Patrick McGoohan: R.I.P.

[MakarovaFan]

I just read on the Los Angeles Times website that Emmy Award-winning actor Patrick McGoohan of "Secret Agent", "The Prisoner" and "Braveheart" fame, died peacefully yesterday at a Santa Monica, CA hospital after a short illness. He was 80 years old.

Mr. McGoohan was my favorite actor for his entire body of work, not just the 2 tv series in the 1960's that made him a star. He was immensely and uniquely talented as an actor/writer/director and had tremendous integrity about his craft. He will be sorely missed.

[dirac]

Thank you for posting this, MakarovaFan. This is sad news. I never thought of McGoohan as being as much as eighty, but time does fly, doesn’t it. You are quite right, his body of work amounts to much more than his famous TV roles.

Here’s the AFP story:

Emmy-winning actor Patrick McGoohan, famed for his role in the cult 1960s television series "The Prisoner," has died in Los Angeles, his agent said Wednesday. He was 80.

McGoohan, who played the un-named Number Six in the surrealistic series about a secret agent trapped in a giant prison disguised as a seaside resort, passed away following a short undisclosed illness, agent Sharif Ali said.

[papeetepatrick]

I didn't know his other work, but just 'The Prisoner' was enough for me. I was hypnotized by it as a child and never missed it. I thought it was amazing.

[dirac]

He was very much involved in the development of the series (which is on DVD).

I have read that he turned down the role of James Bond in "Dr. No" on moral grounds.

[dirac]

Ricardo Montalban is also gone, aged 88. Not a good week. Scott Eyman remembers Montalban in The Palm Beach Post:

The obituaries about Montalban are all about “Fantasy Island” and “corinthian leather.” I remember a man who was proud to be the first Mexican to succeed as a leading man in Hollywood, but was considerably prouder of having survived after MGM cut him loose, and he found himself carrying his own luggage from one-nighter to one-nighter of “John Brown’s Body.” It was then that Montalban rediscovered the fact that he was an actor before he was a movie star.

[papeetepatrick]

Ricardo Montalban is also gone, aged 88. Not a good week.

A few years ago I got the LP off eBay of 'Jamaica', the old Arlen show with Lena Horne, who is one of the few really old show biz musician loves of mine still with us, and Montalban. I didn't even know he'd done Broadway till I got the album.

[dirac]

Montalban was really quite versatile. He might have been a bigger star in movies if the era had been different and he had been given a wider range of roles to do.

[dirac]

A good obit of McGoohan in The Independent.

Orson Welles once said of McGoohan that he could have been one of the major stars of his generation: he had the looks and the intensity and painted most of the roles he played with a wryness and a satirical edge that made him a compelling actor to watch. Yet this complicated man, highly-strung, unpredictable and irascibly enigmatic, seemingly threw away his career while at the height of his fame and influence and was never again to fully recapture it.

Evidently he turned down Bond because he didn't approve of heroes who habitually carried guns (or of the Bond girl hanky panky).

[bart]

I, like patrick, was hypnotized by The Prisoner in my youth. I'd never seen anything like it -- and never did again, on network, anyway.

Thanks, dirac, for the very informative obit from The Independent. I'm interested in the writer's assumption (quoted above) that someone who does not pursue stardom and who follows his own path is "throwing away his career." Perhaps he was making a considered, personal choice about what to do and what not to do with his life.

[papeetepatrick]

I'm interested in the writer's assumption (quoted above) that someone who does not pursue stardom and who follows his own path is "throwing away his career." Perhaps he was making a considered, personal choice about what to do and what not to do with his life.

Totally agree, and surely he was doing that. Lots of people who are neither stars nor following their own path think that somebody else should, however, have 'known to go ahead and be a star.' So look at some of the people who are now called stars in Hollywood--it's often appalling. Another mistake is to think that the combination which produces both a star and a 'follower of his own path' is obviously the best combination. But that doesn't follow either, because art is just not that simple. All sorts of other people talk about how Orson Welles didn't fully realize his potential. It's as if they needed it to be in a somewhat more conventional order so that the genius were pre-arranged for the recipient, as it were, step-by-step. That's because sometimes it does work out in this very orderly way, of course, but that's not reason enough to think that that way is the 'most ideal' version.

