Virtually every account of actor John Phillip Law's career included an early screen credit in The Magnificent Yankee, filmed when Law was 13. This "fact" has never been adequately confirmed; Law himself traced his involvement in acting to his amateur-theatrical days at the University of Hawaii. After working with New York's Lincoln City repertory, Law officially launched his film career in Europe. He made his Hollywood bow as a boyish, gangling Soviet sailor in The Russians are Coming, The Russians are Coming (1966). Later highlights of Law's extensive film work include the role of blind "guardian angel" Pygar in the kinky Jane Fonda vehicle Barbarella (1968), German air ace Baron Von Richtofen in Roger Corman's Von Richtofen and Brown (1970), and the title role in the Ray Harryhausen FX-fest The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973). John Phillip Law's infrequent TV work also included a mid-1980s stint on the CBS daytimer Young and the Restless. He died of undisclosed causes at age 70, in the spring of 2008.
by Hal Erickson
biography
