Patrick McGoohan RIP

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7829267.stm

Prisoner star McGoohan dies at 80

Patrick McGoohan won awards for detective series Columbo
Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, best known for starring in cult 1960s TV show The Prisoner, has died at the age of 80.

He died in Los Angeles after a short illness, his film producer son-in-law Cleve Landsberg said.

McGoohan played the character Six in the surreal 1960s show, filmed in the north Wales village of Portmeirion.

See, I knew he'd pass on before they finished that remake...

Be Seeing You.

should I bother to see Ice Station Zebra?

yes.

Notable scene: where he acts Rock Hudson off the TABLE!!!

I think my first exposure to McGoohan, since I was too young to have seen "The Prisoner" when it aired, was in Cronenberg's "Scanners." Always interesting to watch.

McGoohan, that is. Well, "Scanners," too.

RIP

be seeing you indeed

We don't make them like him anymore.

RIP.

(cindy snow!)

RIP

This reminds me of how horrible the Prisoner remake is going to be. RIP.

Be seeing you.

http://www.thepennyfarthing.com/images/girl_01_s.jpg

RIP

This thread needs Elvis T. on it. Adding to the RIPs.

I think I've seen one episode of Danger Man. Always wanted to see that London jazz-club film version of Othello, All Night Long, too.

elvis t'ing on RIPs

but yeah, RIP mcgoohan

for some strange reason I always associate him with scanners, too

The Prisoner theme just turned up on a documentary on Saville Row tailors, and it hit me all over again. Really wasn't happy about the remake, as I didn't want anyone fucking with it, but I now see that they can't. Nothing can touch it.

RIP. Not gone, just escaped.

aw crap

I got the Danger Man/Secret Agent boxed set for my birthday and have been really enjoying Danger Man a ton lately. I'll watch one or two episodes a night, if my roomies aren't hogging the tv. RIP Number 6.

mcgoohan and montelban in the same day, a week before Lost premiers? I smell a connection

aw man, rest in peace

xpost All Night Long was on TCM recently; McG. was very believable as the Iago figure, just a slight adjustment of his cunning from Six to this (and Scanners and Ice Station Zebra). Charles Mingus was among the musicians(McGoohan plays a good drum solo--now see, if he could do that, why-o turn to a life of mindcrime?) Have to check Priestley's Mingus bio to see again what he says about this (anybody catch Catch My Soul, with Richie Havens as Othello and Jerry Lee Lewis as Iago?)

This makes me realise I *still* have never seen The Prisoner, that's it I'm buying the DVD box set.

good man!

ok i am sort of torn between being shellshocked/but not really surprised (if that's not an contradiction in terms) and v. irked at low profile of PMG's passing on news, media etc. since he was one of the absolute key figures of television history, up there with potter henson &c. as an innovator & i loved the way he went on to live his life and act as though the prisoner never happened even though he knew all he did would be judged by it but no contrarianism from me here - the prisoner was/is my favourite tv series & one of my fav works of art in any context; it was the standard by wch i based my assessment of everything else on the box viz. if you can't at least strive to do like this (but obv not redo it) then just don't bother & it's depressing that his passing is being treated on the oddball cult weirdo expires hohum basis.

i have a lot more to say obv but i need to get it into shape & put it on the blog. but for me this is a passing on the d bailey/p haines level viz. my hero/idol & all that so i've got the metaphorical black armband on.

fall out, the biggest of men.

This thread needs Elvis T. on it.

Aw man... I heard that his health had been variable, but there was just no way I could bear to list him on a dead pool list... as important to me and my early formative television years as Rod Serling and Jack Webb. Me, my dad, and my brother religiously watched the local PBS re-run of The Prisoner in the 1970s - each episode ending with a follow-up discussion on the episode's themes with the dean of Oregon State's psychology department. I think I was 7 or 8 years old at the time and it was like seeing James Bond, Clint's "Man With No Name," and 2001 all rolled up together. More or less how I got Pavlov'ed on the ITC Production logo/theme - whenever you saw it, something good was on the way.

I kinda wished McGoohan had taken on more "fatherly" roles (for lack of a better description) in addition to the Someone You Don't Want To Mess WIth character he's played since Hell Drivers, I really liked him in the utterly silly Phantom movie. In addition to what's been namechecked here, I liked him in Silver Streak and (if you can find it) The Hard Way (with Lee Van Cleef!)

Also...

(remaining parts continue at YouTube link)

key non-prisoner pmcg moment: at the climax of Hell Drivers where he yells: "I AM NUMBER ONE!"

And still my favorite episode...

I didn't see any mention at all on the TV, not even hohumness...

http://www.anorakzone.com/Prisoner/chimes5.jpg

McGoohan RIP. Marcello OTM.

Remember that Columbus episode where McGoohan slipped a "Be seeing you" into the script?

Columbo?

Or was he in "Carry on Columbus" and I missed it?

He was in Columbo twice! Directed both episodes, I think.

Yeah, he did.

Hell Drivers has an impossibly great cast - a dr who, a james bond, a man from uncle, several carry-ons, the prisoner, george cowley...

guardian obit: http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/2009/jan/14/television2

Was Stanley Baker in it?

Of course he was, he was the star!

he was the star - sort of brit wages of fear-type dodgy trucker epic and he played this ex-con; classic initial entrance of pmcg as he strides into transport caff, sweeps baker's chair away from under him and watches him land on the floor, quietly intoning "i think this is my seat." herbert lom was in it as well.

He won two Emmys guesting on "Columbo."

Born in Astoria, Queens! Left at 6 months.

He must be the most famous failed chicken farmer since Himmler

Cronenberg quote:

"He's a brilliant actor... But he was so angry. His self-hatred came out as anger against everybody and everything. He said to me, 'If I didn't drink I'd be afraid I'd kill someone.' He looks at you that way and you just say, 'Keep drinking.' It's all self-destructive, because it's all self-hating. That's my theory. He was also terrified. The second before we went to shoot he said, 'I'm scared.' I wasn't shocked; Olivier said that he was terrified each time he had to go on stage. With Patrick, though, it was just so raw and so scary—full of anger and potent. But he was sensing the disorganization; the script wasn't there, so he was right to worry about it. He didn't know me. He didn't know whether I could bring it off or not. We parted from the film not on very good terms ultimately."

http://somecamerunning.typepad.com/some_came_running/2009/01/patrick-mcgoohan-19282009.html

http://www.metroactive.com/metro-santa-cruz/07.05.06/gifs/muz-0627.jpg

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/default.stm

A "Daily Quiz" question, and the "Quiz of the week" ends on a prisoner theme...

JOHN MORTIMER DIED TOO! WTF!

I guess that's only connected to this cuz the guy who played Rumpole was also in the Prisoner. STILL AN AMAZING COINCIDENCE!

The guy = Leo McKern. Great actor.

have just been watching some first-season Danger Man eps, where he's very funny as well as truculent. They try to pass his character off as an American working for NATO, though!

has anyone seen this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catch_My_Soul

Nope. But it's weird that he would be involved in a second musical version of Othello!

it was Tony Joe White's wiki that led me there

jerry lee lewis recorded some songs for the musical version and they're pretty great.