| famous british actor patrick mcgoohan, known to millions as the prisoner, as well as dangerman and a host of various career villians, died tuesday at the age of 80.
wired.com:
i am not a number, i am a free man!" patrick mcgoohan's character number six shouted at the panoptic eye in the sky at the beginning of every episode of the revolutionary '60s sci-fi tv series the prisoner. and although the character would come to dominate mcgoohan's life and even chase him out of london following the series' controversial 1968 finale, "fall out," mcgoohan is a prisoner no longer.
the actor died tuesday in los angeles at the age of 80, a still-underrated legend whose influence will no doubt grow larger as this still-new millennium unfurls.
a cosmopolitan iconoclast in an entertainment world still teeming with conformists, mcgoohan was known for both his brawn and brains, a rare combination. born in queens, new york, in 1928, his family soon moved to ireland and eventually england, where mcgoohan made his name... |
unlike the brusque heavies he played in films like 1957's hell drivers or plays like shakespeare's taming of the shrew or orson welles' moby dick rehearsed, danger man's john drake was the ultimate cool customer, a globe-hopping fixer for nato who nearly always solved major geopolitical tangles with brainy stratagems rather than sex or violence. mcgoohan's resolute morality would eventually pave the way for others to become stars: he passed up both the roles of james bond and the saint's simon templar, opening doors for roger moore.
when danger man was resuscitated as an hour-long thriller in 1964, mcgoohan flexed his muscle further, demanding more room to act, sharper plots and more friction with his superiors, which set the stage for the intelligence showdowns that would serve as the thematic center of every prisoner episode.
he also became one of the highest-paid actors in england, which he parlayed into roles in spooky disney films like dr. syn, the scarecrow of romney marsh and the three lives of thomasina. along the way, he impressed nearly without fail. welles called his acting "intimidating;" billionaire howard hughes obsessively watched ice station zebra, a nuclear thriller in which mcgoohan appeared alongside rock hudson, jim brown and more; secret agent man's eponymous musical theme, performed by johnny rivers, became a pop hit. he could do no wrong.
that is, until the controversial 1968 finale of the prisoner, which - like the later cliffhangers of similar envelope-pushing programs like david lynch's twin peaks or j.j. abrams lost - confounded conventional expectation and stoked a viewer outrage that mcgoohan admits led him to leave london for los angeles for good. (for an extended analysis of danger man and the prisoner's cultural influence, read wired.com's feature, eerily published hours before mcgoohan passed.)
we enjoyed every stage of mr. mcgoohan's career, from the early showings of secret agent man, as danger man was known in this country, thru the seminal confusion of the prisoner, to the later guest villainy against his friend peter falk's character of columbo.
wired infers that today's producer/writers of non-linear alternative television like jj abrams and david lynch owe much to mcgoohan's number six:
from the outset, mcgoohan constructed the prisoner as an escape vehicle designed to tease brains and incite response. its main character, number six, was, like john drake, an intelligence agent, but one tired of the grind and looking to retire, much like mcgoohan when he dreamed up the character after expressing a desire to leave danger man. he conceived the series nearly on his own, and wrote and directed several episodes, including some of the finest: "many happy returns" and the last two episodes "once upon a time" and "fall out." when he first thought up the influential series, mcgoohan wrote a 50-page prisoner bible that explained everything actors, producers and other principals needed to know.
and there was a lot to know, given that the show skewed television stranger than most anything that had aired at the time, including the twilight zone. though designed to last only a few episodes, the prisoner's popularity and bravery stretched the show's run to 17, with the later installments like "living in harmony" and "the girl who was death" head-tripping off into the western genre and surrealism, respectively.
from technological nightmares of surveillance and murderous inventions like the balloon rovers to brain transplants and clockwork orange-like torture, the prisoner challenged viewer expectation and experience with every episode. the prisoner was an allegory of the individual, aiming to find peace and freedom in a dystopia masquerading as a utopia.
some of the roles mcgoohan happily passed up in his career: james bond, simon templar (both to eventually go to roger moore), gandolf in the lord of the rings trilogy, and dumbledore in the harry potter films.
mcgoohan was terribly under-rated, as an actor and producer. and his character's angry defiance resonated in everybody's post-modern techno-pression:
i am not a number, i am a free man!
and, as they always seem to go all at once, we learned of the passing of another iconic sci-fi legend: ricardo montalban, who played capt. kirk's arch nemisis kahn (years before george lucas's clone wars), died wednesday at age 88.
sfchron:
from the 1950s and decades on, mr. montalban appeared in several films. in the late 1970s, he won an emmy for his performance as chief satangkai in the television miniseries "how the west was won."
in the 1970s and '80s, he became a commercial spokesman for chrysler. he was particularly known - and later widely spoofed - for his silky allusion to the "soft corinthian leather" of the chrysler cordoba, although no such leather actually existed.
while making "fantasy island," mr. montalban also gave one of his best movie performances - as khan noonien singh in the 1982 film "star trek ii: the wrath of khan," a follow-up to a beloved 1967 "star trek" television episode that also featured mr. montalban.
as khan, mr. montalban was deliciously over the top, vowing to wreak revenge on starfleet adm. james t. kirk: "i'll chase him 'round the moons of nivea, and 'round the antares maelstrom, and 'round perdition's flames before i give him up."
rest in peace, patrick mcgoohan and ricardo montalban. |
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