Baron Clement von Franckenstein
Gentleman-playboy expat actor who appeared in Hollywood films and played cricket with Mick Jagger
BARON CLEMENT VON FRANCKENSTEIN, the actor who has died of a heart attack aged 74, was one of the last of the breed of gentleman-playboy expat Brits (as exemplified by David Niven) who came to California chasing the Hollywood dream.
He appeared in some 80 films, typically cast as a debonair type who looked good in a dinner jacket, on the arm of a leading lady, or sometimes wearing only a leather thong.
Von Franckenstein, “Clem” to his friends, was not shy about his aristocratic pedigree. He was widely known as “The Baron”, and played the part well, with raucous laughter, a booming voice, monogrammed slippers and suits from another time.
In his early days, however, he went to castings under the name Clement St George because he thought his real name might scare people. He was a long-standing member of the Hollywood and Beverly Hills cricket club, playing alongside the likes of Mick Jagger, Hugh Grant and Julian Sands on an improvised pitch under the Hollywood sign.
Von Franckenstein was the consummate “working actor” and appeared with stars including Jeanclaude Van Damme and Melanie Griffith, notably appearing in Robin
Hood: Men In Tights for Mel Brooks. Among his more prominent roles, he portrayed the President of France opposite Michael Douglas and Annette Bening in Rob Reiner’s comedy drama
The American President (1995). Most of his parts, however, including that of a dead body in an episode of Murder, She
Wrote, appeared further down the cast
list.
His full Austrian title was Reichsfreiherr (Baron) Clement St George von und zu Franckenstein. Early on in his career he had played a “Villager Screaming at the Monster” in Mel Brooks’s Young Frankenstein
(1974), but although Mary Shelley had adapted his family name for her 1818 literary classic, sadly he was not listed in the credits.
Von Franckenstein first arrived in California in 1972, when he was invited to play Henry VIII in a Tudor-themed restaurant in Anaheim: “We sang
bawdy English ballads while lots of wenches were running around serving mead,” he recalled.
But by the 1990s things had changed. “In the 1970s life was easy, everyone was laid back, everyone had a good time,” he told The Daily
Telegraph in 1994. “Now it has become oppressive, charmless. You can’t smoke in restaurants, everyone is carrying around boxes of condoms and at parties now there’s this thing called the ‘no host bar’ – you have to pay for your own bloody drinks. I mean it’s just not on.”
Von Franckenstein’s memories of that era also found an outlet in journalism, with articles such as one entitled “The Art of the Orgy” for the
New York Press magazine.
He was born at Sunninghill, Berkshire, on May 28 1944. His father, Sir George Franckenstein, had been, as Georg Freiherr von und zu Franckenstein, the Austrian Ambassador to the Court of St James for 18 years. He had been knighted by George VI after renouncing his nationality when Hitler invaded his homeland, and had married an English woman, Editha King, in 1939. The von Franckensteins were a Franconian family whose noble lineage goes back at least to the 13th century.
In October 1953, when Clem was nine, both his parents were among 44 people killed when the aeroplane in which they were travelling lost power soon after taking off from Frankfurt and crashed in Kelsterbach. Afterwards Clem was brought up by the Taylors, British friends of his parents, in Gloucestershire. He remained very close to his foster sister, the trainer Celia Plunkett.
After education at Eton, Clem von Franckenstein served three years as a lieutenant in the Royal Scots Greys, in Aden, Bahrain and Germany. He then studied opera for about three years, training as a tenor and performing in cabaret but, concluding that he was not good enough for the professional operatic stage, he decided to become an actor instead.
His first screen role after his move to Los Angeles was in the television miniseries QB VII (1974) starring Ben Gazzara and Lee Remick.
As well as numerous film and television roles – perhaps most memorably in “Perverts and Whores”, an episode of Californication in which he played the pervert – he worked in the theatre; in 2003, after eight days of rehearsals, he stepped into the role of the gung-ho General Gorgidson in Justin Butcher’s hit musical satire, The
Madness of George Dubya, at the Theatro Technis in Regent’s Park. (The role was taken by Mark Heenehan when the show transferred to the West End.)
Von Franckenstein frequently travelled to Cannes for the film festival where his title, panache and business cards often got him into the best premieres and parties. In 1993 he was interviewed by the Los Angeles Times when he attended a Halloween party dressed as Dracula. He did not really enjoy dressing up, he explained, having just finished playing a 50-ft alien in the giant-screen Imax film The
Journey Inside: “It took me four hours to get made up every day.”
In 2001 von Franckenstein was delighted when his name appeared among a list of “America’s Top 50 Bachelors” in People magazine, though he made it clear that any female pursuer would have to be careful: “If a woman comes at me with a Frankenstein joke right off, it’s a bad sign.”
While at Eton, von Franckenstein had played a major part in a school musical with music by Brian Rees and lyrics by John Wells. A couple of years ago he made the journey from Hollywood back to Eton to join old friends in reprising the songs from the original show.
He lived for many years in a house in the Carthay Circle district of LA. Deeply Christian, he was a regular at All Saints Beverly Hills.
He never married (although he came close on several occasions) and was dedicated to his beloved cat of 18 years, Tallulah, whom he described as his “rock” in a eulogy sent to friends after her death: “She was the greatest Cat! I am very sad but I know she has gone to that special place reserved for animals who have served their masters with great and unconditional love. We humans should try that more!”
Baron Clement von Franckenstein, born May 28 1944, died May 9 2019