Dr. Wesley Britton is the author of three books on fictional espionage for Praeger Publishers. His fourth, The Encyclopedia of TV Spies, will be published by Bear Manor Media later this year. Many of his interviews, articles, and reviews are posted at his website. Whilst you're there take a look at this page and this page. No particular reason, you just might find them interesting...

An Actor For All Seasons: Roger Langley Investigates Patrick McGoohan

By Wesley Britton

It's perhaps amazing to realize that, for a series of only 17 episodes, Patrick McGoohan's The Prisoner has enjoyed more space in print than many other TV hits that ran much longer, including his own Danger Man. In terms of full-length books, to give but two examples, the range goes from Alain Carraze and Helene Oswald's excellent 1993 The Prisoner:A Televisionary Masterpiece to tape editor Ian Rakoff's very odd Inside The Prisoner:Radical Television and Film in the 1960s (1998).

Ironically, most writers of such books have occasionally looked back at McGoohan's 86 episodes in Danger Man and see them only as a lead in to The Prisoner. Most ask and ask again the perennial question—was former NATO and MI9 agent John Drake the character captured and held in The Prisoner? From time to time, Danger Man got its due in studies of British television as in Robert Sellers' 2006 Cult TV: The Golden Age of ITC and James Chapman's 2002 Saints & Avengers: British Adventure Series of the 1960s. Back in 1990, David Buxton even gave the series the academic treatment in his book From The Avengers to Miami Vice: Form and Ideology in Television Series. Through it all, however, in all the books, book chapters, articles, interviews, reviews, and essays, there was scant attention to the full career of the actor who has been much more than two classic TV spies. It would seem high time someone expanded the vista and explored the contributions of a man who has had a respectable and successful life before and after the heady days of the 1960s spy renaissance.

In 2007, Prisoner aficionado Roger Langley did just that with his Patrick McGoohan: Danger Man or Prisoner?(Tomahawk Press). The title indicates Langley (and Tomahawk) are aware of what most readers will seek when picking up a biography of the Brooklyn-born “star”—to use a term McGoohan dislikes. Yes, those seeking fresh insigshts into these series won't be disappointed. But, gratefully, Langley tells us much about how McGoohan was shaped as a man and artist before 1961 and how his career evolved after The Prisoner . For example, before Danger Man, McGoohan was a highly-regarded player on the British stage. It was due to his role in an acclaimed London production of Ibsen's Brand (1959), for which he won the London Drama Critics Award, that brought him to the attention of Sir Lew Grade when the mogul was looking for a lead for his new half-hour spy series. Before Americans saw him in Secret Agent, McGoohan had been a contract player for the Rank Corporation in a number of films and worked several times for Walt Disney, including becoming the Vicar of Dymchurch in The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh . True, his profile never again reached the heights McGoohan enjoyed in 1968 when both The Prisoner fascinated viewers of the small screen and Ice Station Zebra gave him his most noted big-screen presence. Then again, McGoohan wasn't after celebrity status and devoted considerable energy in protecting his family's privacy.

But, as Langley demonstrates, within the circles of his profession, long after 1968, McGoohan remained an actor who maintained considerable respect. Peter Falk called on McGoohan repeatedly for various roles in Columbo (for which McGoohan earned two Emmys) and McGoohan could be seen in quality efforts like Murder, She Wrote . His big screen appearances ran the range from Escape from Alcatraz to Silver Streak to Braveheart . In short, John Drake and Number Six are but the tip of the iceberg.

Of course, a good biography is more than a chronological history of any figure, and Langley gives us the heart of McGoohan's personal and professional life—at least, what isn't protected behind the domestic doors of the McGoohan family. Langley was able to interview many colleagues who'd worked with McGoohan over the years, and through their eyes we see a man devoted to his craft but with the warts of a perfectionist who could be an exasperating taskmaster to work with. Because of his participation in “Six of One”—the “Prisoner Appreciation Society” that has been keeping The Prisoner's flame alive since 1977--Langley naturally has much to say on the series, giving us three chapters that go behind-the-scenes as well as analyzing the many meanings viewers have ascribed to the program over the decades. It's hard to imagine anyone will ever provide a more complete portrait of Patrick McGoohan—unless, of course, McGoohan decides to write a memoir of his own. Considering how close he keeps his cards to his chest, this is not likely.

