American director, screenwriter and actor Jules Dassin, who moved from the United Stated to France in the 1950s, after being blacklisted, died in an Athens hospital at the age of 96.

"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, according to Reuters. "His passion, energy, fighting spirit and nobility will never be forgotten."

Blacklisted in the United States, after his past ties with the Communist Party were discovered, Dassin fled to France, where, at the Cannes festival, he met Greek actress and culture minister Melina Mercouri, whom he married.

In his youth, he worked as an assistant to film director Alfred Hitchcock, and after releasing his first films, he was considered a great talent. But shortly after, he was blacklisted as a member of Hollywood’s “communist faction.”

The director is best known for the films he made after leaving Hollywood, such as “Never on Sunday,” starring his wife Melina Mercouri, “Topkapi,” “The Naked City” or the French thriller “Rififi.” The latter even won him a best director award at the Cannes Film Festival in 1955. Based on a novel by Auguste le Breton, the film tells the story about a group of jewel thieves and the tense relations between its members. He was known as a very ambitious director, always criticizing objectively his own work.

Dassin never denied he had been a member of the Communist Party. But he saw it as a good movement for working people. In the late 1930s, when he became aware of the downsides of communism, he left the party.