Frederick Stafford

Frederick Stafford
Born	Friedrich Strobel von Stein (1928-03-11)March 11, 1928 Czechoslovakia
Died	Switzerland
Occupation	actor
Years active	1965–1977
Spouse(s)	Marianne Hold

Frederick Stafford (11 March 1928 – 28 July 1979) was a Czech-born actor. Born Friedrich Strobel von Stein, he spoke fluent Czech, German, English, French and Italian, and was a leading man in European spy-movies.

Film career

In 1964 French director André Hunebelle discovered him on holiday at a hotel in Bangkok and asked him "How would you like to make movies with me?" Stafford replied, "Why not?," and replaced Kerwin Mathews to play an agent code-named OSS 117 in two Bond-like-adventures. He co-starred in the first one with Mylène Demongeot, and in the second with Marina Vlady. He also appeared in macaroni combat war-films (The Battle of El Alamein) and in Michel Boisronds thriller Million Dollar Man alongside Anny Duperey.

These movies brought the attention of Alfred Hitchcock, who signed him in 1968 to play the leading role as agent André Devereaux in Topaz (1969), but the film was not a success. The casting of Stafford, whose performance was found lacking by critics, was largely blamed for its failure. Channel4 claimed, "Heading the international cast is a very wooden Stafford, who is no Cary Grant."

He married German actress Marianne Hold. His son is the singer Roderick Stafford, who was born in 1964.

He made a come-back in 1972 as Commissario Luca Micelli in the Italian Giallo Shadows Unseen. Five years after Topaz, he starred with French actress Claude Jade (who had played his daughter in Topaz) in the Italian thriller La ragazza di via Condotti (Meurtres à Rome/Special Killers) (1973/74). In that movie, Stafford's character has a brief platonic romance with Jade's character despite a 20 year age difference. His last successes were the Spanish Movies Blood and Passion (1975) and White Horses of Summer (1975, starring Jean Seberg, his co-star from 1966 Estouffade à la Caraïbe), the Italian thriller Werewolf Man (1976) and the Spanish-Italian-French coproduction Hold-Up (1977).

Stafford died in 1979 in a plane crash near Lugano, Switzerland.

Films

Year	Title	Director	starring
1965	Furia à Bahia pour OSS 117	André Hunebelle	Frederick Stafford, Mylène Demongeot
1966	de	de	Frederick Stafford, fr
	Atout coeur à Tokyo pour OSS 117	Michel Boisrond	Frederick Stafford, Marina Vlady
1967	Dirty Heroes	Alberto De Martino	Frederick Stafford, Daniela Bianchi, Curd Jürgens, Adolfo Celi, Michel Constantin
	fr	fr	Frederick Stafford, Jean Seberg
	de	Michel Boisrond	Frederick Stafford, Anny Duperey, Peter van Eyck
1969	The Battle of El Alamein	Giorgio Ferroni	Frederick Stafford, George Hilton, Robert Hossein, Michael Rennie
	Eagles Over London	Enzo G. Castellari	Frederick Stafford, Van Johnson, Francisco Rabal
	Topaz	Alfred Hitchcock	Frederick Stafford, Dany Robin, Claude Jade, Karin Dor, John Forsythe, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret
1972	Abuso di potere	Camillo Bazzoni	Frederick Stafford, Marilù Tolo, Reinhard Kolldehoff
1973	La ragazza di via Condotti	es	Frederick Stafford, Claude Jade, Michel Constantin
	Metti che ti rompo il muso	Giuseppe Vari	Frederick Stafford, Silvia Monti, Massimo Mollica
1974	Hold-Up	es	Frederick Stafford, Nathalie Delon, Marcel Bozzuffi
1975	White Horses of Summer	Raimondo Del Balzo	Frederick Stafford, Jean Seberg
	es	Jorge Grau	Frederick Stafford, Rosanna Schiaffino
1976	Werewolf Woman	it	Frederick Stafford, Dagmar Lassander
	Sfida sul fondo	Melciade Coletti	Frederick Stafford, Dagmar Lassander

External links

• Frederick Stafford at IMDB