Patrick McGoohan Dies

While the rest of the world calls to mind The Prisoner television phenomenon upon hearing of the death of actor Patrick McGoohan, there will be many of us who remember other roles. I think first of Longshanks, King Edward I, in Braveheart, and while the movie drives me bonkers, McGoohan is not the problem. He made a fine Edward I. While the role was not written to be a very complex or subtle one, neither was Edward himself.

I remember also an earlier role, as James Stuart in Mary, Queen of Scots. The first time I saw it, when the scene came up where John Knox challenges Mary about her religious views, and she responds, "I support the Church in Rome," Stuart's "Ride on" elicited a lot of "Right on!@" from the audience. The second time I saw it I looked forward to the audience's similar reaction but was disappointed.

Of course McGoohan was in a lot of other movies and television shows. My favorite was his role as Andrew MacDhui in Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina. That should not be surprising as not only is one of the characters in my novel named for him, Roddy MacDhui, the lieutenant and lover of Finn O'Donnell, one of the conspirators in the war in Affynshire, but so is one of our cats. I remember hearing said of Susan Hampshire, who plays McGoohan's love interest in Thomasina and is my all-time favorite, that though he thought little of young actresses, he was impressed with how hard and seriously Hampshire worked on her craft.

I always liked the intensity of the roles McGoohan played, refined, condensed and encapsulated in the opening of The Prisoner as he stomps into headquarters and slams his fist on a desk. He is also, at his death, one of those reminders of my own aging, as I realize I am now going to hear of the passing of many of the singers and actors I loved as a young woman. I feel his loss more than most. I just wish he had been in more historical movies than just Braveheart, Mary, Queen of Scots, The Three Lives of Thomasina, and as Fouquet in The Man in the Iron Mask.

I wish I had found a clip of McGoohan as James Stuart, Earl of Murray.