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Eddie Constantine | |
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Born | Israel Constantine October 29, 1913 Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Died | February 25, 1993 79) Wiesbaden, Germany | (aged
Occupations |
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Years active | 1936–1993 |
Spouses | 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, actor and entertainer who spent most of his career in France. [1] He became well-known to film audiences for his portrayal of secret agent Lemmy Caution and other, similar pulp heroes in French B-movies of the 1950s and 1960s.
His celebrity and status as something of a pop icon saw him work with prominent arthouse directors like Jean-Luc Godard (as Caution in Alphaville and Germany Year 90 Nine Zero ), Rainer Werner Fassbinder (as himself in Beware of a Holy Whore 1971), Jesús Franco, Agnès Varda, Rosa von Praunheim, Lars von Trier, William Klein and Mika Kaurismäki.
Constantine was born Israel Constantine [2] [3] in Los Angeles, California to Jewish immigrant parents, a Russian father and Polish mother; his father was a jeweler. In pursuit of a singing career, he went to Vienna 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. [4]
Having failed to make a career in the United States, Constantine returned to Europe in the early 1950s and started singing and performing in Paris cabarets. He was noticed by Edith Piaf, who cast him in the musical La p'tite Lili. Constantine also helped Piaf with translations for her 1956 album La 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"). [5]
In the 1950s, Constantine was a star in France because of his role as the hard-boiled detective/secret agent Lemmy Caution (from Peter Cheyney's novels) in a series of French B-pictures, including La môme vert-de-gris (1953), This Man Is Dangerous (1953), Je suis un sentimental (1955), Lemmy pour les dames (1961) and Your Turn, Darling (1963).
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 film The Long Good Friday (1980), a rare English-speaking role.
One of his most notable roles was in Jean-Luc Godard's Alphaville (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 to Germany, 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 in Rosa von Praunheim's film Red Love . He nevertheless worked with directors including Godard and Rainer Werner Fassbinder, and his last notable film appearance was in Lars von Trier's Europa in 1991. He had taken up the part of Lemmy for the last time that year, in Godard's experimental film Germany Year 90 Nine Zero . [4]
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. [4] His daughter Tanya (b. 1943) is a photographer. His daughter Barbara (b. 1955) is a writer, his son Lemmy (b. 1957) is also a singer and actor. His daughter Mia (b. 1981) is a theater director.
Constantine died of a heart attack on February 25, 1993 in Wiesbaden, Germany, aged 79. His remains were cremated and remanded to Paris.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder, sometimes credited as R. W. Fassbinder, was a German filmmaker, dramatist and actor. He is widely regarded as one of the major figures and catalysts of the New German Cinema movement. Versatile and prolific, his over 40 films span a variety of genres, most frequently blending elements of Hollywood melodrama with social criticism and avant-garde techniques. His films, according to him, explored "the exploitability of feelings". His work was deeply rooted in post-war German culture: the aftermath of Nazism, the German economic miracle, and the terror of the Red Army Faction. He worked with a company of actors and technicians who frequently appeared in his projects.
Alphaville: une étrange aventure de Lemmy Caution is a 1965 French New Wave science fiction neo-noir film directed by Jean-Luc Godard. It stars Eddie Constantine, Anna Karina, Howard Vernon, and Akim Tamiroff. The film won the Golden Bear award of the 15th Berlin International Film Festival in 1965.
New German Cinema is a period in German cinema which lasted from 1962 to 1982, in which a new generation of directors emerged who, working with low budgets, and influenced by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism, gained notice by producing a number of "small" motion pictures that caught the attention of art house audiences. These filmmakers included Percy Adlon, Harun Farocki, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Peter Fleischmann, Werner Herzog, Alexander Kluge, Ulli Lommel, Wolfgang Petersen, Volker Schlöndorff, Helma Sanders-Brahms, Werner Schroeter, Hans-Jürgen Syberberg, Margarethe von Trotta and Wim Wenders. As a result of the attention they garnered, they were able to create better-financed productions which were backed by the big US studios. However, most of these larger films were commercial failures and the movement was heavily dependent on subsidies. By 1977, 80% of a budget for a typical German film was ensured by a subsidy.
Anna Karina was a Danish-French film actress, director, writer, model, and singer. She was an early collaborator of French New Wave director Jean-Luc Godard, her first husband, performing in several of his films, including The Little Soldier (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), My Life to Live (1962), Bande à part, Pierrot le Fou (1965), and Alphaville (1965). For her performance in A Woman Is a Woman, Karina won the Silver Bear Award for Best Actress at the Berlin Film Festival.
