Eddie Constantine (born Edward Constantinowsky in Los Angeles, California, October 29, 1917 – died Wiesbaden, Germany, February 25, 1993) was an American-born French actor and singer who spent his career working in Europe.
He became famous for a series of French B movies in which he played secret agent Lemmy Caution and is now best known for playing the character in Jean-Luc Godard's philosophical science fiction film Alphaville.
A cult figure, Constantine also appeared in films by Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Lars von Trier, and Mika Kaurismäki. He continued reprising the role of Lemmy Caution well into his 70s; his final appearance as the character was in Jean-Luc Godard's Allemagne 90 neuf zéro (1991).
Biography
Constantine became a star in France in the 1950s, most notably playing the part of the hard-boiled detective/secret agent Lemmy Caution (from Peter Cheyney's novels) in a series of French B-pictures, including Cet homme est dangereux (1953), Lemmy pour les dames (1961) and À toi de faire ... mignonne (1963). Typically, Constantine's character would be a suave-talking, seductive smooth guy, which he often played for laughs. He eventually became a French citizen and enjoyed great popularity in several European countries, including France and Germany, as well as Africa. He also recorded several successful songs.
His most significant film was Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville, une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution (1965), in which he reprised (to a more radical end) the role of Lemmy Caution. Constantine's box-office appeal in France waned in the mid-1960s, and he eventually relocated to Germany, where he worked as a character actor. Constantine claimed he never took his acting career seriously, as he considered himself to be a singer by trade. He took up the part of Lemmy for the last time in 1991, in Godard's experimental film Allemagne 90 neuf zéro. His last notable film appearance was in Lars Von Trier's Europa.
Constantine died of a heart attack on February 25, 1993.
External links
Eddie Constantine at the Internet Movie Database
Eddie Constantine at Allmovie
Persondata
NAME
Constantine, Eddie
ALTERNATIVE NAMES
Constantinowsky, Edward
SHORT DESCRIPTION
Film actor, singer
DATE OF BIRTH
1917-10-29
PLACE OF BIRTH
Los Angeles, California
DATE OF DEATH
1993-2-25
PLACE OF DEATH
Wiesbaden, Germany
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Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eddie_Constantine"
Categories: 1917 births | 1993 deaths | French film actors | American B-movie actors | American male singers | American expatriates in France | American expatriates in Germany | French Americans | Russian-Americans | California actors | Deaths by myocardial infarction
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