Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan
Born	(1928-03-19)19 March 1928 Astoria, Queens, New York City, United States
Died	13 January 2009(2009-01-13) (aged 80) Santa Monica, California, United States
Resting place	Cremated
Alma mater	Ratcliffe College
Occupation(s)	Actor Television writer, producer and director
Years active	1955–2002
Television	Danger Man, The Prisoner, Columbo
Spouse	Joan Drummond ​ (m. 1951⁠–⁠2009)​ (his death)
Children	3 daughters, including Catherine McGoohan
Awards	Prometheus Hall of Fame Award (2002) Primetime Emmy Award (1975, 1990) BAFTA TV Award (1960)

Patrick Joseph McGoohan (19 March 1928 – 13 January 2009) was an American-born actor who was brought up in Ireland and Britain, where he established an extensive stage and film career. His most notable roles were in the 1960s television series Danger Man (renamed Secret Agent when exported to the US), and The Prisoner, which he co-created. McGoohan wrote and directed several episodes of The Prisoner himself, occasionally using the pseudonyms Joseph Serf and Paddy Fitz. Later in his career, he moved back to the United States and subsequently appeared as murderers in four Columbo episodes, twice winning an Emmy. He was featured in David Cronenberg's Scanners (1981), and played King Edward I in Mel Gibson's Braveheart (1995).

Early life

McGoohan was born in Astoria, Queens, New York City to Thomas McGoohan and Rose Fitzpatrick, who were living in the United States after emigrating from Ireland to seek work. He was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Shortly after he was born, McGoohan's parents moved back to Mullaghmore, County Leitrim, Ireland, and seven years later, they moved to Sheffield, England.

McGoohan attended St Vincent's School in Sheffield. During World War II, he was evacuated to Loughborough, Leicestershire. There he attended Ratcliffe College, where he excelled in mathematics and boxing. McGoohan left school at the age of 16 and returned to Sheffield, where he worked as a chicken farmer, a bank clerk and a lorry driver before getting a job as a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory Theatre. When one of the actors became ill, McGoohan was substituted for him, launching his acting career.

Career

Early career

In 1955, McGoohan starred in a West End production of a play called Serious Charge in the role of a priest accused of being gay. Orson Welles was so impressed by McGoohan's stage presence ("intimidated," Welles said later) that he cast him as Starbuck in his York theatre production of Moby Dick—Rehearsed. Welles said in 1969 that he believed McGoohan "would now be, I think, one of the big actors of our generation if TV hadn't grabbed him. He can still make it. He was tremendous as Starbuck." and "with all the required attributes, looks, intensity, unquestionable acting ability and a twinkle in his eye”

His first film appearance was an uncredited role in The Dam Busters standing guard outside the briefing room. He delivers a line - "Sorry, old boy, it's secret - you can't go in. Now, c'mon, hop it!", which was cut from some prints of the movie.

While working as a stand-in during screen tests, McGoohan was signed to a contract with the Rank Organisation. The producers may have been more interested in capitalising on his boxing skill and appearance than his acting ability, casting him as the conniving bad boy in such films as Hell Drivers and the steamy potboiler The Gypsy and the Gentleman, and after a few films and some clashes with the management, the contract was dissolved.

Free of the contract, he did some TV work, winning a BAFTA in 1959, for a role the previous year in an episode of Armchair Theatre. His favourite part for the stage was the lead in Ibsen's Brand, for which he received an award, and appeared in a (still extant) BBC television production in August 1959.

1960s: Danger Man

Soon, production executive Lew Grade approached McGoohan about a TV series in which he would play a spy named John Drake. Having learned from his experience at the Rank Organisation, he insisted on several conditions in the contract before agreeing to appear in the programme: all the fistfights should be different, the character would always use his brain before using a gun, and, much to the horror of the executives, no kissing. The series debuted in 1960 as Danger Man, a half-hour programme geared toward an American audience. It did fairly well, but not as well as hoped. Production lasted only one year and 39 episodes. After this first series was over, one interviewer asked McGoohan if he would have liked the series to continue, to which he replied, "Perhaps, but let me tell you this: I would rather do twenty TV series than go through what I went through under that Rank contract I signed a few years ago and for which I blame no one but myself."

McGoohan was one of several actors considered for the role of James Bond in Dr. No. While McGoohan, a Catholic, turned down the role on moral grounds, the success of the Bond films is generally cited as the reason for Danger Man being revived.

