PATRICK MCGOOHAN Biography - Other artists & entretainers

 
 

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PATRICK MCGOOHAN
       

Patrick McGoohan (born 19 March 1928) is an American-born Irish actor who starred in the 1960s television series Danger Man (renamed Secret Agent when exported to the US) and cult classic The Prisoner. He has also appeared in a number of films, including Hell Drivers (1957), Scanners (1981) Ice Station Zebra (1968), Braveheart, and A Time to Kill.

       

Born March 19, 1928, the same date as the infamous, nameless character he created and portrayed in The Prisoner, Patrick McGoohan seemed destined for something special, but not what his parents expected of him. His mother had promised God if her first child was a boy, he would grow up to be a priest, and Patrick spent the first 15 years of his life working toward that goal.

       

At school, he excelled in mathematics and boxing, and later worked as a chicken farmer, a bank clerk and a lorry driver before getting a job as a stage manager at Sheffield Repertory. When one of the actors became ill, Patrick took to the boards and never looked back. It was there he immediately fell for a tanned and vivacious actress named Joan Drummond, the woman he reportedly writes love notes to every day. They are still considered one of show business’s happiest couples. True to their passion, they were married between a rehearsal of The Taming of the Shrew and an evening performance.

       

Never one to shy away from controversy, McGoohan became a priest on a few occasions… on stage. In 1955 McGoohan starred in a West End production of a play called Serious Charge, in the role of a priest accused of homosexuality. Orson Welles was so impressed ("intimidated” Welles admitted later) by McGoohan’s stage presence, he cast him as Starbuck in his York theatre production of Moby Dick Rehearsed.