THE TORONTO STAR
March 12, 1993

ENTERTAINMENT

From British Biker to Actor
Jamie Portman

BEVERLY HILLS, CALIF. - It's not so long ago that Mark Frankel was a teenage South London rebel more interested in motorcycles than making something out of himself.

Today, at 28, he's still into motorcycles - he customizes expensive vintage bikes as a hobby - but he's also an accomplished actor with an astonishing list of credits to his name.

They include the title role of Michelangelo in a four-hour television miniseries about the great artist; a macho Stanley Kowalski in a London stage production of Tennessee Williams's A Streetcar Named Desire; a 65-year-old Hollywood studio boss in a revival of the vintage Moss Hart comedy, Once in a Lifetime; and Agamemnon in Aeschylus's 2,500-year-old Greek tragedy of the same name.

Then there's the title role in Leon The Pig Farmer, the eccentric British film which indirectly brought him into the hit NBC drama series, Sisters, in which he plays mysterious billionaire Simon Bolt.

His Leon assignment earned Frankel enough money that he could afford a "reconnaissance trip" to Hollywood last spring to check out American film and TV opportunities.

He was visiting the Warner Bros. lot for an entirely different purpose when a colleague suggested he talk to the producers and casting directors for Sisters. The latter liked Frankel's dark, smoldering good looks and impressive acting talents, but they had no idea how to use them - so Frankel flew back to Britain.

"But within a few days they phoned me, and asked me to come back and be a regular on the show," Frankel says. The show's producers and writers had moved swiftly in concocting a new character, which proved tailor-made for the young Englishman.

"It's a case of Howard Hughes meets James Bond" is one Hollywood pundit's description of the enigmatic but compelling personality of Simon Bolt.

"Well, I think that might be glamorizing him a bit too much," chuckles Frankel over a cup of tea at his publicist's office. "But he is a fascinating character psychologically."

"He's this billionaire recluse, a completely self-made man who comes from this very humble background in England. His father was a small-time musician, performing in church basements and town halls. He suffered the loss of a brother with whom he was very close, and blamed his father for what happened."

"This tragedy made him decide that he never wanted to be powerless, so he came to America while still a teenager to make his fortune, and now he's a billionaire. But he definitely carries a lot of emotional baggage."

Since the series resumed last fall, Simon Bolt and fashion designer Teddy Reed (played by Sela Ward) have become a hot number.

"Simon's a cautious man, so it took him six episodes to make a move on Teddy. And actually it was she who made a move on him! They've definitely met each other's match. It's a relationship that's rather tempestuous, and therefore very exciting.

Frankel comes from an artistically rich family background: His grandfather was a conductor and concert violinist, his grandmother a professional pianist. He was a rebel as a teenager, dropping out of school at 16 to pursue his passion for motorcycles while also trying to earn money playing on the minor pro tennis circuits.

But by the time he was 20, Frankel was becoming goal-oriented. At school, there was only one are in which he excelled - and that was acting. He won a three-year scholarship to London's famed Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts. Within a week of graduating in 1989, he signed for his first professional stage job, and this performance caught the attention of an eagle-eyed casting agent who recommended him for the Michelangelo role in A Season of Giants, the four-hour miniseries produced by the TNT cable network in the U.S.

For Frankel, his career has been moving at a dizzying pace - and this has created some adjustment problems. He's still suffering the culture shock of being in Los Angeles.

"It's like being on the moon. It's so different from Europe. It's so different from anywhere I've been, and I've traveled extensively."

But he has adapted to the grind of a weekly TV series.

"I thought when I first came I'd never cope with the pace. When you're doing a movie or a play or a miniseries, you have a reasonable amount of time. But with Sisters, we shot a one-hour show in seven working days: that's the equivalent of a full-length movie in 14 days.

"My normal preference is to digest things. Because I'm stage-trained I like a lot of rehearsal." But he loves the offbeat, unpredictable nature of Sisters.

