- guardian.co.uk, Sunday May 30 1999 12.57 BST
There's no jawline to equal it: Fraser's foremost feature must by now have attained legendary status in the boardrooms of Tinseltown. First, in The Mummy, it brings a touch of the angry Adonis to otherwise bleak, gory desert scenes, adding a bit of sex-and-swashbuckling for the summer audience. Second, it rounds off a face that, for all its Brylcreemed locks and mannequin-esque perfection, can still conjure up a goofiness that brings in the kids.
It began with the unfeasible success of the rainforest spoof George of the Jungle (even the Washington Post called it 'unsophisticated but enjoyable'), and now children are swarming around Brendan in airport lounges, petitioning him to autograph their Elastoplasts.
The remake of the Boris Karloff classic The Mummy is just one of several films set to pit Fraser's pecs and pugilism against the box-office monopoly of The Phantom Menace. And, as Ringside, Monkey Bone, Blast from the Past and Dudley Do-Right repeatedly impose him upon an unsuspecting public, the ill-wishers must be putting their money on over-exposure. Critically, he's finding it hard to put a foot wrong these days.
Not for want of trying, mind. Fraser's rise to the cadaver-chopping top has had its share of stunts that could have been the final nail in the coffin of his credibility. In 1992's Encino Man, he starred in a risible comedy about a caveman finding 20th-century Hollywood all a bit silly. And with the exception of School Ties of the same year (a prejudice-at-private-school flick in which Matt Damon and Ben Affleck co-starred), films like Airhead (a rock-star spoof), The Scout (baseball schmaltz) and Glory Daze (graduation traumas) were lo-cal fluff, taking him nowhere. At this point, Hollywood's career paramedics could be forgiven for packing up their defibrillators and catching up on some sleep. But yet another break came his way in this year's Gods and Monsters, the intense tale of Thirties director James Whale. Fraser plays a musclebound gardener admired by the homosexual Whale (Ian McKellen).
Perhaps because he was working with a man he had long admired - whom, as a novice, he had written to for help - Fraser brought an 'impressive' (New York Times) depth to lawnmowing Clayton Boone. 'It's about a man who learns to be a man,' he says of the part. '[It] symbolically said a lot about how I have felt about my place in the world.' With this in mind, there is perhaps another, as yet uncharted, dimension to Fraser - one we're unlikely to see much of this summer as he marauds his way through pyramids full of ghouls, or betrays his Canadian roots as a Mountie in Dudley Do-Right.
Off camera, he has a quiet, unimposing manner. He still marks his books with the reply McKellen posted to him years ago: 'We could use somebody of your enthusiasm but I just don't have a part for you right now,' it read. He hankered after a part in Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line, and claims to be getting 'fewer, but better' scripts. Something more substantial may be his - when he stops waving that sword around.
Five things you should know about the former jungle VIP
1 He has a degree from the Actor's Conservatory at Seattle's Cornish Cottage of the Arts
2 Daily Variety wrote of him that he has 'played lovable naifs so many times, he pretty much owns the patent by now'.
3 He is a fan of the classic American cartoon series Rocky and Bullwinkle.
4 When asked which women he considers sexy he replied, 'Luanne from King of the Hill.'
5 His wife, Afton Smith, gives spectacular foot rubs and is a demon Trivial Pursuit player.