[Quiggin]

All sorts of other people talk about how Orson Welles didn't fully realize his potential.

It's sort of a stock response with Welles--despite all the riches he's given, despite his "shallow genius." Why don't they say that instead of Spielberg or Lucas where it's far more appropriate.

Regarding McGoohan, I never warmed up to The Prisioner; it seemed rather schematic. But I liked Danger Man / Secret Agent a whole lot. There is a great photo from Hell's Drivers (1957) of Patrick McGoohan and Sean Connery and Stanley Baker (of Losey's "Eva, the Devil's Woman") at the Guardian.

[dirac]

I’ll take the conventional view that Welles did waste his talent, although the waste was not entirely his own doing. I’m grateful for the wonderful things he did give us but I wish for his sake and ours that there was more (and sometimes better).

Regarding McGoohan, the article mentions tax problems, illness, and drinking. He left fine work behind him, but again I think it’s legitimate to wonder why such a gifted actor doesn’t quite have the triumphant career trajectory that could have been expected, despite leaving work of genuine value behind.

I do agree that it can be impertinent to ask why someone walks away from fame of his own free will - as if there aren't other things of value in the world beyond the red carpet.

Quiggin, I agree about Spielberg. Lucas I think has made the most of what he has.

[papeetepatrick]

but again I think it’s legitimate to wonder why such a gifted actor doesn’t quite have the triumphant career trajectory that could have been expected, despite leaving work of genuine value behind.

I agree with your other version of this, regarding someone like Montalban, when it has to do with the era itself, i.e., when someone is not in the right one for him/her to flourish as fully as he would naturally otherwise; and Montalban's presence was always welcome--even as it was, he had a very successful career. This applies to lots of actors, I'd think, from Betty Hutton to Martha Scott, to even Charlotte Rampling maybe. I probably think that, given Welles's prodigious achievements, it's a bit like resenting Mozart for having died young, or Martha Graham for 'Maple Leaf Rag' at the age of 96 not being as groundbreaking as 'Primitive Mysteries'; he just achieved too much IMO for me to think he 'should have done more'. The idea of 'not realizing one's artistic potential' makes me think of some of my own favourites, like Ava Gardner, who was a big star and sometimes turned in great performances, but sometimes really did just 'phone in' and could be very lazy, but...on the other hand, just being Ava Gardner was plenty accomplishment, so I guess I just don't demand that gifted people always be blue ribbon. It's true that Edith Evans always was, and Olivier and Garbo mostly, but that's not even the part I most value about even those, which is just whatever individual performances are really good. Now maybe you can tell me if I'm totally wrong about Jennifer Jones, who I can't stand in anything!

[dirac]

Ava Gardner is a true goddess of the screen but I can’t say that she’s a case of great talent wasted, although it took some time for MGM to figure out what to do with her.

Jennifer Jones -- You’re right, she didn’t have the stuff to be a major star and was pushed beyond her limits, but I kinda liked her when she was very young, in things like Portrait of Jennie and Love Letters. She’s rather charming in Cluny Brown, too. And I think she’s very good in The Song of Bernadette, whatever you think of the picture. Beat the Devil, too. Jones was inadequate in two camp classics, Ruby Gentry and Duel in the Sun, but I cherish them both anyway.

In other words, I’m not a fan but Jones was in a fair number of pretty good movies, something I didn’t realize until totting them up just now.

I guess it’s a question of whether Welles had, to borrow a phrase from Arlene Croce, a career that matched his talent . My feeling is that he didn’t, although I don’t downgrade him or think him any less of a genius for that.

[dirac]

There is a great photo from Hell's Drivers (1957) of Patrick McGoohan and Sean Connery and Stanley Baker (of Losey's "Eva, the Devil's Woman") at the Guardian.