"It's a difficult show to define. It shifts from melodrama to farce to serious drama. I've never seen a show like it. It's constantly on the edge, but that's why I think it's so successful."

Frankel is also proud of his recent British film, Leon the Pig Farmer, and hopes it has exposure in North America.

"It's an all-out comedy about a boy who's the product of artificial insemination. He goes in search of his real father who turns out to be a pig farmer in Yorkshire. As a film it's very much of a loose cannon, which is why it appeals to me!"

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
November 7, 1992

TELEVISION

New "Sisters" hunk: The four siblings in "Sisters," the NBC series airing Saturday nights at 10 on KING, certainly have their troubles with men.

The exception may be Georgie, who seems to have a pretty solid marriage. However, Frankie married her sister's ex-husband, and their relationship is alternately passionate and stormy. Alex found her ideal doctor-husband cheating, divorced him, but later took him back. Even the mother of this quartet has remarried.

That left only the beautiful, impetuous Teddy without a man in her life. That is, until recently.

The producers of "Sisters" searched high and low to fill the role of Simon Bolt, a self-made multimillionaire/entrepreneur with smoldering good looks.

They found him in British actor Mark Frankel, who burst upon the scene, offering Teddy the chance of a lifetime by bankrolling her dress-designing business. It started as all business, but sexual tension erupted every time Teddy (Sela Ward) and Simon shared the screen.

Since these vibrations translated into bigger ratings, it looks as if Simon Bolt will be around awhile.

"I've signed for a minimum of 12 episodes in the series," Frankel said, "but it could go beyond that, if the character really catches on."

"I love working with Sela. She has a wonderful spontaneity. It's also a great deal of fun to play a man who seems to have everything but doesn't let down his guard for very long. Bolt is complex and unpredictable, and I enjoy that aspect of the character."

Frankel has had an abundance of good luck in his career, which he readily admits.

It would seem that Mark, who was born in London, was destined to toil in the fine arts. His grandfather was a concert violinist and his grandmother played the piano. After high school, he won a coveted three-year scholarship to London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts. He got a job in the theater before graduating, and he was a scant three weeks out of school when he won the leading role in the multimillion-dollar TNT miniseries "Michelangelo-A Season of Giants."

"It all happened so fast," Frankel said, "I really didn't have time to dwell on the full impact. I had no time to give in to doubts and fears. I had to plunge right in and do the best I could."

"It's ironic, but weeks before I was cast, I went to the Victoria-Albert Museum, turned a corner, and there in front of me was the fantastic 'David' by Michelangelo. It was so impressive, it took your breath away. Little did I dream then, that in a matter of weeks, I would be on the set in Italy, playing Michelangelo chiseling on the 'David'."

Mark followed "A Season of Giants" with another TNT miniseries, "Young Catherine," playing the dashing Count Orlov with Vanessa Redgrave and Maximillian Schell. The busy young actor also made a movie, "Leon, the Pig Farmer," which won awards at various film festivals and is slated to open in February.

Frankel's stint on "Sisters" should find him a whole new audience and bring him to the attention of Hollywood producers and directors.

SUNDAY MIRROR
February 5, 1995

MARK OF GREATNESS

As a body-language expert in love, actor Mark Frankel is set for another film hit in a British comedy

Sally Beck

MAKING HIS MARK
With dreamy brown eyes and a chiseled profile that could turn heads in a convent, Mark Frankel is a rising star to watch - especially as a body-language expert in the new romantic comedy Solitaire for 2.

As the lead in the surprise British hit Leon the Pig Farmer, Frankel showed his aptitude for comedy. In Solitaire for 2, as the lover of a palaeontologist with extra sensory perception - played by the gorgeous Amanda Pays - he shows an altogether more raunchy and self assured side.

But it's a self-assurance that has grown from tragedy. The death of his older brother Joe, four years ago, left Mark with a sense that few things in life are worth taking seriously. Very little frightens him any more.

He was filming with Vanessa Redgrave in St. petersburg when he received the news.

