Melina Mercouri sings the song Asteri mou feggari mou, a lovely Greek song which means “My star, my moon”, in English. Asteri mou feggari mou was composed by Mikis Theodorakis and is also known as the love theme of the movie Phaedra, starring Melina Mercouri and Anthony Perkins.
Phaedra was a 1962 motion picture directed by Jules Dassin as a vehicle for his wife Melina Mercouri, after her world-wide hit Never on Sunday.
The film was the fourth collaboration between Dassin and Mercouri, who took the title role. Greek writer Margarita Lymberaki adapted Euripides’ Hippolytus into a melodrama concerning the rich society of ship owners and their families, but still containing some of the tragic elements of the ancient drama. The film is set in Paris, London, and especially on the Greek island of Hydra.
Phaedra, the second wife of the shipping tycoon Thanos (Raf Vallone), falls in love with her husband’s son from his first marriage, Alexis (Anthony Perkins). The love is doomed from the very beginning but they are unable to control their feelings.
The movie hit the cinemas in 1962, and the music was created by Mikis Theodorakis. In the soundtrack, Melina Mercouri sang two songs. The first one “Asteri mou feggari mou” was written by Nikos Gatsos, a major Greek poet, and was played during the amazing love scene in Paris.