Melina Mercouri, the sensuous actress who gained fame as the warmhearted prostitute in "Never on Sunday" and went on to become the first woman to hold a senior post in the Greek Cabinet, died of lung cancer. She was about 70.
Mercouri, a fiery Socialist and Greece's culture minister, died Sunday at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, hospital spokeswoman Pat Turi said.Movie theaters across Greece closed in mourning.
"Greece mourns the death of Melina, a woman who fought, a woman who was a great actress and fantastic person," Premier Andreas Papandreou said.
"My feminism had something to do with my success, for women in Greece are underprivileged," she once said. "But as a Marxist, I'm fighting for all the underdogs."
Mercouri helped found Greece's Socialist Party and used her position as culture minister to fight for the return of the Elgin marbles.
The priceless works were removed from the Parthenon in Athens early in the 19th century and remain in the British Museum.
The husky-voiced champion of the people shocked many traditional Greeks with her informal style as culture minister and the presence of young jeans-clad advisers.
The tall blond actress came from a wealthy Athens family with a tradition of political involvement. Her grandfather was mayor of Athens for more than 25 years and her father served in Parliament.
Biographies of Mercouri gave birth dates ranging from 1922 to 1925.
Mercouri discovered the theater at age 14, when she sat through 16 consecutive performances of a popular French melodrama, "L'Epervier" (Sparrow-Hawk).
Two years later, she entered Greece's National Theater school of drama.
Mercouri made her stage debut in 1945, playing the title role in Eugene O'Neill's "Mourning Becomes Electra."
Her first major success came in the early 1950s with an acclaimed performance as Blanche Dubois in Tennessee Williams' "A Streetcar Named Desire."