Michael Constantine

The Early Years in Reading

Michael Constantine wasn't born as the most famous Greek patriarch on the big screen. His real name was Gus Efstratiou, and he grew up in Reading, a city in Pennsylvania, the son of immigrants who came to the United States in search of a better life.

He started acting because he didn't know what else to do with his life.

In 1950, he moved to New York to study with Howard Da Silva and soon found his place on Broadway stages. He worked as an understudy for Paul Muni in the play Inherit the Wind, and that experience taught him that acting was about listening more than talking.

With a purely theater background, the move to film felt strange at first. In 1959 he made his movie debut in The Last Mile (starring Mickey Rooney), but it would still take some time before his face became recognized by the general public.

Recognition and the Emmy

In the late fifties, he jumped to television with small roles in low-budget series. But his big break came in 1961 when he played Big John in The Hustler, sharing the screen with Paul Newman in one of the best movies ever made about pool.

He was a standout supporting actor for decades.

His role as director Seymour Kaufman in the series Room 222 brought him the massive success he was looking for. He won an Emmy Award for this work in 1970 and received two more nominations in the following years. The series tackled complex social issues for its time, and Constantine brought a dry, believable humanity that connected with younger viewers.

So he accepted the role of a protective father in the comedy Sirota's Court in 1976, though the series didn't last long on air. During the eighties and nineties he stayed busy in productions such as The Juror and the adaptation of Stephen King Thinner, where he played an elderly Romani man.

The Window Washer Phenomenon

Many actors spend their whole lives searching for a role that defines them forever, and Constantine found his after turning seventy. In 2002 he played Gus Portokalos in My Big Fat Greek Wedding (an independent production that went on to gross more than 360 million dollars worldwide).

And the trick worked.

Constantine accepted the role because he understood perfectly the psychology of first-generation immigrants. He played the character again in the 2003 television series and in the 2016 big-screen sequel. That film was his last appearance on the big screen before he retired from professional acting for health reasons.

He died on August 31, 2021 at his home in Reading from natural causes at the age of 94. He was buried in the Charles Evans Cemetery in his hometown.