“The Prisoner” Actor Patrick Mcgoohan Dies at Age 80

Patrick McGoohan, an Emmy Award-winning actor starred as a spy in the 1960s TV series “Secret Agent” and later became immensely popular in “The Prisoner,” has died at 80. Read more on Patrick Mcgoohans death below.

Actor Patrick McGoohan died Tuesday at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, McGoohan’s son-in-law.

Mcgoohan starred as “Secret Agent,” a British-produced series in which he played John Drake, a special security agent working as a spy for the British government.

But it was McGoohan’s next series called“The Prisoner,” that became a cult classic.

Known only as No. 6, he is interrogated by a succession of officials who are known as No. 2. But he refuses all methods of breaking him down to reveal his past or why he resigned, and he repeatedly makes failed attempts to escape.

McGoohan co-created and executive-produced the series, which ran for only 17 episodes, as well as wrote and directed several episodes.

As a guest star on Peter Falk’s TV detective series “Columbo,” McGoohan won Emmys in 1975 and 1990.

Falk once described McGoohan, who also occasionally worked as a director and writer on the “Columbo” mysteries, as being “mesmerizing” as an actor.

“There are many very, very talented people in this business, but there are only a handful of genuinely original people,” Falk told the Hollywood Reporter in 2004. “I think Patrick McGoohan belongs in that small select group of truly original people.”

Patrick Mcgoohan was born in the Astoria section of Queens, N.Y., on March 19, 1928. Some months later, his family returned to Ireland, where he grew up on a farm before moving to Sheffield, England, when he was 7.

In the 1940’s Patrick Mcgoohan became a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory Theatre, where he soon began his acting career.

In 1951, he married actress Joan Drummond, with whom he had three daughters, Catherine, Anne and Frances.

In 1959, he received a London Drama Critics Award for his performance in a London stage production of Ibsen’s “Brand.”

On television, McGoohan also starred in the short-lived 1977 medical drama “Rafferty.”

Sharif Ali, McGoohan’s agent, said McGoohan had been writing and had two acting offers on the table before he died.

“He really didn’t talk much about his illness,” said Ali. “We were too busy talking about his future; he was excited to get back to work. He had so much more to give.”

In addition to his wife and daughters, McGoohan is survived by five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

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Images: WENN.com

Source: news

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