Recently it occurred to me that in all my years of writing newspaper columns, I’ve never written one about the strangest life story I’ve ever come across, in terms of the wild twists and turns it took in a relatively short expanse of time. It is the story of a person I never interacted with to my knowledge, although we lived in the same city, at the same time, when we were the same age. I’ll tell you his story, but strap yourself in first.
Mark Frechette came from Fairfield, Connecticut. By the time he was 19 years old in the mid-1960s, he was a high school dropout, drifting back and forth between New York City and Boston. When he was in Boston, he made money by panhandling in Harvard Square and doing some carpentry work in the Fort Hill section of Roxbury.
One day in 1968, he was standing at a bus stop on Charles Street in Boston, arguing with a man in a third floor window of a nearby apartment building, yelling invective at the man that is not quotable in a family newspaper.
At this time, the Italian film director Michelangelo Antonioni was planning to shoot an American epic about the cultural and political turbulence in the United States at that time. Antonioni did not have much respect for the art and craft of acting, having been quoted as saying, “Actors are like cows. You have to lead them through a fence.” Consistent with this lack of esteem for actors, he decided he would cast two non-actors for the lead roles in his film, thinking that would make it more authentic. He had aides out scouting the nooks and crannies of America to find a young male and a young female to star in the film. The male lead would play a student on the run from the law for a killing at a student protest.
Two of these scouts happened upon Mark Frechette having his vitriolic shouting match at the bus stop. They decided he was right for the part, because, as they told Antonioni, “He is twenty and he hates.” So, in what may be the most bizarre path ever taken to movie stardom, Mark Frechette was offered the lead role in a major motion picture with no previous acting training, experience, or intention, and without realizing he was auditioning by having a venomous verbal street fight.
But if you think his path to movie stardom is the culmination, or even the apex, of Frechette’s wild ride, think again and stay seated.
Frechette and Antonioni did not get along at all during the making of the film, perhaps because whatever else Frechette was or wasn’t, he was no cow to be led through a fence; more like a bull in the ring. ”Zabriskie Point,” as Antonioni entitled the film, was a commercial and critical flop. The film’s bombing did not prevent Frechette’s experiencing the accouterments of celebrity, however. For instance, he had his picture on the cover of the Rolling Stone and posed for a fashion layout in Vogue.
Frechette stayed in Europe after acting in Zabriskie Point to appear in two more films made by less prominent directors with smaller budgets, neither movie making much of a splash. Then he picked up stakes and returned to Boston with his Zabriskie Point co-star, Daria Halprin, and $60,000 he’d saved from his payment for the three movies, the equivalent of about $450,000 toda
