Lamarr is the most beautiful woman I`ve ever seen. But I don`t want to look like her. To be a beautiful woman is a terrible punishment. Her life is short and the first wrinkle horrible. […] I am not beautiful, and I`m very happy about that, seeing that as I grow older nobody can claim I`m no longer beautiful. […] Of greater importance is glamour. Many years ago, my mother told me: “Learn to listen and you will be at the top throughout your life”. A good piece of advice […] “. After being staged in the U.S.A. and Canada, the musical (‘Illya Darling’) reaches Broadway. Its premiere takes place on 9th April, 1967 at the Mark Hellinger Theatre. In the audience Joan Crawford, Lauren Bacall, Barbara Stanwyck, Edward Albee, Mahali Kakogianni, Irini Pappa, Harry Belafonte, Van Jonson and Rod Steiger can be seen. The atmosphere backstage is electric. “Niko`s hands were frozen,’’ Melita Kourkoulos says, reflecting the tension, “while Melina appeared to have a reckless composure”. The curtains are raised. Kourkoulos makes his appearance on an anchor. “At that moment,” Melita Kourkoulos says, “it really brought the house down. It was so striking to see an enormous anchor being lowered ever so slowly with a man wearing a fishnet shirt perched on it. When the one and only Melina appeared, what happened is indescribable. She entered the stage at a run, in a black bikini, with her long legs and her whole body wonderfully made-up as if she had been in the sun, and everybody was running behind her shouting: ‘Illya! Illya!’. The audience went wild”. By now, accustomed to New York, its size and citizens, Melina adapts herself to the city’s life and rhythm. 1967 is the year Jane Fonda walks ‘Barefoot in the Park’ together with Robert Redford, and Mia Farrow takes part with Cassavetes
in Polanski`s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’. Melina is to be found at social events with her colleagues from the world of entertainment - Shirley MacLaine, Barbara Streisand, Julie Andrews - as well as receptions, such as that of Rex Reed when he takes up residence at his new apartment in the famed Dakota Building. There she meets Truman Capote and Lotte Lenya. “One evening we were together at George Peppard and Elizabeth Ashley’s,” says Melita Kourkoulos. “Also there were Henry Fonda, Peter Ustinov, Rock Hudson – Hudson was so incredibly handsome. A god. He was radiant. They were all acquainted with each other and when they met at such receptions frequently talked about their contracts and professional plans. Melina was usually the centre of attention. At some moment or other, I recollect, when she was surrounded by the men present that evening, she crossed her wonderful legs sideways and turned languidly on the sofa. “Melina, you are all legs again!” Jules told her. This typifies Jules’ humour, and also the ability this lovely creature called Melina had to rise in stature and apparently double in size. She won everybody over with her radiance”. However among the people from the world of entertainment she met, just two are those whom she mentions as her personal idols: Marlon Brando and Joan Crawford. “With Brando,” she will say in a subsequent interview, “there was something more than just an acquaintance. He loved Juli very much. He loved me, too”. […] Melina will continue to play the part of Illya, consolidating her position in the American star system, of which she now becomes a member without it, however, being of her own making. She has arrived on Broadway at full maturity, having already lived a turbulent life in Greece, taken the leading role in Parisian theatre productions and won the highest artistic recognition with the Cannes best actress award. Her experience at an artistic and personal level is marked by her
Melina inspires international fashion Last October, and having already announced his decision to withdraw from pr�t – � – porter in order to dedicate himself exclusively to haute-couture, Jean Paul Gaultier made one more revelation, an exceptional honour for Greece and Greeks: his desire to design a final prêt-à-porter piece, a marini�re (Breton shirt) – his “obsession” each season – dedicated to Melina Mercouri, the production of which will soon commence, with the income from its sales being earmarked for the Melina Mercouri Foundation.
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independent spirit and her intensely authentic character, which differentiate her from the Hollywood stars and fascinate the Americans. “At that time she was a big star in America.” says Terence McNally, “A rarity for an actress who had turned forty in a country with such an obsession with youth. The nearest presentday equivalent would be Meryl Streep, who, however, is regarded more as an actress than a star. If someone shouted: “Meryl Streep is doing a shoot at the street corner!” I don`t think many would hasten to see her, whereas during the Illya Darling period, if somebody said: “Melina is on the other side of the street!” people would have raced over to see her”. […] “This woman swept the people off their feet here; and that is by no means easy,” says Rex Reed. “New York is a very cynical city. […] But Melina was a Greek goddess walking among us. […] Years after her return to Europe, the people couldn`t forget her […] On 1st January 1971, Melina`s much awaited autobiography is published. “A candid, flamboyant and passionate book”, according to the New York Times. “It’s every paragraph,” says the newspaper critic characteristically, “verifies Rex Reed`s view: ‘In the future, when all of us will have died, they will still be talking about Melina Mercouri. They`ll be saying that in a period full of plastic people, she was authentic’‘’.