If any actor's death deserves the full treatment here at Video WatchBlog, it's the death of actor-producer-writer-director Patrick McGoohan, which unfortunately has been reported today by the Associated Press and other news sources. Unfortunately, I'm too occupied with various work at present to eulogize him now as he deserves.I've written quite a bit about McGoohan recently, though, while he was still among us. There was my cover story on THE PRISONER for VIDEO WATCHDOG #142, and my review of his early film THE QUARE FELLOW for last month's SIGHT AND SOUND; his Disney serial DOCTOR SYN - THE SCARECROW is in my "to review" stack for VW; and his performance in Disney's haunting cat fantasy THE THREE LIVES OF THOMASINA has been on my mind the last couple of weeks (I need to watch that one again). As everyone else is saying, McGoohan was THE PRISONER and, as not enough people are saying, he was also John Drake in the greatest espionage series ever, DANGER MAN aka SECRET AGENT.
He was a brittle, charming, mysterious, ruthless, deeply principled actor, capable of turning from kindly to harsh in the steely flash of an eye. His early work shows him in the Richard Attenborough mold (he must have studied BRIGHTON ROCK closely as a young man) but he quickly took charge of his own career and succeeded in shattering those perimeters to become his Own Man. What is left to be said? At his best, he was unbelievably compelling; even at his worst, he was endlessly fascinating -- his audience would delight in constructing theories about why he was off. You would think the abundance of quality work he left behind would satiate us, but he leaves us standing, applauding, wanting more. That, young actors everywhere, is how it's done.
A giant.