Also, Ice Station Zebra is a turkey but McGoohan still manages to make his presence felt. I thought he was excellent in Scanners as Dr. Ruth.

[papeetepatrick]

a career that matched his talent . My feeling is that he didn’t, although I don’t downgrade him or think him any less of a genius for that.

That's an elegant way of saying it, and probably bart and I were saying, in talking about McGoohan, that we don't find that quite as important as 'following your own path', and a critic (nor anybody else, for that matter), will be able to talk about the 'career matching the talent', but is not 'in the skin' of the artist to know what the digression off into a separate kind of path could be. It's like Gelsey's career, of course, which is not to my mind lesser for having been in a state of chaos at one point, nor Monroe's, for having been in a state of chaos at all points. And Streisand has always been stable, but she seems much more ordinary than she did when young and bursting with potency. Just throwing out a few other versions along the lines of 'career types', and Streisand's careful cultivation of hers has not IMO made it continue to have magic, it's become prosaic.

But the worst is that I loved 'Portrait of Jennie' and 'Love Letters' on Late Shows when I was in high school, Ethel Barrymore and all of it; and all I can say is thank God I saw the light....you'll find it even worse that I also loved 'Ruby Gentry' and 'Love Is a Many-Splendoured Thing', but I do have to disagree on 'Beat the Devil', which is where my total distaste hardened, and realized that she was born for board meetings of Norton Simon, probably sort of like Cindy McCain's presence in the family businesses, though I don't know that for a fact. I thought she sounded as though she was having to acclimate herself to ill-fitting dentures.

[dirac]

bart and I were saying, in talking about McGoohan, that we don't find that quite as important as 'following your own path', and a critic (nor anybody else, for that matter), will be able to talk about the 'career matching the talent', but is not 'in the skin' of the artist to know what the digression off into a separate kind of path could be.

I guess I don't see why a critic or commentator can't speak of an artist not living up to his potential, for whatever reason. We'll have to agree to disagree on that. McGoohan seems to have been a troubled man in some ways, and it's too bad an actor with his charisma and potential didn't accomplish more, although he leaves some fine stuff behind him, indeed a body of work of which many actors would be proud.

[papeetepatrick]

I guess I don't see why a critic or commentator can't speak of an artist not living up to his potential, for whatever reason.

I didn't say they couldn't, and in any case they do. What they cannot determine is if a digression from what they consider what the potential 'ought to be' is the same as 'not living up to his potential'. If it was fulfilling for the artist, he may have been living up to his potential even if it is not then projected in external, public form. An outside commentator can of course make a judgment, but it cannot come from the immediacy that the artist himself has with his own work--so the outside commentator is having to make the judgment based on ideas of what a 'successful career type' is, and yet the artist may have found something that is more private and less in the public eye that is where his potential may be most valuably revealed. For example, Martha Graham could be considered a quite troubled artist as well, drinking a quart of whiskey a day toward the end of her managing to continue dancing well into her mid-to-late 60s, so she was clearly troubled, ending up in and out (or just in, McDonagh was not clear on this) of the hospital for two years or so. After dealing with the fact that she wasn't going to get to dance personally any more (especially since dancing somewhat drunk had not been getting great reception), she had the nerve to live another 20 years, and create many more works. So that's just another example of someone who is usually thought to have 'lived up to her potential', even though she was clearly not doing it in those besotted years. It's a multi-dimensional matter, I don't think it even precludes agreeing and disagreeing at the same time. Lots of people would say Garbo didn't live up to her potential because of quitting the business early on; but as we've found out recently, Van Johnson thought several big 30s film stars had 'bowed out gracefully'. (I was obviously also saying that my impression of Streisand's career is that I perceive it somehow as not fulfilling its potential, so it's not that I don't do it too; but I do know that I don't know, etc., and you or someone else may surely believe that Ms. Streisand has 'still got it'. I also don't care if she's not doing what I imagine I'd rather her to be doing, because she's been generous enough to me with her talent already. It's her business. We're not saying anything all that different, which is why I said that you said it 'elegantly' and was not being at all sarcastic.)