Patrick McGoohan: His career
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I am doing some research on Patrick McGoohan, his career and what was the effect of the Prisoner on his life.
From IMDB:
————–“The series was as popular as it was surreal and allegorical and its mysterious final episode cause such an uproar that McGoohan was to desert England for more than 20 years and seek relative anonynmity in LA, where celebrities are “a dime a dozen”. ”
From IMDB:
————
Wow! So it is true! Seems people were upset. I heard that rumour and couldn’t understand it as the series had been so popular. But after that last episode the fans turned like mean Rotweillers and tore into him. I’d like to learn more details about this.“He was the first choice for the roles of Gandalf in the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy (which went to Ian McKellen) and Dumbledore in the “Harry Potter” films (which went to Richard Harris and later to Michael Gambon after Harris’ death) but turned them down.”
Man! Missed his chance to be getting an Oscar. He turned down Bond as well. I think he must have a Calypso Complex like Odysseus always turning down the Goddess Calypso for his Wife Penelope.
Patrick is 77 this year. I think he is still alive. Birthday March 19.
..
Found a good short bio for his career and what happened after the Prisoner…http://www.danger-man.co.uk/docs/Telegraph.doc
I don’t know when this interview was done. It isn’t dated.
Patrick doesn’t mention anything about public reaction after “The Prisoner”. I have the impression he had too much control in the series and that was eventually a detrimental effect.He was even offered and backed out of a second season. I have the impression of a person who works too hard and burns out. Perhaps it was not a good thing that he had been so popular and had gotten so much power to control the fate of “The Prisoner.” The fault then rests on Lord Grade who gave him far too much leeway.
If one considers the intensity of his performances it makes senseto think that he would be likely to burnout quite often. Definitely some kind of counterbalancing influence on him for his whole life would have been for the better. Then perhaps we would have seen him in Bond and as Gandalf etc.
…
“Then, after only one short series, he abruptly left his puzzled British viewers to go and live in Switzerland and, subsequently, the United States. Ever since, many have wondered why he left so suddenly and what has become of him and his career.In fact, it was McGoohan himself who ended what had become a highly controversial series, saying: “It has knocked me out – I am whacked. I just can’t do it any more”. And it was mounting tax problems which drove him from the country as soon as the series had been completed.”
……..
“But I will never do another television series, not for all the money in the world. Television is fodder, popcorn”.”
But Prisoner Popcorn was one of the better brands.
I think Patrick McGoohan was far ahead of his time.
Consider perhaps the popular “Lost”. Is it not a recycling of the Prisoner Idea with all its themes?
When will they meet Number one?
Will they ever escape?
Who is experimenting with them?
Who are they really? What does identity mean?
….Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
Ezekiel cried, “Dem dry bones!”
“Oh, hear the word of the Lord.”The foot bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’,
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Oh, hear the word of the Lord.The head bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the foot bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!I found an awesome prisoner site. Here is a webpage on the “aftermath” after the episode “fallout”
I don’t know how much of this information is accurate as it contradicts some of the info from other sites. eg. Other sources say that Patrick himself cancelled the series and refused to do a second season.
http://www.the-prisoner-6.freeserve.co.uk/episode_aftermath.htm
“He wrote “Fallout” over the weekend following the decision to cancel the series. The script was only partly finished by the beginning of the next week and filming began with no clear indication of how it was all going to end. The rest was written “on the fly”, some was improvised and Kenneth Griffith, playing the Judge, had to write his own speech. The episode has no dialogue at all in the final third segment. According to Alexis Kanner and others, they made most of the action up on the spot and the musical director describes “miles of wasted film, just because Pat didn’t like it”. All of which possibly means that Fallout was made as expensively and obscurely as possible as a gesture of defiance!”
“It’s true to say that the Fallout episode bears little relationship to the rest of the series and the effect on the remaining TV audience, already struggling to make any sense out of it, was inevitable. They got a rope, lit torches and marched! McGoohan himself tells the story of people “beating on his door with mallets” and how he had to flee the country. A little far fetched perhaps but there was certainly a lot of resentment thrown at him and the ITV switchboards were jammed with complaints for several days after the Fallout transmissions.”
So what it means is that the final episode ws rushed, had not been planned or given enough time to be written and possibly deliberately sabotaged.
Yes, there is little doubt in my mind now that Patrick was actually forced to leave England to find some peace of mind. He might have been quite embarassed.
hehe… They actually came after him like the villagers came after Dr. Frankenstein…. Dr. McGoohanstein, your monster has killed some villagers and they are quite upset.
“in my mind” ..”in MY mind” (remember that?)…there is little doubt that…Fallout was the word of the Lord and that…
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun’,
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun’
Oh, hear the word of the Lord.that
Gosh this is interesting! Didn’t know there was such a to-do after the prisoner series. Patrick McGooan is an awsome actor. If something would make me go see Harry Potter it would be him. Too bad.
He is a villian in an episode of Columbo– one of the best.
[quote=”lizard”]Gosh this is interesting! Didn’t know there was such a to-do after the prisoner series. Patrick McGooan is an awsome actor. If something would make me go see Harry Potter it would be him. Too bad.
He is a villian in an episode of Columbo– one of the best.[/quote]
I didn’t know either. For many decades I only heard one vague rumour that I couldn’t understand. Now, finally it is clarified and confirmed for me. Patrick simply disappeared and then resurfaced in America later on, but never doing the superstar roles he deserved. The story of the aftermath was never carried in North American media. I don’t know about Europe. It is only because of the internet now that we can know a little of the aftermath.
Imagine if there had been the internet back in the old days. There would be a billion articles on the Aftermath.Columbo
———-
Yes, It was four different episodes. Robert Culp did two episodes playing two different villains.
Patrick is very close friends with Peter Falk.
He also won and emmy for one of those episodes.IMDB
“Played four different murderers in four different episodes of “Columbo”: Columbo: By Dawn’s Early Light (1974) (TV), Columbo: Identity Crisis (1975) (TV), Columbo: Agenda for Murder (1990) (TV) and Columbo: Ashes to Ashes (1998) (TV). He also directed all of these except the first as well as Columbo: Last Salute to the Commodore (1976) (TV) and Columbo: Murder with Too Many Notes (2000) (TV).”
“Was at one point considered to replace Peter Falk as Columbo.”
But he would have made a wonderful James Bond. I wonder which Bond movie he turned down?
“But looking for answers in The Prisoner is like going down the rabbit hole in Alice in Wonderland.” heh heh
I seem to recall reading that, supposedly, it was Patrick McGoohan who suggested Sean Connery for the role of Bond after turning it down himself (because of Bond being such a womanizer).
Personally, I think Danger Man/Secret Agent was way better than Bond anyway. 🙂
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