Mark Frechette
Mark Frechette | |
---|---|
Born | Mark Ernest Frechette December 4, 1947 Boston, Massachusetts, US |
Died | September 27, 1975 (aged 27) Norfolk, Massachusetts, US |
Occupation | Actor/Cultist |
Mark Frechette (December 4, 1947 – September 27, 1975)[1] was an American-Canadian film actor. He is best known for playing the lead role in the 1970 film Zabriskie Point, directed by Michelangelo Antonioni, in which he was cast despite his lack of acting experience. Frechette appeared in two other Italian films. He also became an active member of Mel Lyman's commune. Three years later, Frechette was arrested following an attempted bank robbery; he died in prison two years after his arrest.
Biography
Frechette was born to an Irish American mother and a French Canadian father. He had a Catholic upbringing.[2] Frechette attended high school in Fairfield, Connecticut but dropped out. Starting in 1966, he travelled back and forth between Boston and New York with his former wife and child. He spent some time panhandling and did some carpentry work in Boston. While there, he discovered Mel Lyman's commune, the Fort Hill Community, while reading Avatar. Frechette's first attempts at approaching Lyman were rebuffed.[3]
Frechette was selected from among thousands during a casting process for Zabriskie Point that lasted nearly a year. He was discovered in Boston by Sally Dennison, Antonioni's assistant and casting director, while in the middle of a shouting match turned violent at a Charles Street bus-stop. As Antonioni toured the U.S., experiencing culture clash first hand and shooting background footage, Dennison saw Frechette, a carpenter, scream and throw a flowerpot at a woman on the street. Another version centered on Frechette's getting into an argument with a person who was on the third floor of an apartment building above him, which is the one referred to in many interviews. "He's twenty and he hates", Dennison told Antonioni. The director immediately cast Frechette, a non-actor, in the film's leading role as an innocent student pursued by the police for the murder of a policeman during a college uprising. Frechette and Antonioni disagreed bitterly about the script during filming.[4]
Despite the film's being a critical and
Frechette appeared in two other films made in Italy and Yugoslavia, Many Wars Ago (Uomini Contro, 1970) and La Grande Scrofa Nera (1971). He tithed his $60,000 earnings from Zabriskie Point and other films to the Fort Hill Community.
1973 bank robbery
On August 29, 1973, he and two members of the Fort Hill community attempted to rob the
The Hungarian-born film director Dezso Magyar gave an interview for the Hungarian Filmkultura magazine in March 1987 in which he said: "[M]y first friend was Mark Frechette, protagonist of the film Zabriskie Point. We wanted to make a film, to adapt a part of Crime and Punishment because we felt that America was like a Dostoevsky-type world. Mark said that he would get the money in Boston. He phoned me every second day and always assured me that he almost had the money. One day he called me and said that he would bring the 5 million dollars the next day. Great! I was watching TV in the evening when it was announced that ... Mark Frechette attempted to rob a bank at gunpoint ... and was arrested."[11]
Death
Frechette died in prison on September 27, 1975, during an apparent
Legacy
In 2008, Michael Yaroshevsky produced Death Valley Superstar,[14] a film on Frechette.
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.[15]
Filmography
Year | Title | Role | Notes |
---|---|---|---|
1970 | Zabriskie Point | Mark | |
1970 | Many Wars Ago | sottotenente Sassu | |
1971 | La grande scrofa nera | Enrico Mazzara | (final film role) |
References
- ^ Ancestry.com. Social Security Death Index [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2009.
- ^ Murray Pomerance, Michelangelo Red Antonioni Blue: Eight Reflections on Cinema, University of California Press, 2011, page 176
- ^ "The Sorry Life & Death of Mark Frechette– lling Stone #199, Nov. 6, 1975".
- ^ "Mark Frechette". Listal.com. September 27, 1947. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
- ^ "look69 | Flickr – Photo Sharing!". Flickr. February 5, 2008. Retrieved March 7, 2014.
- ^ "Zabriskie Point – Confessions of a Pop Culture Addict – June 25, 2008". Archived from the original on July 27, 2008. Retrieved July 13, 2008.
- ^ Robbins, Ira (September 12, 1985). "Where Are They Now: Daria Halprin". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
- ^ "The Sorry Life & Death of Mark Frechette– lling Stone #199, Nov. 6, 1975".
- ^ Robbins, Ira (September 12, 1985). "Where Are They Now: Daria Halprin". Rolling Stone. Retrieved November 10, 2015.
- ^ "Two names that make news" (PDF). The New York Times. April 18, 1974. Retrieved November 11, 2015.
- ^ Filmkultúra, March, 1987. p. 40. "Conversation with Dezső Magyar (Erzsébet Báthory–Judit Pintér)" see the contents )
- ISBN 0446312576.
- ^ Dave O'Brian, "The Sorry Life & Death of Mark Frechette", Rolling Stone, issue 199, November 6, 1975, p. 32
- IMDb
- ^ Hamilton, Elizabeth; Rich, Eric (September 15, 2002). "A Predator Blessed With Charm". Hartford Courant. Retrieved July 26, 2019.