To be fair, Danger Man or Prisoner? Is not a perfect book. For nearly every film mentioned, Langley quotes descriptions from Hal Erickson's All Movie Guide —a source used so many times it raises the question just what other reviews can be found for efforts like Hell Drivers or Silver Streak. Then again, critical responses to McGoohan's movies aren't the point of the book. The revelations are in the new interviews Langley conducted along with salient points drawn from a wealth of previous publications. It's Langley 's own analysis, putting it all into context, that gives this biography its value for readers seeking more than tidbits about “Rover” or why McGoohan said he'd rather be a chicken-farmer than play James Bond.

 To probe deeper into the creation of Danger Man or Prisoner? —and to share some glimpses into what readers can find between its covers--Spywise.net asked Roger a number of questions about both his project and his subject. His answers, we feel, should intrigue anyone who is interested in learning more about an actor whose story has been long neglected—until now.
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Q: While there have been a number of books specifically on The Prisoner, yours is the first biography to talk about Patrick McGoohan from his roots to the present. Why did you decide to write this book?

A: Yes, it is the only biography of the actor and really I worked on it for the past 15 years without actually knowing that a book would be the end result. I was sent so many articles and clippings by people from around the world who contacted me through the appreciation society for The Prisoner, “Six of One” (of which Patrick McGoohan has been Honorary President for over 30 years) and I was in the process of putting these together for a long article for our magazines, possibly to run over a few issues. I eventually realized that there was too much information and there were many gaps from the actor's early years and some of his work. So I set about doing a great deal of research and I conducted interviews with actors who had worked with McGoohan and people who had known him in the past. The information trail gradually dried up and I concluded that everything I could find out was now pretty much in my hands and there was enough material for a full biography. The book was put together between 2006 and 2007, with a great deal of help from my wife and my publisher at Tomahawk Press. He summed up very well the biography by saying, “This book won't tell you everything you need to know about Patrick McGoohan, but it will tell you everything you are ever likely to find out.” Also, as a result of the help from many other people who provided details - and they are all credited at the back of the book - I had more information than was likely to be compiled anywhere else. I also had contact with Patrick McGoohan many times during the preceding 25 years and so with all this, the book's 340 pages present, at last, a very full picture.

Q: If one aspect comes through in your early chapters, it's that Patrick McGoohan was a consummate craftsman of acting, drawing from his education on the stage. Is this why he always describes himself as an actor, not a star?

A: Yes, McGoohan does avoid the word “star” because he has always regarded himself as an actor and just one amongst others who value their profession and give their best in respect of each performance. In fact, he has been quoted in respect of his role in the long-running Danger Man ( Secret Agent) show as saying he wanted to make each episode “as perfect as possible”. Interestingly, the word “best” comes up all the time when people are talking about McGoohan, for example as the best actor they ever had in their production, or he would win a “Best Actor” award or they would talk about him giving his “best performance”. Even McGoohan would talk about one or two productions as “the best thing” he ever did. Another word which crops up often is “perfect” and people talk about McGoohan striving for perfection, or being perfect for a role.

Q: I was struck by the mentor/student relationship McGoohan had with Orson Welles when they worked on Moby Dick. Can you share some of what McGoohan learned from Welles?

A: McGoohan was already a consummate actor when he was chosen by Orson Welles for a part in the stage play Moby Dick and soon learned from his senior how important it was to have the power to direct or determine the course of a production. Welles had artistic freedom and all final decisions were in his hands. He had been given control over his first film, Citizen Kane (1941) and that classic movie has stood the test of time and will always be shown. McGoohan was impressed by the play's director's ingenuity and how Welles would change performances each night, improvising and adding in dialogue, or introducing actions on the spur of the moment. When, a short time later, McGoohan was offered the part of Danger Man, he demanded the removal from the scripts of gun killings, gratuitous violence and romantic scenes. He proceeded to turn what would have been a James Bond type character into a moral figure, fighting for justice. If he had not learned to take control in this way, the production might have been very different and of course McGoohan might never have been in charge of the next series, The Prisoner, as he was. Ironically, like Welles, McGoohan was never completely satisfied with his performance, except perhaps in a couple of cases. Welles gave McGoohan strength and revealed that he was enormously impressed by the younger actor. In turn, McGoohan marvelled at the way Welles had, “a dozen different creative ideas a minute.”

