Clement von Franckenstein

Clement von Franckenstein

Clement von Franckenstein (28 May 1944 – 9 May 2019) was an English actor. Born in Sunninghill, then in Buckinghamshire, Franckenstein was the only child of Editha and Georg von und zu Franckenstein; his father was an Austrian Reichsfreiherr and diplomat who stayed in England after the Anschluss and received a British knighthood and British nationality. Franckenstein's parents died in an aircraft crash in Germany on 14 October 1953, and from the age of nine he was brought up by his parents' British friends and educated at Eton College. He became an actor, initially going to castings as Clement St George as he thought "his real name might scare people". He moved to California in 1972 and joined the gentleman-playboy expat Brits like David Niven. Playing with Hugh Grant and Mick Jagger, he was a long-standing member of the Beverley Hills Cricket Club. He never married, and was devoted to his beloved cat Tallulah. Franckenstein appeared in some eighty films; sometimes as the debonair escort for the leading lady or just wearing a leather thong. He was in Young Frankenstein, Robin Hood: Men in Tights and The American President, but was often low down the cast list or uncredited. He appeared as a corpse in Murder She Wrote. He said that California changed between the 1970s and the 1990s, as he told the Daily Telegraph in 1994: "In the 1970s, life was easy, everyone was laid-back, everyone had a good time ... 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". He died in Los Angeles in May 2019, aged 74. Mr von Franckenstein told stories from his life for the Joe Frank radio show, 'Clement at Christmas', from his childhood though his early days in Hollywood, the first half of the show.

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