"I was told that my brother Joe had been killed in a plane crash. He was flying a Tiger Moth plane he had rebuilt himself when a light aircraft flew into its side. The other plane went down instantly, killing the three passengers and crashing into a school playing field. Luckily the children managed to scatter before the plane hit the field.

"Joe managed to fly on for nearly a mile over the school. I like to believe that he would have done anything to keep the plane away from the school."

Joe, an aerobatics pilot, was 30, three years older than Mark, when he died. Mark had always worshipped his older brother.

"I thought, whatever happened in life, my brother would be there for ever. When I went flying with him, we did some incredible stunts and I thought that nothing could ever happen to him. After the accident I felt like part of me had died with him.

"I tried to go to auditions but they seemed meaningless. Then I began to get stronger and stronger, as if I was taking on my brother's strength." Risk-taking runs in the family: Mark owns a Ducati, Suzuki and a Harley-Davidson, and admits he loves the fast life.

"I do some very dangerous things. I go drag racing and I've jumped out of planes skydiving. There's no more arousing around for me. I feel life's there to be lived because I know how short it can be."
 
 

THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE Riverside CA
May 6, 1996

ENTERTAINMENT

'Kindred' star waiting to see if show has life
Bob Sokolsky

The days are dwindling and even if you are a vampire and used to scaring people you've got to be a bit frightened yourself right now.

That's because decision time is coming up at fox. R-Day is tentatively set for May 21, possibly May 22, and that's when the Ventrues, Nosferatu, the Brujah and all the other clans who comprise "Kindred: The Embraced," learn whether they have been renewed for a full season or dropped after seven shows.

Actually, they have filmed eight. But one is in limbo-it could appear some time this summer or it may disappear entirely. So, for the moment, the last of the original "Kindred" episodes, titled "Cabin in the Woods," will be coming up a t 9 p.m. Wednesday. And Mark Frankel, who plays Julian Luna, the series' head vampire (insiders call them "Kindred," hence the title), thinks it might be the best show of the current lot.

"It's spooky, but very sexually charged," he says.

The same might be said for the other outings in this saga of contemporary vampires whose activities range from street gangs to board rooms. And in this process, the whole affair has been establishing Julian as a character to be loved and feared.

The British-born Frankel expresses some amusement about that, also a touch of worry. "The first film I did in England was 'Leon the Pig Farmer,'" he recalls. "It was a successful film and suddenly I'm a comic actor."

He certainly was in "Solitaire for 2," the movie that played last year's Temecula Valley Film Festival. And he definitely is in "Rosanna's Grave," a feature he has been doing during breaks in the "Kindred" schedule. But now, he observes, "I'll probably be playing vampires evermore."

Of course, playing one like Julian wouldn't be the worst job in the world. The great thing about the character is that he doesn't get out of a coffin at midnight," Frankel says. "If he had I probably wouldn't be doing this."

"But this is a fascinating role. Here is someone who has been locked into the prism of his life for 200 years. He's had six lifetimes, he spanned the 18th, 19th and 20th Centuries, gone through two world wars and broken relationships. Consequently, here's a man with an amazing understanding of human psychology. He's a man of great authority and he has a knowledge and depth a young person would never have because he has seen so much. That gives him so many different perspectives. In fact, I'm sure that if I had been living for 200 years I'd be having a much different conversation with you."

The general idea, Frankel notes, is to have Julian and his colleagues create a murky mood that can get downright scary at times. But he says the true fright-for him anyway-is not the series. It's the audition that led to it.

"I met with fox and with (executive producer) Aaron Spelling. All actors are paranoid, but it's terrifying when you go to a network for these things," Frankel says. "Especially with Fox. You go into a room with 35 people sitting there and staring at you. It's a real daunting experience. I kept thinking 'I could end my career right here and now.'

"But then Aaron said to me 'Are you nervous? I don't want you to be. We're really excited about meeting you."