Q: That leads to my next question. Over the years, much has been made of McGoohan's “prudish” nature, especially in regards to scenes with women and violence on screen. I gather you think that term is a bit simplistic, and that McGoohan's background is not so easily pigeonholed?

A: The actor married his wife, Joan, in 1951 and they have now been together for nearly 60 years, being now great grandparents. He said in some interviews that he would not want his children seeing him kissing another woman on screen. At other times he said he regarded television as a guest in people's homes and children might be watching. However, the biography mentions a number of times when there was an on-screen kiss, including in the early Rank movies, High Tide at Noon, The Gypsey and the Gentleman, and Nor the Moon by Night. In his later years, scripts were not of the sort which required any kissing and so whether his views changed subsequently is not known. Personally, I think that if the script required some on-screen affection this would have been part of the role and would have presented no problem to McGoohan. However, where it was not necessary, he would strike out the scene from the script and he did this in a Prisoner episode, “The Chimes of Big Ben”. In the story he was supposed to kiss a woman kidnapped to the same place where he was being held. The scriptwriter was irritated that McGoohan would only agree to play with her hair and not get into a clinch. Violence is a different matter, but the same general principles seemed to be applied and once again it depended upon the role. Certainly violence was out in the case of Danger Man and McGoohan would hardly ever carry or use a gun on screen. Later he did take some tough roles and maybe he thought that they were not the sort of productions which would be seen by children anyway. I'm only guessing here and I don't know that McGoohan ever took a moral stand, as such, on the question of cinema screen violence. I know he felt that there was often too much gratuitous killing portrayed and he would not agree to include it just for the sake of it. Today, of course, movies have gone much further than McGoohan ever contemplated. Ironically, in the last episode of The Prisoner, there was a machine gun battle, but there was no blood shown and it was tepid compared with today's screen violence. It was included because it was making a point and as a counterpoint had the Beatles' song “All You Need is Love” playing over the scene.

Q: Your book is one of the few to give much attention to Danger Man in this depth. Do you think it had significance beyond being the first major British spy show?

A: I think that Danger Man started out as a simple half-hour adventure show, in keeping with the many similar type of short productions which proliferated on TV in the late fifties and through the sixties. However, it was when McGoohan was invited back for a one-hour series later in the 1960s that the show came of age and by then, James Bond had hit cinema screens. With the stories being longer, scripts could be more varied and John Drake could travel the world, getting involved in government plots, foreign coups, bomb plots, kidnappings and secret data. It was the era for spy shows and as so many articles were written in magazines about McGoohan, he became synonymous with his screen character and this led to, in the end, 86 episodes being filmed. Drake became a regular visitor to people's homes and his courage, moral stand and pursuit of the truth was an upstanding facet, giving him a realistic personality. Nowadays, most of the shows are ensemble pieces so that we get to know all of the people in a particular hospital or a police headquarters or firehouse etc. In Danger Man, McGoohan was the main and central character, with very few other regular players and scripts mostly using guest stars. People around the world could identify with the character of Drake and the show was presented in over 60 countries. Danger Man was on TV the equivalent of the James Bond movies on cinema screens and the inventive scripts, with the powerful acting of McGoohan, made the show a big hit.

Q: You devote three chapters to The Prisoner - no surprise as that is the show that has inspired so much discussion for all these years. As this year is the 40th anniversary of the series, what themes do you think resonate now?

