Filmmaker Jules Dassin dead at 96

LONDON, April 1 (UPI) -- U.S. film director Jules Dassin, who was blacklisted in Hollywood after World War II, has died in an Athens, Greece, hospital after a short illness.

He was 96.

Active in leftist politics, Dassin was named a communist and banned from working in Hollywood in the early 1950s, after which he headed to Europe where he married the late Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, the BBC said.

Mercouri starred in seven of Dassin's films, including his most famous, "Never on Sunday."

Since Mercouri's 1994 death, Dassin has continued her campaign to get Britain to return the Parthenon or Elgin marbles, sculptures removed from Greece in the early 19th century.

"Greece grieves the loss of a rare human being, an important creator and a true friend," Greek Prime Minister Costas Karamanlis said in a statement.

The Connecticut native started his career as an actor and theater producer and later worked as an assistant to film director Alfred Hitchcock.

He went on to make films like "Rififi" and "Circle of Two."