Before that happened, McGoohan spent some time working for Disney on The Three Lives of Thomasina and The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. After he had also turned down the role of Simon Templar in The Saint, Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. This time, McGoohan had even more say about the series. Danger Man (US: Secret Agent) was resurrected in 1964 as a one-hour programme. The scripts now allowed McGoohan more range in his acting. The popularity of the series led to McGoohan becoming the highest paid actor in the UK and the show lasted almost three more years.

After shooting the two episodes of Danger Man in colour, McGoohan told Lew Grade he was going to quit for another show.

The Prisoner

In the face of McGoohan's intention to quit Danger Man, Grade asked if he would at least work on "something" for him. McGoohan gave him a run-down of what would later be called a miniseries, about a secret agent who resigns suddenly and wakes up to find himself in a prison disguised as a holiday resort. Grade asked for a budget, McGoohan had one ready, and they made a deal over a handshake early on a Saturday morning to produce The Prisoner. Apart from being the star, McGoohan was the executive producer, forming Everyman Films with series producer David Tomblin, and also wrote and directed several episodes, in some cases using pseudonyms. The originally commissioned seven episodes became seventeen.

The Prisoner spends the entire series trying to escape from the Village and to learn the identity of his nemesis, Number One. The Prisoner was a completely new, cerebral kind of series, stretching the limits of the established television formulae. The main character, the otherwise unnamed Number Six, became McGoohan's most recognisable character. Unfortunately, it also became his prison. Number Six was so obsessively pro-individual that whenever McGoohan later played someone who had something to say about individuality or freedom, the character was often compared to his previous incarnation—for example, his portrayal of the warden in Escape from Alcatraz (1979). "Mel Gibson will always be Mad Max, and me, I will always be a Number," he was once quoted as saying.

Late 1960s to 1980s: films and Columbo

McGoohan appeared in many films, including Howard Hughes's favourite, Ice Station Zebra (1968), for which he was critically acclaimed, and Silver Streak (1976), with Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. In 1977, he starred in the TV series Rafferty, playing a former army doctor who has retired and moved into private practice (one reviewer considers this series a forerunner to House). He also appeared in Scanners (1981), a science fiction/horror film by Canadian director David Cronenberg.

He directed Richie Havens in a rock-opera version of Othello called Catch My Soul. In 1985, he appeared on Broadway for his only production there; he starred opposite Rosemary Harris in Hugh Whitemore's Pack of Lies, in which he played a British intelligence agent. He was nominated for a Drama Desk Award as Best Actor for his performance.

McGoohan received two Emmy Awards for his work on Columbo, with his long-time friend Peter Falk. McGoohan had said that his first appearance on Columbo was probably his favourite American role. He directed five Columbo episodes (including three of the four in which he played the murderer), and wrote one and produced two (including one of these). McGoohan was involved with the Columbo series in some capacity from 1974 to 2000.

1990s

In 1991, he starred in The Best of Friends for the British Channel 4 network, which told the story of the unlikely friendship among a museum curator, a nun and a playwright. McGoohan played George Bernard Shaw alongside Sir John Gielgud as Sydney Cockerell and Dame Wendy Hiller as Sister Laurentia McLachlan. In the United States, the drama was shown as part of Masterpiece Theatre by PBS.

He was most recognised by a later generation of fans as King Edward I from the Oscar-winning Braveheart (1995), and as Judge Omar Noose in A Time to Kill (1996).

In 1996, he appeared in Paramount's big budget cinema adaptation of The Phantom comic strip, playing the previous, murdered Phantom, and father of the current incarnation of the title character (played by Billy Zane) who carried on his father's "undying" persona.

2000s

In 2000, he reprised his role as Number Six in an episode of The Simpsons, "The Computer Wore Menace Shoes". In it, Homer Simpson concocts a news story to make his website more popular, and he wakes up in a prison disguised as a holiday resort. Dubbed Number Five, he befriends Number Six and escapes with his boat; McGoohan gives the classic line after Homer pops the Rover Type Balloon with a fork – "If only I'd thought of that".

McGoohan's last film was a voice role in the animated film Treasure Planet, released in 2002. That same year, he received the Prometheus Hall of Fame Award for The Prisoner.

