Michael Constantine

Michael Constantine
Born	Constantine Joanides May 22, 1927 (1927-05-22) (age 82) Reading, Pennsylvania
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1953 – present
Spouse(s)	Julianna McCarthy (1953-1969)

Michael Constantine (born 22 May 1927) is an American actor.

Biography

Michael Constantine is an award winning Greek-American actor who was born on 22 May 1927. Constantine was born Gus Efstratiou in Reading, Pennsylvania, the son of Andromache Efstratiou (née Fotiadou) and Theoharis Ioannides (a steel worker), both immigrants from Greece.^[1]

He is probably now best known for his portrayal of Gus Portokalos, the Windex bottle-toting Greek father of Toula Portokalos played by Nia Vardalos in 2002 hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding. Prior to that he was perhaps best known for his extensive TV work, notably his five-season (1969-1974) stint as long-suffering high school principal Seymour Kaufman on Room 222 for which he 1970 Emmy Award as Best Supporting Actor and his starring appearance as night-court magistrate Matthew J. Sirota on the brief 1976 sitcom Sirota's Court .^[2]

He married actress Julianna McCarthy in Erie, Pennsylvania, on October 5, 1953. They had two children, Thea Eileen and Brendan Neil. The marriage ended in divorce in 1969.

Career

He began his career on the New York stage and in the mid-1950s as understudy to Paul Muni in Inherit the Wind. While in the cast, he met and married actress Julianna McCarthy.

He also studied acting with such prominent mentors as Howard Da Silva. He was playing character roles on and off Broadway in his mid-twenties, supplementing his income as a night watchman and shooting-gallery barker. In 1959 he appeared in his first film, The Last Mile (1959). He had a small but memorable supporting role in the classic 1961 film The Hustler. In 1967 he appeared in the first half of "The Judgment," the two-part concluding episode of The Fugitive, starring David Janssen.

He also played Santa Claus in the 1989 film Prancer. He played Tadzu Lempke in Stephen King's Thinner in 1996. In 2002, he enjoyed an unexpected comeback as the Windex-toting Gus Portokalos in the hit movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, a role he reprised in the short-lived television series My Big Fat Greek Life.

Filmography

References

External links

• Michael Constantine at the Internet Movie Database