Let’s throw some Man Candy Monday love Michael York’s way! He’s a theatrically trained actor who got his film break in several Shakespeare adaptions. York might be best known to frock-flickers as a musketeer, but he’s dabbled in many historical costume movie and TV roles over the years (along with a self-referential bit as Basil Exposition in the Austin Powers franchise).
Lucentio in The Taming of the Shrew (1967)
Jolyon ‘Jolly’ Forsyte in The Forsyte Saga (1967)
Tybalt in Romeo and Juliet (1968)
Guthrum in Alfred the Great (1969)
Brian Roberts in Cabaret (1972)
D’Artagnan in The Three Musketeers (1973) & The Four Musketeers (1974)
Count Andrenyi in Murder on the Orient Express (1974)
Pip in Great Expectations (1974)
Andrew Braddock in The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977)
James Durie in The Master of Ballantrae (1984)
King Charles II in The Lady and the Highwayman (1988)
D’Artagnan in The Return of the Musketeers (1989)
Hans-Dieter Stromelburg in Fall From Grace (1994)
Lewis Lawshe in True Women (1997)
D’Artagnan in The Lady Musketeer (2004)
Nicolaes Jonghelinck in The Mill and the Cross (2011)
What’s your favorite historical costume movie or TV role of Michael York’s?
Oh, Tybalt… sigh
And that voice… sigh
I could listen to him read a phone book and be riveted.
Tybalt
It’s funny the faces you find in these retrospectives – in that shot from The Master of Ballantrae, that’s Finola Hughes, right before her big break in the career-defining role of Anna Devane on General Hospital. (But omg that plaid, it burns!)
Clash of the Tartans?
claps love it
And Richard Thomas!
Best version of D’Artagnan in the best Musketeers movies!
I saw his Tybalt and I died. You didn’t show Tybalt’s best bits, though! The best introduction to Shakespeare for a 16 year old. The voice is spectacular.
He was a lovely Jolyon, and his D’Artagnan was the best in the best production of the novels I have ever seen.
Oh look! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ADvHO-lGjOs
His is my one true D’Artagnan, but his role in Alfred the Great is also a long-time favorite.
LOVED him as Tybalt! So handsome yet so quarrelsome. <3
We have a recording of him reading the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe – outstanding. All the characters and the narrator are spot on. Jadis is amazing. “How -dare- you come alone!?” It sounds like he loves the story.
His voice is so wonderful. Local DJ’s Mark & Brian had him read the lyrics to Baby Got Back. (With apologies to Sir Mixalot.) That was amazing.
My intro to Mr. York was as D’Artagnan, but I’ll always call him Pip and think of him as Logan.
The quintessential D’Artagnan. Tybalt! And I recommend “The Mill and the Cross.” He has a small part in it but it is enchanting.
I kind of love him because I remember my mom liking him when we watched Romeo and Juliet. He was also John the Baptist in Jesus of Nazareth, but I’ll admit a guy who clothed himself in camel skins and lived off locusts in the desert is not probably what anyone had in mind for MCM (least of all J the B), even though it’s technically historical.
Not great frocks, but he also plays a fellow who thinks he is King Arthur in an episode of Babylon 5 … he is dressed vaguely medieval-oid in the midst of future space land.
Never been a big York-fan. Maybe I was too young when he was at his peak? But I’m definitely going to look up that 2011 movie ‘The mill and the cross’. Sounds intriguing.
He was marvellous as Tybalt, but even more than the nifty cap I loved the massive liripipe-wound-into-a-turban that he wore to the Capulet party – and the completely natural way he wore it, as though it was his go-to evening headgear.
A million years ago I watched ‘The Lady & the Highwayman’, ‘Murder on the Orient Express’, ‘True Women’ (he was a doting daddy to Angelina Jolie’s younger self)- & one not on the list, where he was- unusually- a bad guy; ‘Duel of Hearts’, I think- Indy’s GF, Elsa Schneider was the leading lady- I remember, because she had what I thought was the most perfect face, ’til I saw Sarah Gaddon.