[Deathwatch] John Phillip Law, actor, 70

[Deathwatch Central <cdw@slick.org>]

Actor John Phillip Law, angel in 'Barbarella,' dies at 70

Fri May 16

John Phillip Law, the strikingly handsome 1960s movie actor who
portrayed an angel in the futuristic "Barbarella" and a lovesick
Russian seaman in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming,"
has died. He was 70.

Law died Tuesday at his Los Angeles home, said his daughter Dawn Law.
The cause of death was not announced.

With his vivid eyes, blond hair and imposing physique, Law was much in
demand by filmmakers in the late 1960s and early '70s.

He gained wide notice in 1966 with Alan Arkin, Carl Reiner and Theo
Bikel in "The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming," Norman
Jewison's Cold War comedy in which a Soviet submarine runs aground off
a peaceful New England island town.

He played the sweet Russian youth who falls in love with a local
American girl in the film, which was nominated for four Oscars
including best picture, actor (Arkin) and director.

French director Roger Vadim put Law's looks to good use in his 1968
science fiction film, "Barbarella," which starred Vadim's wife at the
time, Jane Fonda, as a sexy space traveler in the faraway future. Law
wore wings to portray Pygar, a blind angel.

"I've had more kicks out of playing far-out things," Law told the Los
Angeles Times in 1966. "It's like putting on a funny face and going out
in front of people and going, 'yaaaaaa.'"

Messages left Thursday for Fonda's New York publicist were not
returned.

Law was World War I ace Baron Manfred von Richtofen in the 1971 "The
Red Baron" and Charlton Heston's son in "The Hawaiians," a 1970 sequel
to "Hawaii," based on James Michener's sprawling novel.

In Otto Preminger's 1967 film, "Hurry Sundown," he was a war veteran
struggling to preserve his farm against a land speculator played by
Michael Caine. Fonda played Caine's wife.

He continued his career in a variety of U.S. and foreign films and
television over the past 30 years, including appearances in "The Young
and the Restless" and "Murder, She Wrote."

Law was a California native, born in 1937 to actress Phyllis Sallee,
and her husband, a police officer. He told the Los Angeles Times he did
some extra work in films as a child. He said he put acting ambitions
aside in his teens, but his interest was renewed in a college drama
class.

He worked in the theater in New York for a while before breaking into
the movies, spending some time in the Repertory Theater of Lincoln
Center, whose directors included the great Elia Kazan.

Many thanks to Deathwatch Central for posting this obituary