1. Joe Dassin had a career in Finland, Greece, and Germany.
16 Facts About Joe Dassin
1. 2.
Joe Dassin was the son of film director Jules Dassin.
3.
Dassin was born in Brooklyn, New York to American film director Jules Dassin and Beatrice Launer, a New York-born violinist, who after graduating from a Hebrew High School in the Bronx studied with the British violinist Harold Berkely at the Juilliard School of Music.
4.
Joe Dassin lived in New York City and Los Angeles until his father fell victim to the Hollywood blacklist in 1950, at which time his family moved to Europe.
5.
Between the ages of ten and fifteen Joe Dassin changed schools eleven times.
6.
Joe Dassin studied at, among other places, the International School of Geneva and the Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland, and finished his secondary education in Grenoble.
7.
Joe Dassin moved back to the United States, where he attended the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan from 1957 to 1963, winning an undergraduate Hopwood Award for fiction in 1958 and earning a Bachelor of Arts in 1961 and a Master of Arts in 1963, both in Anthropology.
8.
Joe Dassin became a stepson of Greek actress, activist and Minister of Culture Melina Mercouri following his father's second marriage in 1966.
9.
Joe Dassin met his future wife Maryse Massiera in Paris in 1963.
10.
On December 26,1964, Joe Dassin signed with CBS Records, making him the first French-language singer to be signed with an American record label.
11.
Joe Dassin recorded songs in German, Spanish, Italian, and Greek, as well as French and English.
12.
Joe Dassin married Maryse Massiera in Paris on January 18,1966.
13.
On January 14,1978, Joe Dassin married Christine Delvaux in Cotignac.
14.
Joe Dassin died from a heart attack during a vacation to Tahiti on August 20,1980, aged 41.
15.
Joe Dassin was eating lunch with family and friends at the restaurant Chez Michel et Eliane in Papeete when he suddenly slumped in his chair, unconscious.
16.
Joe Dassin's body was returned to the United States and is interred in the Beth Olam section of Hollywood Forever Cemetery in Hollywood, California.