Michael Constantine, Windex-wielding dad in ‘My Big Fat Greek Wedding,’ dies at 94

Michael Constantine, an Emmy-winning quality histrion known arsenic the genially dyspeptic schoolhouse main connected the fashionable TV bid “Room 222” and, 30 years later, arsenic the genially dyspeptic patriarch successful the deed movie “My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” died Aug. 31 astatine his location successful Reading, Pennsylvania. He was 94.

His decease was from earthy causes, said his agent, Julia Buchwald.

Constantine, who began his vocation connected the Broadway stage, was endowed with fierce eyebrows, a idiosyncratic warmth that belied his perennial hangdog look and the bid of a babel of overseas accents. Of Greek American extraction, helium was routinely formed by Hollywood to represent a welter of ethnicities.

Over time, Constantine played respective Jewish characters, winning an Emmy successful 1970 for the relation of Seymour Kaufman, who presided with grumpy humanity implicit Walt Whitman High School connected “Room 222,” broadcast connected ABC from 1969 to 1974.

He besides played Italians, connected shows including “The Untouchables” and “Kojak”; Russians, arsenic connected the 1980s bid “Airwolf”; a Gypsy successful the 1996 fearfulness movie “Thinner,” adapted from Stephen King’s novel; and, connected occasion, adjacent a Greek oregon two.

Constantine, possessed of a gravitas that often led to him being formed arsenic lawyers oregon heavies, starred arsenic the night-court justice Matthew Sirota connected “Sirota’s Court,” a short-lived sitcom shown connected NBC successful the 1976-77 season.

He had impermanent roles connected scores of different shows, including “Naked City,” “Perry Mason,” “Ironside,” “Gunsmoke” and “Hey, Landlord” successful the 1960s, and “Remington Steele,” “Murder, She Wrote” and “Law & Order” successful the ’80s and ’90s.

On film, helium appeared successful “The Last Mile” (1959), a situation representation starring Mickey Rooney; “The Hustler” (1961), starring Paul Newman; “If It’s Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium” (1969); “Don’t Drink the Water” (1969); and “Voyage of the Damned” (1976).

Constantine became known to an adjacent wider, younger assemblage arsenic Gus Portokalos, the combustible, tradition-bound begetter whose girl is engaged to a patrician achromatic Anglo-Saxon Protestant successful the 2002 drama “My Big Fat Greek Wedding.”

An migrant who made bully arsenic the proprietor of a Chicago diner, Gus is an ardent amateur etymologist who tin hint immoderate connection to its putative Greek origin. (“Kimono,” helium concludes aft pondering the matter, surely comes from “cheimónas” — Greek for winter, since, helium explains successful his heavy accented English: “What bash you deterioration successful the wintertime to enactment warm? A robe!”)

Gus is besides a fervent believer successful the restorative powerfulness of Windex, applied straight to the skin, to heal a panoply of ailments similar rashes and boils.

“He’s a antheral from a definite benignant of background,” Constantine said of his quality successful a 2003 interrogation with The Indianapolis Star. “His redeeming grace is that helium genuinely does emotion his girl and privation the champion for her. He whitethorn not spell astir it successful a precise tactful way. So galore radical archer me, ‘My dada was conscionable similar that.’ And I thought, ‘And you don’t hatred him?’”

“My Big Fat Greek Wedding,” which besides starred Lainie Kazan arsenic Gus’ woman and Nia Vardalos and John Corbett arsenic the young couple, was a astonishment planetary hit. The movie took successful much than $360 cardinal worldwide, becoming 1 of the highest-grossing romanticist comedies of each time.

Constantine reprised the relation connected tv successful “My Big Fat Greek Life,” a sitcom that appeared concisely connected CBS successful 2003, and connected the large surface successful “My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2” successful 2016.

The lad of Theoharis Ioannides, a steelworker, and Andromache Foteadou, Constantine was calved Constantine Ioannides successful Reading, Pennsylvania, connected May 22, 1927. (The household sanction is sometimes Romanized Joanides.)

He settled aboriginal connected an acting career, an thought reinforced aft a youthful sojourn to a person who was studying acting successful New York.

“I conscionable knew I belonged there,” Constantine told Odyssey, an English-language mag astir Greek life, successful 2011. “They could marque amusive of this hick from Pennsylvania, but I conscionable beryllium present — this is me.”

Constantine studied acting with Howard da Silva, supporting himself with unusual jobs, among them nighttime watchman and shooting-gallery barker. He became an understudy to Paul Muni playing the quality modeled connected famed defence lawyer Clarence Darrow successful “Inherit the Wind,” which opened connected Broadway successful 1955.

In “Compulsion” — a 1957 Broadway dramatization of Meyer Levin’s caller astir the Leopold and Loeb execution lawsuit — Constantine took implicit the relation of the defence lawyer from Frank Conroy conscionable earlier opening night. (Conroy withdrew aft suffering a bosom onslaught during previews.)

“Michael Constantine gives an fantabulous show arsenic the prototype of Clarence Darrow,” Brooks Atkinson wrote successful The New York Times. “He avoids the sentimentality that the situations mightiness easy evoke and plays with taste, deliberation, colour and intelligence.”

Constantine’s different Broadway credits see Anagnos, manager of the Perkins Institute for the Blind successful the archetypal formed of “The Miracle Worker” (1959), and Dogsborough successful Bertolt Brecht’s anti-fascist satire “Arturo Ui” (1963).

Constantine’s archetypal marriage, to histrion Julianna McCarthy, ended successful divorce, arsenic did his second, to Kathleen Christopher. His survivors see 2 sisters: Patricia Gordon and Chris Dobbs, his cause said. A implicit database of survivors was not instantly available.

For each Constantine’s credits, for each his captious acclaim, it was for a azygous relation — and for a azygous prop wielded successful the people of that relation — that helium seems destined to beryllium remembered.

“I can’t archer you,” helium said successful a 2014 interrogation with his hometown paper, The Reading Eagle, “how galore times I’ve autographed a Windex bottle.”