Bravo, Michael.......

Frankenstein, The True Story

Michael Sarrazin, who died this week, was an extremely likeable and competent actor. I honestly cannot think of a bad performance in those films of his that I have seen. I narrowly missed the chance of meeting him after a visit to the set of FRANKENSTEIN, THE TRUE STORY failed to happen. Michael was, of course, a memorable "creation" in this adaption by Christopher Isherwood. However, my reason for writing more than I usually do about the death of film personalities is to mention one of Sarrazin's oddest credits - for a film in which he never appeared in person. The film was John Huston's Western THE LIFE AND TIMES OF JUDGE ROY BEAN. In the film the Judge's daughter has an aviator boyfriend. He never appears in the film and is only seen in a photograph. It is a photograph of Michael Sarrazin. He is credited on the film with something like "with the participation of...." I assumed on first viewing that the scenes featuring this character had been cut out but I later read that his presence in the photograph was due entirely to Sarrazin's real-life relationship with Jaqueline Bisset, the actress playing the Judge's daughter.