That calmed him down. Now, however, there is another problem-jet lag as he contemplates a travel schedule that, within four days, is sending him from L.A. to his home in London, to Rome to complete "Rosanna's Grave," back to London and then to New York. "These days I'm very familiar with some good-looking airline hostesses, Frankel declares.

THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
May 1, 1996

A TOOTHSOME ROLE

TELEVISION: Mark Frankel is the prince of the undead in the sexy series "Kindred: The Embraced."
KINNEY LITTLEFIELD

Brujah are thugs. Gangrels are hotheads. Nosferatu are lethal sneaks.

All these vampire clans are all sexed up on the sleek, campy midseason soap opera "Kindred: The Embraced" on Fox. And the suavest vein-sucker of all is Julian Luna (Mark Frankel), blue-blooded prince of the San Francisco vampires called Kindred.

"Yeah, vampires can have great sex," London-born Frankel ("Fortune Hunter," "Sisters") jokes, his voice veddy clipped British although on "Kindred" it's a shoo-in for upper-crust, East Coast U.S.A. Onscreen, with his big dark eyes, slicked-back hair and smoldering air, Frankel is a classic heartthrob, a retro Rudolph Valentino.

Frankel is schmoozing about the insatiable Kindred lust for human and otherworldly flesh-and blood-that makes neck-biting seem steamier than bed-hopping on "Melrose Place." No surprise here, of course, since "Kindred" is executive-produced by soaps king Aaron Spelling and E. Duke Vincent ("Melrose Place") and John Leekley. And no surprise that, given the Spelling connection, Frankel's brooding matinee-idol manner and the series' smart, alternate-world sensibility, "Kindred," which makes its season finale May 8, is a top contender to return post-"Melrose" this fall. "About sex," Frankel continues, teasing. "The idea is that all the Kindred's senses are heightened-sound, hearing, sight, taste and touch-and I like to think maybe some of the other things, too." Now that's remarkably spry for 200 years old, as Julian is on "Kindred." Like the rest of his species, he became Kindred when he was "embraced" (i.e., bitten) by a Kindred of the blue-blooded Ventrue clan, not long after the American Revolution. As a human Julian had been despondent after his much-loved wife died in childbirth. Once embraced he became a nomad, then a hit man for patrician Ventrue Archon (Patrick Bauchau).

Now two centuries later, Julian is godfather to Fog City Kindred, with Archon as his mentor and guide. A real spring chicken, Julian has the hots for both Torreador clan leader Lillie (Stacy Haiduk)-"It's been going on for like 100 years"-and Caitlyn Byrne (Kelly Rutherford), human editor of the San Francisco Times, which Julian owns.

Caitlin doesn't know yet that Julian is, well, different. But on May 8, when an ailing Luna reveals himself, asking if he can feed on Caitlin's blood, she definitely will find out.

"Really, Julian has a problem," Frankel explains sympathetically. "He wants to be human. He's the only vampire on the show who doesn't want to be Kindred. He tried to maintain his humanity through his human great-granddaughter Sasha."

Kindred chronicles

Sadly, wild child Sash (Brigid Walsh) was recently embraced by a Brujah, and is human no more. In fact, she struggles weekly against her boiling Brujah blood, which just naturally loathes all other vampire clans.

Meantime Julian struggles to keep the moblike Brujah from corrupting the other clans, as they have in the Brujah-run Sodom called Los Angeles. Simultaneously, Julian maintains an iffy, tightrope-walking truce with vampire-stalking homicide Detective Frank Kohanek (C. Thomas Howell), who's hip to the Kindred game.

And as Kindred capo, Julian must also enforce the Masquerade, in which Kindred pretend to be human to outside eyes. Since Kindred can get blood from many sources-left to our squeamish imaginations-they don't need to attack humans, and are consequently no real threat to the unsuspecting population of San Francisco.

And always, as he cajoles and punishes, Julian rules with fairness, compassion and deep-rooted integrity.

