Eddy Mitchell wasn’t always called that! The singer, now 82 years old, adopted this stage name from the start of his career. But why did he change his name?
The French have known him for decades under the name Eddy Mitchell. But did you know that his real name was Claude Moine? Why did the 82-year-old singer change his name at the very beginning of his career? The main interested party answered the question with the Parisian.
Eddy Mitchell: his son is the “real” Eddy!
If Eddy Mitchell’s real first name is Claude, he still wanted to call his son that! Eddy Moine, his 62-year-old son, is therefore “the real” ! “I wanted a real Eddy in the family“, he said to Parisian. Eddy Mitchell’s children, who sometimes suffered from their father’s notoriety in their childhood, were however able to have a semblance of peace, not bearing the stage surname of their father singer.
“It wasn’t always easy with my sister (Maryline Moine, 55 years old, editor’s note) to be seen as sons and daughters, but we did everything to go unnoticed and our father did everything to protect us. Like everyone else, we went to school in Noisy-le-Sec (Seine-Saint-Denis), where we lived.“, confided Eddy Moine, son, to Parisian.
Why did Eddy Mitchell choose this stage name?
But why did Eddy Mitchell choose this stage name? This is a nod to one of his idols, the actor and singer Eddie Constantine. He considered that if he wanted to play Rock’n’Roll and become known as a rocker, he needed to adopt an American stage name. This is how he chose the surname “Mitchell” which seemed to him to come straight from across the Atlantic. A bit like the late Johnny Hallyday aka Jean-Philippe Smet…
Eddy Mitchell, nicknamed “Schmoll”: but where does this nickname come from?
But Eddy Mitchell, whose new album entitled Friends will be released on November 8, is also known by the nickname “Schmoll”. A nickname that was given to him from a young age! “When I was a kid, I was tall. I called everyone ‘petit’, ‘small’ in English, and it was distorted. But above all, a Jewish friend called me ‘Schmock’ because I was always being an idiot. ‘Schmock’ means idiot, moron. And this too has been distorted in Schmoll“, he told Here Paris.