The Chronicle

Patrick McGoohan will probably be best remembered for The Prisoner, the surrealist spy drama that he created and starred in the 1960’s.  Playing the unnamed government agent who was not allowed to retire, and incarcerated in  he gloriously bizarre village, where he was known only as Number 6.  Prior to The Prisoner,  McGoohan played the spy John Drake for four years in the successful series  Dangerman which McGoohan claimed had no connection to the Number 6, who definitely was not John Drake.  McGoohan had obviously lost interest in the project and during a gap in production of The Prisoner went off to Pinewood to make the big screen adaptation of Alastair McLean’s Ice Station Zebra.  The final episode of The Prisoner entitled Fall Out was hurriedly written after the series had been cancelled and later in life McGoohan admitted he did not have a clue what it was all about.

McGoohan’s untraceable accent was the product of a wandering youth, he was born in New York, spent his childhood in Ireland and his adolescence in Sheffield, England.  He was a devout Roman Cath0lic and turned down the role of James Bond in Doctor No because he disapproved of the character’s loose morals.  It is rumoured that  this strong  religious belief lead to arguments about religion with Sir Clough William Ellis, the owner of Portmeirion, where The Prisoner was filmed, which was one of the reason for the cancellation of the series.

McGoohan continued acting until 2002, when his last role was providing the voice of a character in the film Treasure Planet.

Patrick Joseph McGoohan (March 19, 1928 – January 13, 2009)