Actors - Patrick McGoohan

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	Actors - Patrick McGoohan

Patrick McGoohan (born March 19, 1928 in Astoria, Queens, New York) is an American-born Irish actor who starred in the 1960s television series Danger Man (renamed Secret Agent when exported to the US) and cult classic The Prisoner. He has also appeared in a number of films, including Hell Drivers (1957), Scanners
(1981), Ice Station Zebra
(1968), Escape from Alcatraz
(1979), Silver Streak
(1976), Braveheart
(1995) and A Time to Kill
(1996).

Born on the same date as the infamous, nameless character he created and portrayed in The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan seemed destined for something special, but not what his parents expected of him. His mother had promised God if her first child was a boy, he would grow up to be a priest, and Patrick spent the first 15 years of his life working toward that goal.

At school, he excelled in mathematics and boxing, and later worked as a chicken farmer, a bank clerk and a lorry driver before getting a job as a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory. When one of the actors became ill, Patrick took to the boards and never looked back. It was there he immediately fell for a tanned and vivacious actress named Joan Drummond, the woman he reportedly writes love notes to every day. They are still considered one of show business's happiest couples. True to their passion, they were married between a rehearsal of The Taming of the Shrew and an evening performance.

Never one to shy away from controversy, McGoohan became a priest on a few occasions... on stage. In 1955 McGoohan starred in a West End production of a play called Serious Charge, in the role of a priest accused of homosexuality. Orson Welles was so impressed by McGoohan's stage presence ("intimidated", Welles admitted later), Welles cast him as Starbuck in his York theatre production of Moby Dick Rehearsed
.

While working as a stand-in during actress screen tests, McGoohan was signed to a contract with the Rank Organisation, a production company known in retrospect more for titillating melodramas than high art. It was clear the producers were more interested in capitalizing on his boxing skill and sapphire eyes than his acting ability, casting him as the conniving bad boy in such films as the gritty 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 and continued on the stage in his favourite role, Ibsen's Brand, for which he received an award, and soon producer Lew Grade approached him about another contract, this time for a TV series. Having learned from his experience as a product of the Rank Organisation, McGoohan insisted on several conditions before agreeing to do the spy show Danger Man: 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. But they hired him anyway. The first series, half-hour shows about a spy named John Drake geared toward an American audience, did fairly well, but not as well as they hoped in the US. It lasted only one year. After the series was over, one interviewer asked McGoohan if he would have liked the series to continue, to which he replied, "I would rather do twenty TV series than go through what I went through under that Rank contract I signed a few years ago for which I blame no one but myself."

Danger Man was rerun in several countries, and gained in cult status worldwide. McGoohan spent some time working for Disney on The Three Lives of Thomasina
and The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh. McGoohan had already turned down the roles of James Bond and The Saint when Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. This time, McGoohan had even more say about the series; it was expanded to an hour and the writing improved considerably, allowing McGoohan more acting range. Its popularity exploded. McGoohan became the highest paid actor in England and it lasted three more seasons... almost.

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Patrick McGoohan ]

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