be seeing you
This is late, but Dorkin was right: 80's a good number to hit, but this one hurt.
Patrick McGoohan died on Jan. 13, a few days before he would've turned 81, after a short illness.
I became a fan of his via his best, and most enduring work, The Prisoner. I kept hearing about it in interviews with my favorite comics writers, many of whom are British. Blew their minds, they said. Changed everything. Many of the most famous franchises today owe a great deal to it, from Lost to The X-Files to Fringe to Battlestar Galactica to The Matrix. So I was glad to find that my only Anglophone friend Erwin actually had the box set of all 17 episodes. TV's first classic, it said on the side. And it was.
It's a brilliant, amazing series. Doubly so when you consider the time it was made. 1967, I think. Neva and I loved how stylish it was, how witty, how clever. Thought and care seemed to be put into everything, from production design to costumes to the writing. And such great plots! They felt like they had such great heft, too. We couldn't watch more than two episodes at a time.
It was one of Britain's first color series, and he was their highest paid TV actor. Fresh from a popular black and white espionage show called Danger Man (Secret Agent in the US), where McGoohan insisted his character not use guns or seduce women. He was growing tired of the show, especially after new, American owners of the network wished to see more "car chases, shootouts and sex scenes."
He had his own production company, so he convinced a British TV exec to fund The Prisoner over a ten-minute breakfast. Though he'd written 40 pages of notes about the show, the characters, the costumes, the props, the music, the village, the style in which it would be shot, it wasn't necessary. He was trusted enough and it was approved.
It felt like a semi-sequel to Danger Man because it concerned a spy who, upon retirement, was kidnapped and whisked away to a mysterious village for retirees from the intelligence community, those who know too much to be allowed to live freely. He co-created, wrote 5 episodes (including the best ones), executive produced, and occasionally directed (he was a harsh producer; if he wasn't happy with the director of a particular episode he would take over). He even "composed" the theme song, by humming the tune to the composer.
It wasn't as big a hit as Danger Man and was the topic of much debate. But its finale netted one of the largest audiences in British TV history as throngs of people wanted to uncover the mystery of who was behind The Village. Suffice to say, the finale threw those expectations for a loop and near-riots occurred, prompting McGoohan to hide in the mountains for 2 weeks until he was told things were calmer.
Of course, it became one of the first TV shows to have a cult grow around it, not just geeks but academics studying every facet of it. The biggest group is called Six of One, and McGoohan was honorary president for 37 years, right up until he died, though he never attended the annual conventions, which were held at the shooting location of the show, the singular Portmeirion in Wales. In fact, he never returned to Portmeirion after the show. The only time he reprised his role was for a cameo in an episode of The Simpsons.
Other trivia:
- Orson Welles cast him in a production of Moby Dick.
- he turned down the role of James Bond twice, before and after Connery, thinking of the character as a "stock gunman who treated women badly." He also turned down the role of Simon Templar in The Saint TV series.
- he was Peter Jackson's first choice for Gandalf (ironically, Ian McKellen is starring in a Prisoner remake)
- 20 years ago, Mel Gibson was supposed to play McGoohan's character Number 6 in a film adaptation that never happened. But he met and liked McGoohan enough to cast him in Braveheart as Edward I. A few years ago another attempt was made but stalled at pre-production (Brendan McCarthy was involved). Most recent news I remember is it's supposed to be Christopher Nolan's post-Dark Knight project, with a script by David & Janet Peoples (Blade Runner, 12 Monkeys).
- Jack Kirby, a big fan of the show, made 17 pages of an aborted Marvel Comics adaptation.
- he wrote and directed some episodes of Columbo, and acted as Columbo's most cunning foe.
I have this authorized sequel, a comic book called Shattered Visage by Dean Motter and Richmond Lewis, both of whom I'm a fan of. In it a young woman spy discovers that The Village is still operational, and she goes there to discover Number 6. I can't quite accept it as canon, the way the deleted scenes of In the Mood for Love are really part of another universe to me. But Lewis does some amazing things with color in that book, at a time before computer coloring was the norm. The story's good too except 6 appears late in the book.
The remake of The Prisoner is supposed to air this year. Jim Caviezel is the new Number 6.
McGoohan retired in California, where he wrote a novel, poetry, TV scripts, and worked as a script doctor.
He had 3 daughters by his wife of more than 50 years.
He was not a number. He is a free man.
