In September 1938, she was accepted at the Drama School of the National Theatre with fellow students including Despo Diamantidou and Alexis Damianos.

During the occupation, Melina became romantically involved with businessman Phidias Yadikiaroglou while still married to Harokopos although their marital relationship had effectively ended.

m. apartment at avenue Akademias 4, much of which had been commandeered by the Germans at a time when the Greek people were starving, and for not contributing to the national resistance.

[citation needed] Melina had commented on this period of her life, both in her autobiography, "I was born a Greek," and on television as Minister of Culture, taking responsibility for her non-participation in the Resistance during the Occupation.

" [citation needed]The great Greek writer Alkis Zei also agrees with this view, stating that during the period of occupation, Melina was hiding left-wingers and giving them money.

Many times, according to testimonies,[citation needed] Melina would secretly take Yadikiaroglou's money and give it to her brother for the Resistance, hiding both him and his comrades in the organization while helping her impoverished colleagues.

It was known that during the occupation, despite her then-husband's objections, Melina's house, on her own instruction, was always open and welcoming to many people in need, providing them with food and shelter.

Despite occasional criticisms, her dislike of the Nazi occupiers is demonstrated by an incident during the occupation where she disobeyed SS men while at a bar, despite the threat of being shot.

[citation needed] A number of people with strong resistance activities during the occupation became close friends of hers, including writer Iakovos Kambanellis (who wrote 'Stella with the Red Gloves' especially for her), actress Olympia Papadouka, actor Manos Katrakis, actor and secretary of the EAM theatre Dimitris Myrat, writer Alkis Zei, director Nikos Koundouros, and Manolis Glezos.

During the civil war, although Melina Mercouri lived in Kolonaki, which was controlled by the British, she visited her friends and colleagues who had been arrested for their political beliefs.

After 1950 she moved to Paris, where she appeared in boulevard plays by Jacques Deval and Marcel Achard, and met French playwrights and novelists such as Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, Colette and Françoise Sagan.

Her role in Topkapi (1964) garnered her a nomination for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in Motion Picture Musical or Comedy.

The directors with whom Mercouri worked included Joseph Losey, Vittorio De Sica, Ronald Neame, Carl Foreman, and Norman Jewison.

On June 11, 1967, Mercouri appeared on one of the final episodes of What's My Line (the venerable panel show would leave the air that fall, after eighteen years).

Host John Daly quickly called for "the relieving unit" and said, "schedule two" (a code word used on live broadcasts in case of an emergency: the cameras are turned to a neutral position and the sound is cut off).

The man talked a bit about a dating service he apparently owned before being hustled off the stage by announcer Johnny Olson and executive producer Gil Fates.

[9] Mercouri continued her stage career in the Greek production of Tennessee Williams's Sweet Bird of Youth (1960), under the direction of Karolos Koun.

It was titled "Hartino to Fengaraki" ("Papermoon")[12] and was a part of the Greek production of A Streetcar Named Desire in 1949, in which she starred as Blanche DuBois.

At the time of the coup d'état in Greece by a group of colonels of the Greek military on 21 April 1967, she was in the United States, playing in Illya Darling on Broadway.

She immediately joined the struggle against the Greek military junta and started an international campaign, travelling all over the world to inform the public and contribute to the isolation and fall of the colonels.

[20] After the fall of the Junta and during the metapolitefsi in 1974, Mercouri settled in Greece and was one of the founding members of the Panhellenic Socialist Movement (PASOK), a centre-left political party.

[23] In anticipation of the return of the marbles, she held an international competition for the construction of the New Acropolis Museum, designated to display them and finally established in 2009.

[26] In June 1986, Melina Mercouri spoke at the Oxford Union, the debating society, on the matter of the Parthenon Marbles and whether they should remain in London or be returned to Greece.

She said the Marbles are more to Greece than just works of art: they are an essential element of Greek heritage, which ties directly into cultural identity.