NEW YORK P0ST
October 8, 1996

Tragic star had 1,000-watt smile
Actor had bright future until motorcycle crash claimed his life

BY MICHAEL STARR

If tragic actor Mark Frankel hadn't yet tasted TV-series success in his too-short life, that really didn't matter - he was about to become a dad for the second time.

And that's what triggered the charismatic actor's trademark 1,000-watt grin.

Frankel - who starred in the short-lived FOX series "Fortune Hunter" and "Kindred: The Embraced" - died early in the afternoon of Sept. 25 in his native England about two hours after crashing his motorcycle, it was revealed over the weekend.

He was 34 and left behind a pregnant wife, Caroline, and 2 ½ year-old son, Fabien.

"After the initial accident he didn't appear to have any external injuries so when he was rushed to the hospital there was some hope," Frankel's publicist and friend Michelle Bega told the New York Post. "But then he passed away during surgery."

Bega, who spoke to Frankel a week before his death, repeatedly used the word "gracious" to describe the handsome, athletic family man who frequently returned to England to be with his wife and son while shooting on location.

"He was as gracious as he was good-looking, and he was an individual who was so charming and charismatic that you immediately wanted to do your best for him. "He was really sharp ascerbic sense of humor and was always gregarious and never unapproachable. It's very difficult to imagine that he's gone."

Frankel first came to the attention of American tv audiences in TNT's 1991 mini-series "Young Catherine" and also had a recurring role as Simon Bolt on NBC's "Sisters."

The son of a British RAF pilot - and the grandson of an accomplished concert violinist/conductor - Frankel was a top ranked amateur tennis player while studying at England's Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Arts.

He made his feature-film debut as Leon in the award-winning "Leon The Pig Farmer" and also starred in the mini-series "Michelangelo - A Season of Giants."

In Sept. 1994 Frankel was introduced as the suave superagent-for-hire Carlton Dial in FOX's "Fortune Hunter."

FOX quickly cancelled "Fortune Hunter," but was so impressed with Frankel the network called on him to headline Aaron Spelling's "Kindred: The Embraced," which aired last spring.

Frankel played Julian Luna, a powerful vampire Prince battling a homicide detective (C. Thomas Howell) and pursuing a love affair with a newspaper reporter (Kelly Rutherford).

"He was disappointed when 'Kindred' was cancelled because he really wanted it to be given a chance," Bega said.

Frankel had just finished a movie in Europe called "Rosanne's Grave" just before his accident, Bega said.

"Mark was gracious in a way that made you forget about how handsome he was and just think of him as a person," Bega said. "He had a blindingly gorgeous smile but was so down-to-earth - and that made him even more attractive."

THE GUARDIAN
October 1, 1996

GARY SYNOR(misspelled in print)

I FIRST met Mark Frankel, the actor, who has died tragically after a motorcycle accident aged 34, when he came to my flat. I was trying to find an actor to play the lead in Leon the Pig Farmer. Mark, fresh from playing Michelangelo in a mega budget television series, turned up dressed for the role - every inch the Jewish single male.

Sitting at my kitchen table, we ran through the scene where Leon forces himself to eat lobster to impress a non-Jewish girl. He was brilliant. It was two years before he did the scene again, this time for the camera.

What struck me then, and what struck everyone who knew him, was his presence. You wanted to be in his company. Drama school can't teach what he had. Many months later, when Vadim Jean and I met and agreed to make the film together, I insisted that I had found the right actor to play Leon.

Vadim was equally insistent that he had found an actor whose show-reel he had cut some weeks before. It turned out to be the same actor. We three accepted this coincidence as a happy stroke of fate and got on with the business of making the film. Without Mark, there would have been no film.

He was born in Surrey. Aged 12 he went to school at Frensham Heights, where his talents and ambitions to become an actor were encouraged. In addition to drama, he studied psychology - the one informed the other and he was soon playing lead roles, a talent that was recognised when he won a scholarship to the Webber Douglas Academy. After graduating, he won rave reviews for his professional debut in Days of Cavafy, and within weeks was snapped up to play Michelangelo opposite F Murray Abraham. Typically, he was confident about the speed of his rise and just as typically was completely unaffected by it.

His career was divided equally between Los Angeles and the UK. He starred in the top rated US show Sisters. It was while his career was developing there, starring as an all-action hero in Fortune Hunter, that he agreed to do Solitaire For 2 with me in London. It was typical of him (and natural for him) to put faith in a low budget feature being made by a friend. Every time a film school student offered him a short film, you could sense his American agent sweating. His shocking death has come before the release of Roseanna's Grave in which he stars with Jean Reno.

His approach to acting was methodical - but not without humour. He was a perfectionist, often insisting on another take, when he knew he had more to give. We went together to buy a watch for Leon, spent four hours in Brent Cross, and he eventually decided the right watch was the one I was wearing. In both Leon and Solitaire, I had invested pieces of myself. Mark took those pieces, turned them into a character and worked tirelessly to find every nuance. During the filming of Leon, his wife, Caroline, complained that if she had wanted to marry a neurotic Jewish estate agent she would have gone out and got one.

Despite this dedication and the inherent uncertainties of acting, he had his life in perspective. Caroline brought his weeks-old son, Fabien, to the Solitaire set. Mark's love for them both was so strong you could touch it.

Undoubtedly Mark had been deeply affected by the death of his brother Joe in an accident in 1990. For Mark, this only spurred on his amazing lust for life. He was a superb tennis player, an inspired raconteur, a parachutist, one of the most incompetent men at ordering food I have ever met, a fine actor and the most generous of friends. The legacy he leaves, personally and professionally, will be an inspiration to many.

Each memory I have of him is one of him smiling or laughing or being passionate about life. The saddest thing about his tragic death is that we are all deprived of memories to come. I already miss his future and his part in mine.

NBC EUROPE
V.I.P. hosted by Catrina Skepper
in summer 1997
Jean Reno about Mark Frankel

C.S.: Roseanna's Grave is in fact dedicated to the memory of a young British actor, Mark Frankel, who played the part of Antonio and recently died. Do you have good memories of working with him?

Jean Reno: He was fantastic. "Bon" (well). We had a very special relationship, because I like very much cars and he likes very much "motos" (french expression for motorcycles). And we talked about that all the time. Have you seen this car is nice, this one, this one, this moto.

And when I heard - because I've lost my father while we were shooting - and when I heard that he was died (French people say: il est mort, I think that's why he made a mistake here), phouuuuuuuuuuuuu, it was really a shock.

And the first time I saw the movie, it was here in London,....... and I was inside the story, I forgot that he was dead. And at the end,.... his last sentence, .......it's: I wish you a good life,..... and............."c'etait tres dur, c'etait tres tres dur" (this was very hard, this was extremely hard).......We stayed fifteen minutes with the light director, Henry, a real gentleman, because we couldn't stop crying. "Mark, mais"(but), he is NOT DEAD!