Eddie Constantine (bornIsrael Constantine; October 29, 1913 – February 25, 1993) was an American singer, actor and entertainer who spent most of his career in France.[1] He became well-known to film audiences for his portrayal of secret agentLemmy Caution and other, similarpulp heroes in French B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s.
Constantine was bornIsrael Constantine[2][3] inLos Angeles, California toJewish immigrant parents, aRussian father andPolish mother; his father was a jeweler. In pursuit of a singing career, he went toVienna for voice training. However, when he returned to the United States, his career failed to take off, and he started taking work as a film extra.
Having failed to make a career in the United States, Constantine returned to Europe in the early 1950s and started singing and performing inParis cabarets. He was noticed byEdith Piaf, who cast him in the musicalLa p'tite Lili. Constantine also helped Piaf with translations for her 1956 albumLa Vie en Rose/Édith Piaf Sings In English and so he has songwriting credits on the English versions of some of her most famous songs (especially "Hymne à l'amour"/"Hymn to Love").[4]
Eddie Constantine at the airport inCopenhagen, 1958
He was hired by the Rank Organisation to play the lead inSOS Pacific but it was not a big success.[5]
When not playing Lemmy Caution, Constantine would have a character that would still typically be a suave-talking, seductive, smooth guy although he often played that for laughs. He turned his accent and perceived American cockiness to advantage in such roles, and he later described his film persona as having been "James Bond before James Bond".[6]
One of his best remembered later roles was as the visiting Mafia boss Charlie in the British gangster filmThe Long Good Friday (1980), a rare English-speaking role.
One of his most notable roles was inJean-Luc Godard'sAlphaville (1965), in which he reprised (to a more radical end) the role of Lemmy Caution, in a departure from the style of his other films. His box-office appeal in France waned in the mid-1960s. Having remarried to a German television producer, he eventually relocated toGermany, where he worked as a character actor, appearing in German television dramas as well as film. Constantine later claimed that he had never taken his acting career seriously, as he considered himself to be a singer by trade, and that he had been an actor strictly for the money.[6] In 1982 he appeared inRosa von Praunheim's filmRed Love. He nevertheless worked with directors including Godard andRainer Werner Fassbinder, and his last notable film appearance was inLars von Trier'sEuropa in 1991. He had taken up the part of Lemmy for the last time that year, in Godard's experimental filmGermany Year 90 Nine Zero.
Constantine was married three times: to Helene Musil (1942-1976, divorced), with whom he had three children; Dorothea Gibson (1977, divorced); and the film producer Maya Faber-Jansen (1979–1993, Constantine's death), with whom he had one child. His daughter Tanya (b. 1943) is a photographer. His daughterBarbara (b. 1955) is a writer, his sonLemmy (b. 1957) is also a singer and actor. His daughter Mia (b. 1981) is a theater director.
^"California Birth Index, 1905-1995," database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:VL1H-SYB : 27 November 2014), Israel Constantine, 29 Oct 1913; citing Los Angeles, California, United States, Department of Health Services, Vital Statistics Department, Sacramento.
^"California, County Birth and Death Records, 1800-1994," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:QGL4-VY1T : 1 March 2021), Israel Constantine, 29 Oct 1913; citing Birth, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States, California State Archives, Sacramento.
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