Jules Dassin family name Dassin
Julius "Jules" Dassin (December 18, 1911 – March 31, 2008) was an American film and theatre director, producer, writer and actor. A subject of the Hollywood blacklist in the McCarthy era, he subsequently moved to France, and later Greece, where he continued his career. He was a member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Screen Directors' Guild.Dassin received a Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for his film Du rififi chez les hommes. He was later nominated for an Academy Award for Best Director and Best Writing, Story and Screenplay – Written Directly for the Screen for his film Never on Sunday, and was nominated for a Tony Award for Best Direction of a Musical for his Broadway production of Illya Darling.Biography
Early life
Julius Dassin was born on December 18, 1911, to Bertha Dassin (née Vogel) and Samuel Dassin, a barber, in Middletown, Connecticut. His parents were both Jewish immigrants from Odessa, Russian empire (now Ukraine). Julius had seven siblings, including four brothers, Louis C., Benjamin, Irving and Edward; and three sisters.In 1915, when Julius was three years old, the Dassin family moved to Harlem, New York. He attended public grammar school where he received his first acting role in a school play. Julius was given a small part but when came time to speak his only line, he fainted due to stage fright. He also learned to play the piano at a young age. During his youth he attended Camp Kinderland, a left-wing Yiddish youth camp.
Julius attended Morris High School in the Bronx. He started acting professionally in 1926, at the age of fourteen, with the Yiddish Art Theatre in New York City. On October 13, 1929, newspaper columnist Mark Hellinger printed a story given to him by Dassin in the New York Daily News; nearly twenty years later, the two would work together in Hollywood.On July 11, 1933, Julius' older brother Louis was arrested in Meriden, Connecticut when he confessed to the theft of $12,000 from the Puritan Bank and Trust Company, where he worked as a teller and treasurer. On September 10, 1933, when he was 21 years old, Julius married Beatrice Launer, a concert violinist and a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music.Beginning in 1934, Julius spent three years studying dramatic technique in Europe. He spent time in Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Russia, England, Czechoslovakia, Portugal, Switzerland and Greece, working odd jobs to sustain himself.Personal life
Marriages
Dassin married twice. Before his marriage to Mercouri, he married Beatrice Launer in 1933; she was a New York–born, Jewish–American concert violinist (aka Beatrice Launer-Dassin; 1913–1994), a graduate of the Juilliard School of Music. They divorced in 1962. Their children were Joseph Ira Dassin, better known as Joe Dassin (1938–80), a popular French singer in the 1970s; songwriter Richelle "Rickie" Dassin (born 1940); and actress–singer Julie Dassin (born 1944; also known as Julie D.).Death
Dassin died from complications of influenza at the age of 96; he was survived by his two daughters and his grandchildren. Upon his death, the Greek prime minister Costas Karamanlis released a statement: "Greece mourns the loss of a rare human being, a significant artist and true friend. His passion, his relentless creative energy, his fighting spirit and his nobility will remain unforgettable."A major supporter of the return of the Parthenon Marbles to Athens, for which he established the Melina Mercouri Institution in her memory after her death in 1994, he died a few months before the opening ceremony of the New Acropolis Museum.
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