Manos Hatzidakis (October 23, 1925 – June 15, 1994) was a Greek

Greeks

The Greeks, also known as the Hellenes , are a nation and ethnic group native to Greece, Cyprus and neighboring regions. They also form a significant diaspora, with Greek communities established around the world....

 composer and theorist of the Greek music. He was also one of the main prime movers of the "Éntekhno" song (along with Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis is one of the most renowned Greek songwriters and composers. Internationally, he is probably best known for his songs and for his scores for the films Zorba the Greek , Z , and Serpico .Politically, he identified with the left until the late 1980s; in 1989, he ran as an...

).
In 1960 he received an Academy Award for Best Original Song

Academy Award for Best Original Song

The Academy Award for Best Original Song is one of the awards given annually to people working in the motion picture industry by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences . It is presented to the songwriters who have composed the best original song written specifically for a film...

 for his Song Never on Sunday

Never on Sunday (song)

"Never on Sunday", also known as "Ta Paidia Tou Piraia" is a popular song by Manos Hadjidakis. A vocal version was also released and performed by Melina Mercouri in the film of same name directed by Jules Dassin and starring Mercouri...

 from the film of the same name

Never on Sunday

Never on Sunday is a 1960 Greek black-and-white film which tells the story of Ilya, a prostitute who lives in the port of Piraeus in Greece, and Homer, an American tourist from Middletown, Connecticut — a classical scholar enamored with all things Greek. Ilya is a character close to the...

.
His very first work was the tune for the song "Paper Moon" ("Χάρτινο το Φεγγαράκι"), from Tennessee Williams

Tennessee Williams

Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...

' A Streetcar Named Desire

A Streetcar Named Desire (play)

A Streetcar Named Desire is a 1947 play written by American playwright Tennessee Williams for which he received the Pulitzer Prize for Drama in 1948. The play opened on Broadway on December 3, 1947, and closed on December 17, 1949, in the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. The Broadway production was...

 staged by Karolos Koun

Karolos Koun

Karolos Koun was a Greek theater director, widely known for his lively staging of ancient Greek plays. He had been praised all over Europe for his bawdy, colorful stagings of the 5th century BC political comedies of Aristophanes...

's Art Theatre of Athens, a collaboration which continued for 15 years.