A: A short question, which is incapable of a short answer! Some of the ‘political' issues are with us today: surveillance, loss of freedom, storing of personal data, computer records and vast databases, invasion of privacy etc. However, The Prisoner was so much more. In no particular order, there is the autobiographical element, with McGoohan putting into some stories facts about his own life and his own date of birth, his own handwriting, his school years and so on. Then, there is the effect of the sixties decade itself, causing the series to be transformed as time passed. What began as an apparent kidnapping of a spy to a strange place called “The Village”, ended up with surreal stories, an allegory of life itself (as McGoohan would boast), a show with religious overtones (remember, McGoohan was training to be a priest in his teens and was brought up a strict Roman Catholic) and finally ‘spoof' segments, like some of the spy films around at the time. So much of what happened back then would not resonate now, except in a kind of retro way, for people who like to appreciate old TV. What is still with us is the rebellious spirit of the main character, refusing to be “numbered” and demanding his right to privacy and freedom. The people in control of the Village in which he was held are synonymous with governments around the world, and McGoohan was on record as being concerned about the amount of power and control some people had and the abuse of it. He was also concerned with the proliferation of nuclear weapons and this is reflected in the final episode of The Prisoner. There is so much more which could be said but as one of the production crew stated neatly, The Prisoner is “about life itself”. The fact that McGoohan had the control that was mentioned earlier was a blessing, because without his being in overall charge of the production, there would have been a much tighter reign on what he wanted to create. As it was, his artistic flair and input into the series meant that it was unique and students of TV can watch the series today and marvel how an ordinary prime-time show could become so complex and still be discussed four decades later.

Q: Is it true McGoohan has never made any money on The Prisoner?

A: Like Danger Man, The Prisoner was financed by ATV, the company in Britain which produced the shows for the independent TV channel, ITV. A decade earlier there had really only been one TV channel in Britain , which was the BBC. Now, the commercial channel, with its advert breaks, was able to be a competitor to the BBC and many ITV shows were action-adventure ones, commissioned by TV mogul Lew Grade. He saw McGoohan in a TV play and wanted him immediately for the part of John Drake in Danger Man. After the series ended, McGoohan went to him asking for funding for his proposed Prisoner venture. Grade simply ‘signed the cheque' and the show went ahead on the strength of Grade believing that McGoohan was so popular that The Prisoner could not fail. McGoohan's own production company, Everyman Films - of which his producer on The Prisoner, David Tomblin, was also a company director - was given the funds to make the show and they had at that time the biggest budget ever for television shows of this nature. Unfortunately, so the story goes, the company ended up owing taxes to the Inland Revenue and Everyman Films was eventually liquidated. Whatever income McGoohan received personally at the time or since is his own personal business and I don't know what was or is the situation. What I can say is that McGoohan claims that he never made any money from The Prisoner.

Q: McGoohan's career got a major boost when he made several appearances on Columbo. I gather he and Peter Falk really got on well and that helped McGoohan have the opportunity to have so many roles on the show. I especially liked his comeback as a spy in “Identity Crisis”. What will readers learn about his Columbo work in your book?

A: Yes, McGoohan was involved in six episodes of Columbo, variously as lead guest actor, writer, or director on all but one of them. Peter Falk wrote the foreword for my biography and it is clear that he regarded McGoohan as the best contributor to the show he had encountered. Also, McGoohan was the only actor in Columbo to win two Emmy awards for separate performances. It is obvious on screen that the two men enjoy sparring with each other and Falk talked about McGoohan particularly liking the “bite mark” evidence on a piece of cheese in the story “Agenda for Murder”. Firstly in “By Dawn's Early Light”, McGoohan played an army colonel who does not want his training academy turned into a non-military college. He uses a ceremonial cannon to dispatch the person promoting the change. In “Identity Crisis” he played a wily secret agent who covertly kills another person who might blow his cover. A few Prisoner themes appear in that story with McGoohan offering a “Be seeing you” as he often did in the earlier show. In “Ashes to Ashes” he plays a mortician who uses his furnace to dispose of a woman he has killed. In “Last Salute to the Commodore” McGoohan changed the format of the series to have the suspects assembled at the end and to reveal the culprit. Falk liked this idea and McGoohan was invited back for two ‘specials' late on in the run of the show, the last being “Murder with too Many Notes” which he directed and co-wrote. The Emmy awards were for “By Dawn” and “Agenda”. Falk considered McGoohan to be “...the most underrated, under-appreciated talent on the face of the globe”. The book revisits Columbo a few times, as McGoohan was involved with the show over 25 years.

Q: From Scarecrow of Romney Marsh through Mary, Queen of Scots (which also starred future 007 Timothy Dalton ), Man in The Iron Mask , McGoohan has starred in a number of costume dramas. Why do few critics point to his work in all these historical settings?

