Jules Dassin (1911–2008), American-born international film director. Jules Dassin was born on December 18, 1911, in Middletown, Connecticut and after directing the violent prison film Brute Force (1947) and the thriller Naked City (1948), he left the United States in the wake of anti-Communist blacklisting in the film industry (see McCarthyism). In 1950 he made the London-based film noir Night and the City. The French-made gangster film Du Rififi Chez les Hommes (1955; Rififi) was an international success, as was Pote Tin Kyriaki (Never on Sunday, 1960), filmed in Greece. In Pote Tin Kyriaki Dassin starred opposite Melina Mercouri, who became his wife in 1966. He later returned to the United States to film Up Tight (1968). His other films include Thieves' Highway (1949) and Topkapi (1964). Dassin died in Athens, Greece, on March 31, 2008.