The Prisoner star Patrick McGoohan, who has died aged 80, was one of
the leading British television stars of the 1950s and 1960s.

Born in New York, McGoohan was only a few months old when his
immigrant parents returned to Ireland with him. When he was eight,
the family moved again, this time to Sheffield.

He left school with full intentions of fulfilling his mother's
ambition for him to become a priest.

But in 1948, during a temporary stint working as a stage manager at
the Sheffield Repertory, McGoohan realised he was destined to tread
the boards.

He quickly became one of its leading actors, appearing in more than
200 plays over the following four years.

With more repertory work taking him to Coventry and Bristol, McGoohan
eventually moved to London.

It was here that he finally became a priest - on stage. He starred in
a 1955 West End production of the play Serious Charge, which stirred
controversial issues when his character was accused of homosexuality.
Orson Welles was certainly impressed and subsequently cast him as
Starbuck in his production of Moby Dick Rehearsed.

McGoohan then moved into films, and as a signed contract player for
the Rank Organisation. They cast him mostly playing heavies.

Through gritty films such as Hell Drivers, he perfected his bad boy
persona on screen and began to make a name for himself. McGoohan
eventually fell out with Rank and turned to television.

Ibsen's Brand became his favourite role and subsequently won him an
award for best TV actor of the year.

It led him to the ITV series Danger Man, in which he played the lead
role as spy John Drake.

By now, McGoohan had acquired the reputation of being a reclusive,
sometimes difficult actor, and he stipulated that his scripts must
not include any romantic involvements.

Drake also was not to carry a gun and throughout the first year of
the series, he never killed anyone.
But the show still became highly successful in several countries, and
after leaving to work on other projects, McGoohan later returned to
do three more series.

Its successor, The Prisoner, produced by McGoohan himself and filmed
in north Wales in 1967 and 1968 revolved around the efforts of a
secret agent, who resigned early in his career, to clear his name.

His aim was to escape from a beautiful but psychologically brutal
prison for people who know too much. The series is remembered for the
line: "I am not a number, I am a free man!"

By the time the series ended, McGoohan was also contributing to the
writing and directing of the series, which many critics found too
philosophical and difficult for the average viewer to understand.

Nevertheless, like Danger Man it became a telelvision classic, and
was still being shown around the world decades later.

The series was as popular as it was surreal and the mysterious final
episode - part of which featured no dialogue and was left
deliberately ambiguous - was so controversial that McGoohan and his
family left the UK for more than 20 years and seek relative anonymity
in the USA.

His move to California led to appearances in a number of films,
including Ice Station Zebra, and opposite Clint Eastwood in Escape
from Alcatraz.

He also worked as an actor, director and writer on the hit 1970s TV
series Columbo, which won him two Emmy awards.

To a later generation of fans, McGoohan became more recognised for
his role as King Longshanks in Mel Gibson's 1995 production of
Braveheart and, over the years, McGoohan made infrequent return
visits to Britain to make television films.
He was offered prestigious roles in both Harry Potter, as Dumbledore,
and the Lord of the Rings trilogy, as Gandalf, but was forced to turn
them down because of ill health.

McGoohan lived his last days in virtual retirement, living in Los
Angeles with his wife of over 50 years, Joan Drummond McGoohan, whom
he met and fell in love with back at the Sheffield Repertory.

Their marriage took place between a rehearsal and evening performance
of The Taming of the Shrew, a production they were both cast in. They
had two daughters, Catherine and Anne, who have both followed his
footsteps into acting.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/entertainment/5083460.stm

Published: 2009/01/14 19:01:09 GMT