A: Yes, McGoohan put in strong appearances in many costume and historical dramas, both on TV and in movies. This is often a forgotten side of his work and from the 1950s films like The Gypsy and the Gentleman to the Oscar-winning movie Braveheart in the mid 1990s, the actor has taken many costume parts and historical roles. To digress a little, he has also taken many roles on stage, ranging from a church figure accused of impropriety, to being in a spy play during the Broadway 1985 run of Pack of Lies . He has appeared in Westerns, powerful dramas about a bank robbery, or being a doctor facing a young girl who will die without an operation, plus lighter roles for Disney in films which have been shown repeatedly for many years. I suppose it is because his career has been so vast that it is not possible for a journalist to encompass his work in an article and only a biography can truly do justice to McGoohan's achievements on stage and on screen.

Q: I'd never heard of Kings and Desperate Men , but your book suggests it's a well-regarded film. Were its terrorist themes ahead of their time in the early 1980s?

A: In Kings, McGoohan teamed up again with Alexis Kanner, who had been in the last few episodes of The Prisoner. The Canadian born actor was also director on Kings and was in charge of the production as well. He played a ‘freedom fighter' who kidnaps a radio host (McGoohan) and conducts a trial over the airwaves while McGoohan's family is held hostage elsewhere. It is a powerful and compelling film and the two man show is reminiscent of the tour-de-force which was the penultimate episode of The Prisoner, “Once Upon A Time”. In that story McGoohan and actor Leo McKern were locked in a battle of wits in a sealed chamber for a week in order for the village leader to try and break finally the prisoner, during nearly an hour on screen of questioning and psychological interrogation. Alexis Kanner, who was a regular guest at the Six of One conventions in Portmeirion (North Wales, where The Prisoner was filmed) only ever envisaged McGoohan for the lead role in the movie and was delighted when the actor accepted. Kanner believed that later movies like Die Hard ‘borrowed' the plot of Kings and, yes, I believe that the movie was ahead of its time. It was not a commercial hit but it has been released on video, although not as a DVD (yet).

Q: What other films would you recommend featuring McGoohan – Escape from Alcatraz ? Scanners ?

A: Well, firstly, much depends upon the type of movie which a person enjoys. In Escape From Alcatraz , the actor plays a cold-hearted warden, trying to prevent Clint Eastwood escaping from the maximum security prison. Scanners was not one of McGoohan's favourite movies and he jokingly said that he was unable even to remember the name of the director of that production (David Cronenberg). Several of his films from the late fifties and early sixties are black and white dramas, as were his television plays. I think there is no doubt that the biggest opportunity on screen came for McGoohan when he was invited to Hollywood to take a lead part in the blockbuster movie Ice Station Zebra in 1967. The Prisoner production was put on hold and while another episode was made in his absence (with the central character having his mind transported into the body of another man!) McGoohan did a sterling job in the action-packed, submarine adventure under the North Pole, with Rock Hudson being the commander of the nuclear submarine. This, I think, was ‘pure' McGoohan, but there have been many other excellent performances. In the biography, there is a separate appendix at the back listing all of his movies, TV appearances, TV series, theatre plays and even radio interviews. Braveheart is certainly the best of his more recent undertakings, but he did play very well a nasty villain in the popular movie Silver Streak (1976) which starred Gene Wilder. “Dr. Syn (The Scarecrow of Romney Marsh” is another major contender and McGoohan put in a great performance in the prison movie The Quare Fellow (1962). He even played a drummer in the jazzed-up Othello-based All Night Long (1961) and actually learned to play the skins in order to be authentic on screen. Finally, I would recommend Hell Drivers (1957) in which McGoohan plays a violent truck driver.

Q: Any other aspects of McGoohan's work which deserve a mention?

A: What is often overlooked is that he did many of his own stunts. He learned boxing at school and is always formidable on screen when he is in a fight. He did a dangerous sword duel on top of a cliff in The Man in the Iron Mask (1976). In summary, he always gave his best and after reading the book one sees how widely varied were McGoohan's performances and achievements, even though history might remember him mainly for The Prisoner and to a large extent Danger Man. Finally, can I just sum up your questions with a quote from The Prisoner: “Questions are a burden to others, answers a prison for oneself.”