Eddie Constantine Facts for Kids

Quick facts for kids Eddie Constantine
Constantine in 1972
Born	Israel Constantine (1913-10-29)29 October 1913 Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Died	25 February 1993(1993-02-25) (aged 79) Wiesbaden, Germany
Occupation	Singer Actor
Years active	1936–1993
Spouse(s)	Helene Musil (m. 1942; div. 1976) Dorothea Gibson (m. 1977; div. 1977) Maya Faber-Jansen (m. 1979)
Children	4

Eddie Constantine (born Israel Constantine; October 29, 1913 – February 25, 1993) was an American singer and actor. He spent most of his career in France. He became very famous for playing the secret agent Lemmy Caution. He also played other similar heroes in French movies from the 1950s and 1960s.

Early Life and Dreams
Becoming a Star
Family Life
Death
Images for kids
See also

Early Life and Dreams

Eddie Constantine was born Israel Constantine in Los Angeles, California. His parents were immigrants from Russia and Poland. His father worked as a jeweler.

Eddie loved to sing. He went to Vienna to train his voice. When he came back to the United States, his singing career did not start well. He began working as an extra in movies instead.

Becoming a Star

Since his career in the United States was slow, Eddie Constantine moved back to Europe. In the early 1950s, he started singing and performing in clubs in Paris.

Meeting Edith Piaf

A famous French singer, Edith Piaf, noticed him. She gave him a part in her musical called La p'tite Lili. Eddie also helped Edith Piaf translate her songs into English. He helped with her 1956 album, La Vie en Rose/Édith Piaf Sings In English. This means he helped write the English words for some of her most famous songs, like "Hymne à l'amour" (which means "Hymn to Love").

Eddie Constantine at the airport in Copenhagen, 1958

Playing Lemmy Caution

In the 1950s, Eddie became a huge star in France. He played a tough detective and secret agent named Lemmy Caution. This character came from books by Peter Cheyney. Eddie starred in many French movies as Lemmy Caution. Some of these movies include La môme vert-de-gris (1953), This Man Is Dangerous (1953), and Your Turn, Darling (1963).

Eddie used his American accent and confident style to make these roles special. He once said his movie character was like "James Bond before James Bond."

Later Career and Roles

One of his most famous later roles was in the British gangster movie The Long Good Friday (1980). He played a visiting Mafia boss named Charlie. This was one of the few times he spoke English in a movie.

He also worked with famous directors. In Jean-Luc Godard's movie Alphaville (1965), he played Lemmy Caution again. This movie was very different from his usual films.

By the mid-1960s, his popularity in France started to slow down. He married a German TV producer and moved to Germany. There, he worked as an actor in German TV shows and movies. Eddie often said he never took acting too seriously. He saw himself as a singer first and acted mainly for the money.

His last important movie role was in Lars Von Trier's Europa in 1991. He played Lemmy Caution one last time that same year in Godard's movie Germany Year 90 Nine Zero.

Family Life

Eddie Constantine in the 1990s

Eddie Constantine was married three times. His first wife was Helene Musil. They were married from 1942 to 1976 and had three children together. His second wife was Dorothea Gibson, but they were only married for a short time in 1977. His third wife was Maya Faber-Jansen, a film producer. They married in 1979 and stayed together until Eddie's death in 1993. They had one child.

Eddie's children also pursued creative careers:

His daughter Tanya Constantine, born in 1943, became a photographer.
His daughter Barbara, born in 1955, is a writer.
His son Lemmy, born in 1957, is a singer and actor, just like his father.
His daughter Mia, born in 1981, works as a theater director.

Death

Eddie Constantine died from a heart attack on February 25, 1993. He was 79 years old. He passed away in Wiesbaden, Germany. His body was cremated, and his ashes were sent to Paris.