McGoohan's name was linked to several aborted attempts at producing a new film version of The Prisoner. In 2002, director Simon West (Lara Croft: Tomb Raider) was signed to helm a version of the story. McGoohan was listed as executive producer for the film, which never came to fruition. Later, director Christopher Nolan attached to a proposed film version. However, the source material remained difficult and elusive to adapt into a feature film. McGoohan was not involved in the project which was ultimately completed. A reimagining of the series was filmed for the AMC network in late 2008, with its broadcast taking place during November 2009.

Personal life

McGoohan fell in love with actress Joan Drummond, to whom he reportedly wrote love notes every day. They were married on 19 May 1951. They had three daughters, Catherine (born 1952), Anne (born 1959) and Frances (born 1960). The McGoohans settled in the Pacific Palisades district of Los Angeles in the mid-1970s.

Death and legacy

McGoohan died on 13 January 2009 at Saint John's Health Center in Santa Monica, California, following a brief illness. His remains were cremated. A biography of the actor was first published in 2007 by Tomahawk Press, with a further biography published in 2011 by Supernova Books.

Filmography

Film

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	The Dam Busters	RAF Guard	Uncredited
1956	Zarak	Moor Larkin
1957	High Tide at Noon	Simon Breck
1957	Hell Drivers	C. 'Red' Redman
1958	The Gypsy and the Gentleman	Jess
1958	Nor the Moon by Night	Andrew Miller
1961	Two Living, One Dead	Erik Berger
1962	All Night Long	Johnny Cousin
1962	Life for Ruth	Doctor James 'Jim' Brown
1962	The Quare Fellow	Thomas Crimmin
1964	The Three Lives of Thomasina	Andrew McDhui
1968	Ice Station Zebra	David Jones
1970	The Moonshine War	Frank Long
1971	Mary, Queen of Scots	James Stuart
1974	Catch My Soul	n/a	Director
1975	A Genius, Two Partners and a Dupe	Major Cabot
1976	Silver Streak	Roger Devereau
1977	The Man in the Iron Mask	Fouquet
1978	Brass Target	Colonel Mike McCauley
1979	Escape from Alcatraz	Warden
1981	Scanners	Doctor Paul Ruth
1981	Kings and Desperate Men	John Kingsley
1985	Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend	Doctor Eric Kiviat
1995	Braveheart	King Edward I (Longshanks)
1996	The Phantom	Phantom's dad
1996	A Time to Kill	Judge Omar Noose
2001	Disney's House of Mouse	Billy Bones voice
2002	Treasure Planet	Billy Bones voice

Television

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955	The Vise	Tony Mason	1 episode ("Gift from Heaven")
1958	The Vise	Vance	1 episode ("Blood in the Sky")
1958	Armchair Theatre	Jack 'Pal' Smurch	1 episode ("The Greatest Man in the World")
1961	Armchair Theatre	Nicholai Soloviov	1 episode ("The Man Out There")
1960–62 1964–67	Danger Man	John Drake	47 episodes. Also directed three episodes.
1963	Disneyland	Doctor Christopher Syn/ Scarecrow of Romney Marsh	3 episodes
1967–68	The Prisoner	Number Six	17 episodes. Also directed five episodes.
1974	Columbo	Colonel Lyle C. Rumford	1 episode ("By Dawn's Early Light")
1975	Columbo	Nelson Brenner	1 episode ("Identity Crisis"). Also directed.
1976	Columbo	n/a	1 episode ("Last Salute to the Commodore") – director
1977	Rafferty	Doctor Sid Rafferty	13 episodes. Also directed one episode.
1979	The Hard Way	John Connor	Made-for-TV film
1983	Jamaica Inn	Joss Merlyn
1985	American Playhouse	Chief magistrate	1 episode ("Three Sovereigns for Sarah")
1987	Murder, She Wrote	Oliver Quayle	1 episode ("Witness for the Defense")
1990	Columbo	Oscar Finch	1 episode ("Agenda for Murder"). Also directed.
1998	Columbo	Eric Prince	"Ashes to Ashes". Also directed.
2000	Columbo	n/a	1 episode ("Murder with Too Many Notes") – director
2000	The Simpsons	Number Six	1 episode ("The Computer Wore Menace Shoes")

Awards

• 1960: BAFTA TV Award for Best Actor – Won
• 1975: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Single Performance by a Supporting Actor in a Comedy or Drama Series (for Columbo: By Dawn's Early Light) – Won
• 1990: Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Drama Series (for Columbo: Agenda for Murder) – Won

External links

• Patrick McGoohan at IMDb
• Patrick McGoohan at the Internet Broadway Database
• Patrick McGoohan at the BFI's Screenonline