Actor John Phillip Law died 13 May 2008. Born in Hollywood, California, on 7 September 1937, the 6’5″ actor will be remembered for playing the blind angel Pygar in the film Barbarella (1968) opposite Jane Fonda.
After taking drama classes at the University of Hawaii, he decided to become an actor, and moved to New York in the early 1960s. There, he studied with Elia Kazan at the Lincoln Center Repertory Theater and landed bit parts on Broadway. He went to Europe and found work in a handful of Italian films (he was fluent in French, German, Italian, and Spanish). He also came to the attention of director Norman Jewison, who cast him as Alexei Kolchin, a young Soviet submariner The Russians are Coming, the Russians are Coming, his 1966 Cold War comedy set in New England.
Law starred as the title character in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1974), and among his more than 75 other roles were such genre appearances as: The Spiral Staircase (1975), L’Occhio dietro la parete (Eyes Behind the Wall, 1977), Tod im November (The Devil’s Bed, 1978), Un Ombra nell’ombra (Ring of Darkness, 1979), Tarzan, the Ape Man (1981), Night Train to Terror (1985), Moon in Scorpio (1987), Delirio di sangue (Blood Delirium< 1988), Space Mutiny (1988), Alienator (1990), Marilyn Alive and Behind Bars (1992), Il Giorno del porco (Day of the Pig, 1992), Wanted (1999), CQ (2001), Curse of the Forty-Niner (2003), and I Tre volti del terror (The Three Faces of Terror< 2004). At the beginning of his career, in the 1960s, Law lived in a mansion in Los Feliz with his brother, Tom, who had been the road manager for Peter, Paul, and Mary. The brothers rented rooms to up-and-coming singers and artists, including Bob Dylan, Andy Warhol, and Tiny Tim, turning the home into "a vibrant salon of emerging pop-culture icons. Life at the Castle, as it was known, was documented in Flashing on the Sixties, a 1987 collection of photos and text by Tom’s former wife, Lisa Law,” according to The Los Angeles Times.
Law is survived by his brother, his daughter, Dawn, and a grandson.