Michael Sarrazin Dies: THEY SHOOT HORSES, DON'T THEY?, SOMETIMES A GREAT NOTION
Jacqueline Bisset, Michael Sarrazin,
The Sweet RideMichael Sarrazin, best known for his role as
Jane Fonda's marathon-dancing partner in
Sydney Pollack's 1969 drama
They Shoot Horses, Don't They?, died of cancer earlier today at a Montreal hospital. Sarrazin was 70.
Less well known is that Sarrazin was offered the role of Joe Buck in
John Schlesinger's Oscar-winning
Midnight Cowboy.
Eventually, Jon Voight became a star — and earned a Best Actor Oscar
nomination — for his performance as the hick-turned-urban sex worker.
Curiously, Sarrazin was bypassed at the Oscars that year, even though fellow
They Shoot Horses, Don't They? players Jane Fonda and
Susannah York (who died earlier this year) were both nominated, and
Gig Young was chosen as the year's Best Supporting Actor.
Sarrazin (born May 22, 1940, in Quebec City) was also effective as a
young man whose life is changed after he accidentally knocks down and
kills a woman in
Robert Mulligan's underrated 1971 anti-establishment drama
The Pursuit Happiness, co-starring
Barbara Hershey. And he was a likable straight man to
Barbra Streisand in
Peter Yates' 1974 comedy
For Pete's Sake. (Yates also died earlier this year.)
Among Sarrazin's other notable film appearances were those in
Harvey Hart's
The Sweet Ride (1968), playing a surfer opposite
Jacqueline Bisset and
Anthony Franciosa;
John Huston's
The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean (1972), once again with Bisset, in addition to
Paul Newman and
Ava Gardner; and
Ted Kotcheff's 1985 film adaptation of
Mordecai Richler's
Joshua Then and Now.
Sarrazin also co-starred with off-screen romantic partner Bisset in the dismal melodrama
Believe in Me (1971), in which he plays a doctor with a drug problem.
Perhaps most notable of all of his post-
They Shoot Horses work was his "prodigal" son who returns to his family of fiercely independent loggers in
Paul Newman's film version of
Ken Kesey's novel
Sometimes a Great Notion (1971), which starred Newman,
Henry Fonda, and
Lee Remick.
On television, Sarrazin scored a hit by playing The Creature in
Frankenstein: The True Story (1973), but his film career lost impetus as the '70s came to a close.
His last film role was in
Walter Salles' upcoming
On the Road, in which he plays a priest. Based on
Jack Kerouac's novel,
On the Road stars
Kristen Stewart, Sam Riley, and
Garrett Hedlund.
http://www.altfg.com/blog/movie/michael-sarrazin-dies-they-shoot-horses-dont-they/ 
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