This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2011, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
In the late '60s and '70s, Michael Sarrazin seemed to be everywhere - as a dance-marathon participant, auto-race organizer, a man with past lives, or a creature brought to life in the lab.
The tall, gangly Canadian actor died Sunday in a Montreal hospital, after a battle with cancer. He was 70.
Sarrazin's early breakout role was in Sydney Pollack's 1969 drama "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" (pictured above), in which he appeared opposite Jane Fonda as a desperate dance-marathon contestant during the Depression. (One of Sarrazin's co-stars in that film, Susannah York, died in January.)
Sarrazin also had roles in "Sometimes a Great Notion" (1970), "The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean" (1972), "For Pete's Sake" (1974), "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud" (1974) and "The Gumball Rally" (1976).
On TV, he memorably played the creature in a 1973 mini-series "Frankenstein: The True Story." He continued to do occasional TV work, including on "Murder, She Wrote" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine."