Melina Mercouri (Greece, 1920 – 1994) was an Academy Award-nominated Greek actress, singer, and political activist. She was a member of the Hellenic Parliament, and in 1981 she became the first female Minister for Culture in Greece. Her most famous film is Topkapi directed by an American film director Jules Dassin in 1964.
When she was asked who she would like to be if she was not Melina Mercouri, she answered that she wanted to be either Greta Garbo or Dolores Ibárruri. Mercouri was a huge Garbo fan and said that Garbo was the reason why she wanted to be an actress. They met in 1966 in the Greek island of Spetses.
Melina and Garbo: The meeting in 1966
(in treatment)
Melina on Garbo on Greece TV 1979
Garbo was Melina's ultimate ideal and loved her all her life. In an 1979 TV Interview she gave a touching and beautiful tribute to the Divine Garbo.
Melina after GG died in 1990
Greece Garbo fan Nakis told us that Garbo died in 1990, Melina gave an interview for a Greek magazine. Throughout the Melina said that of all the artists and other personalities she had encountered in her life and of all the artists she admired (Brando, Chaplin etc) she placed Garbo above everyone.
She was her idol. She also said that she received one letter from Garbo when she returned to the US. And after their meeting in Greece, Garbo was thanking her for giving her back her youth. Melina said that if Garbo would have asked her to give up everything and just follow her, Melina would have said yes.
In her memoir I Was Born Greek, Melina revealed:
"The physical love of woman for woman is something I can understand, intellectually--Sappho was one of our islanders. I'm ready to accept that it can be beautiful, but it's something that I have not known or felt--except for Garbo.
But I also know that she is beyond any one sex, and that it is perfectly in order for man, woman, and child to react erotically towards Garbo. She is the essence and the ultimate of all sex."
Trivia
In the '70s, Greek actress Melina Mercouri played the girlfriend of Alexis Smith in Once Is Not Enough--a lesbian love affair that some say was based on one between Greta Garbo and socialite Barbara Hutton.