"Julian isn't greedy or ambitious," Frankel says. "He just wants to protect the Kindred, which means keeping the Masquerade in place. The breaking of the Masquerade-Julian's ex-lover did just that in the show's premiere and was executed by henchman Nosferatu Daedalus (Jeff Kober) for her sin-"is a very serious offense because it endangers the species.

"So, do you get my meaning, do you get my drift, do you feel dizzy right now, are you going into a deep sleep?" Frankel teases, going hypnotic, pouring on the thick Ventrue charm.

Making of Mark

Steeped in Kindred ways as he is, Frankel was never a vampire fan, "Although I do love the idea of the supernatural-even if I don't believe it.

"But I'm really immersed in this character. Julian is a really solid guy you can bite right into."

Indeed, Julian is one serious vampire dude. In need of comfort in one recent episode, Julian spent the night with his dear departed wife, first crawling onto, then seeping into, her grave.

Such is the improbable, melancholy seduction of "Kindred," reminiscent of "Dark Shadows," but with a younger, pop-culture, Fox-audience touch. Those Gangrels are real rockers, and much of the show's action is set in cool music club and Kindred hangout The Haven.

"But this doesn't mean the show is just a lark or a goof for me-definitely not, adds Frankel, whose previous Fox series was the short-lived James Bond-lite "Fortune Hunter" in 1994, in which he played smooth agent Carlton Dial.

"That was a lot of fun. But it was in a bad time slot. You couldn't be really dangerous at 7p.m. It only ran for five episodes here, but we shot 13, which all aired overseas."

Overseas is where Frankel was shaped as an actor. The son of a British air force pilot, grandson of a concert violinist and conductor, Frankel grew up in London, feeding on Hollywood films. Even now his mum keeps a piece of paper on which Frankel wrote in crayon when he was 5, "My mother is a housewife, my father is a soldier, and I want to be an actor."

That's almost how easy it was. After theater studies at St. John's College in London, Frankel studied at London's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, landing a role in the stage play "Days of Cavafy." Director Jerry London saw him and cast him as Michelangelo in TNT's six-hour miniseries "Michelangelo-A Season of Giants," filmed in Italy.

Then came a role in the TNT drama "Young Catherine," shot in Russia; stints on the BBC TV shows "Vanity Dies Hard" and "Maigret"; and a role as a "failed Realtor who finds out he's the product of artificial insemination" in the wacky British movie "Leon the Pig Farmer."

Soon after "Pig Farmer" production wrapped, Frankel came to Hollywood for the first time. Ten days after he arrived he landed the recurring role of millionaire Simon Bolt on the '92-'93 season of high-angst drama "Sisters," which has its series finale Saturday.

"Angst? On yeah. As George Clooney said when he took the role of Falconer when I left, 'Hey, it's a chick show.'"

At that time Frankel found Hollywood "a psychologically dangerous place, with everything available, from drugs to sex to nightclubbing and work."

"I felt a vortex that could suck me in. But now with 'Kindred' I'm very involved with my work, and I have American friends. When I go back to London I actually find myself being very protective and defensive of L.A."

Frankel maintains homes here and in London, and is currently shooting a British feature in Italy called "Roseanna's Grave," for Christmas release. "It's a satire of romantic scruples and I play an Italian lawyer with a heavy Italian accent, like-a-this, you see?"

A devotee of accents, Frankel enjoyed fooling his own director on "Kindred." "It was the fifth episode we shot and the director comes up to me and after a minute he goes, stunned, 'What you're not American?' And I say (best stodgy-tweedy English-earl accent here) 'Fraid not, old boy.'"

As to "Kindred" overlord Spelling, he's "very involved in the production," Frankel says.

"He'll say, 'Let's talk about this scene,' or 'I don't want Julian in light shirts, I want him in dark shirts, because he's very, very Gothic."

So just how Gothic will Frankel's controlled, menacing yet human-hankering vampire stay? Will his guard against humans, against Caitlin, ever really come down?

"Believe me, he'll loosen up," Frankel says, laughing. "Coming up in the next episodes you'll see him loosen up bit-time, babe."