Hanna Schygulla is a German actress and chanson singer associated with the theater and film director Rainer Werner Fassbinder. She first worked for Fassbinder in 1965 and became an active participant in the New German Cinema. Schygulla won the 1979 Berlin Silver Bear for Best Actress for Fassbinder's The Marriage of Maria Braun, and the 1983 Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actress for the Marco Ferreri film The Story of Piera.
Attack of the Robots is a 1966 spy film directed by Jesús Franco. The film stars Eddie Constantine as Al Pereira, a spy brought out of retirement to investigate a series of murders conducted by a robot-like army of people with black-framed glasses and strange darkened skin.
Raoul Coutard was a French cinematographer. He is best known for his connection with the French New Wave period and particularly for his work with director Jean-Luc Godard, which includes Breathless (1960), A Woman Is a Woman (1961), Vivre sa vie (1962), Bande à part (1964), Alphaville, Pierrot le Fou, and Weekend (1967). Coutard also shot films for New Wave director François Truffaut—including Shoot the Piano Player (1960) and Jules and Jim (1962)—as well as Jacques Demy, a contemporary frequently associated with the movement.
Holger Bernhard Bruno Mischwitzky, known professionally as Rosa von Praunheim, is a German film director, author, painter and one of the most famous gay rights activists in the German-speaking world. In over 50 years, von Praunheim has made more than 150 films. His works influenced the development of LGBTQ+ rights movements worldwide.
Ingrid Caven is a German film actress and singer. She is best known for her roles in several films directed by her husband, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, including Love Is Colder Than Death (1969), Why Does Herr R. Run Amok? (1970), and The American Soldier (1970). She continued to appear in Fassbinder's films after their 1972 divorce until his death in 1982. She has also appeared in Silent Night (1995), 35 Shots of Rum (2009) and Suspiria (2018).
Lemmy Caution is a fictional character created by British writer Peter Cheyney (1896–1951). Caution was first portrayed as a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agent, and in later stories as a private detective.
Espionage in Lisbon is a 1965 spy film directed by Federico Aicardi and Tulio Demicheli. It starred Brett Halsey, Marilù Tolo, Fernando Rey, Jeanne Valérie, and Alfredo Mayo.
Germany Year 90 Nine Zero is a French film directed by Jean-Luc Godard and starring Eddie Constantine in his signature role as detective Lemmy Caution. This is the second film in which Godard and Constantine collaborated with the Lemmy Caution character, although it is not officially a sequel to Alphaville. It was also the 15th and final time that Constantine would play his signature role in 40 years.
Beware of a Holy Whore is a 1971 West German drama film written and directed by Rainer Werner Fassbinder that features Lou Castel, Eddie Constantine, Hanna Schygulla and Fassbinder himself. Fassbinder considered this to be his favorite of his own films.
La môme vert-de-gris, released in the USA as Poison Ivy, is a 1953 French crime film.
À toi de faire... mignonne, released in the US as Your Turn, Darling, is a French-Italian thriller film based on the 1941 novel Your Deal, My Lovely by Peter Cheyney. It came out ten years after La môme vert-de-gris which had been the first of film of this series.
This Man Is Dangerous is a 1953 French thriller film directed by Jean Sacha and starring Eddie Constantine, Colette Deréal and Grégoire Aslan. It is an adaptation of Peter Cheyney's 1936 novel This Man Is Dangerous. It followed the film La môme vert-de-gris which had been Eddie Constantine's debut as Lemmy Caution and it was also successful at the box office.
Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein is a 1972 horror film directed by Jesús Franco. The film stars Dennis Price as Dr. Rainer von Frankenstein who successfully captures Count Dracula portrayed by Howard Vernon. Along with the Doctor's monster the doctor controls the vampire for his own evil ends. The film is a co-production between Portugal, Spain and Liechtenstein.
The Sadistic Baron von Klaus is a 1963 film directed by Jesús Franco. Set in the village in the mountains of Austria, a series of murders of young women are plaguing a village. The murders recall the actions of fifty years earlier of Baron von Klaus. Karl Steiner, a reporter from out of town joins Inspector Borowsky in investigating.
Rififi in the City is a 1964 Spanish film directed by Jesús Franco. It is based on the novel Vous souvenez vous de Paco? by Charles Exbrayat.
The following is a list of unproduced Jesús Franco projects in roughly chronological order. During his long career, Spanish film director Jesús Franco has worked on a number of projects which never progressed beyond the pre-production stage under his direction.