Mark Frechette
Have we ever discussed his strange story? One of the most handsome men ever on film, yet nearly forgotten today.
Supposedly he was discovered when a scout for Michelangelo Antonioni saw him screaming at someone on the street in Boston -- "He's 20 and he hates," she told the director, and Mark was cast in the lead of Antonioni's new counterculture youth picture "Zabriskie Point." It was a critical and commercial failure but he got lots of attention.
Mark lived in a cult/commune and a few years later robbed a bank (this was around the time of the Symbionese Liberation Army). He was sent to prison, where he was found dead at 27 with a 150-pound barbell on his neck. Still lots of questions about his death -- and his life.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 31, 2020 4:12 PM
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He's the subject of a chapter in the new book Astral Weeks: A Secret History of 1968, authored by Ryan Walsh, profiled in the Sunday Times's Book Review section.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | April 15, 2018 2:17 PM
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Well he sure was good looking
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | April 15, 2018 2:45 PM
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Zabriskie Point is laughably bad, and the two stars are laughably bad in it. That might explain their lack of subsequent careers as actors.
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | April 15, 2018 2:48 PM
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r2 I love Films and Filming magazine. It was so obviously made by gay men and aimed at gay men.
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | April 15, 2018 3:11 PM
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Loved his long legs in Zazbriskie Point.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | April 15, 2018 3:13 PM
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Best part of Zabriskie Point is the hippie orgy in the dirt of Death Valley.
Though I also love it when the empty-headed heroine Daria Halperin blows up materialistic Rod Taylor’s Frank Lloyd Wright house at the end. I remember a slow-mo shot of a refrigerator, packed with food, exploding.
(Yes, THAT Rod Taylor, already on the skids of a previously promising movie career.)
Too bad about Mr. Frechette. He was much better looking than Ms. Halperin. But he clearly had other interests than a movie career. Don’t think either of them was in anything else.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | April 15, 2018 3:39 PM
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Mark died in 1975 when he was only 27 years old.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | April 15, 2018 3:46 PM
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From the movie Many Wars Ago.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | April 15, 2018 3:54 PM
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Bad teeth, but sure was pretty.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | April 15, 2018 9:13 PM
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R5 - I never gave a thought about the magazine before posting the link @ R2.
After seeing your comment I checked out some of their covers - and now I know what you mean.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | April 15, 2018 9:22 PM
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It only took four years to garner 15 replies, so I don't see how you can say he's underrated, OP.
| by Anonymous | reply 15 | August 22, 2019 7:38 PM
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OP, please stop trying to resuscitate this thread. It's dead.
| by Anonymous | reply 18 | July 31, 2020 3:09 PM
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I remember this magazine cover.
| by Anonymous | reply 19 | July 31, 2020 3:21 PM
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From Wikipedia:
In the early 1960s, Frechette was allegedly one of several victims of sexual abuse by Rev. Laurence Francis Xavier Brett of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Bridgeport in Connecticut.
| by Anonymous | reply 20 | July 31, 2020 4:01 PM
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From Films and Filming July 1963
Personal
Young man wishes to correspond with tape recorder / television set owner in USA or Canada, mutually interested in stars like Alice Faye, Betty Grable, Rita Hayworth, Deanna Durbin etc. Box No. 645F
| by Anonymous | reply 21 | July 31, 2020 4:08 PM
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He has cock sucking lips.
| by Anonymous | reply 22 | July 31, 2020 4:12 PM
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