Patrick McGoohan (1928-2009) has a very important place in the history of cinema and television, but nothing comparable to what he would have acquired if he had agreed to be James Bond in the first film of the series, Agent 007 against Dr. No. (1962), a role that was offered to him before Sean Connery.
At that time he was beginning to become the highest-paid actor in the United Kingdom as the protagonist since 1960 of a highly successful television series, Danger Man, in which he played a British secret agent who, in the intro of each episode, presented himself in a form that is universally familiar to us today: "My name is Drake, John Drake." How can we not think of him being 007?
"Every government has a secret service: the CIA, the Deuxième Boureau, the MI5... When there is a dirty job, they call me or someone like me. Oh yes! My name is Drake, John Drake."
But one of the producers of that inaugural film in the saga, Alberto R. Broccoli, and the novelist who created the character himself, Ian Fleming, met with McGoohan's refusal for reasons of principle: he alleged that James Bond was a womanizer and a amoral and his Catholic convictions did not allow him to become a model for millions of viewers.
High-quality artistic praise
McGoohan was born in 1928 in New York, the son of Irish parents, farmers by profession, who returned to their country when he was little (eight years old). He also always considered himself Irish. In 1938 the family moved to Sheffield, England, where he studied and did his first jobs before beginning to shine as an actor.
Saying "shine" is no exaggeration. Orson Welles, with whom he worked in 1955 on a version of Moby Dick, said of him that he was "one of the great actors of his generation, tremendous, with all the required attributes: presence, intensity, an unquestionable ability to act and a brilliance." special in his eyes."
And already in the maturity of his career, when he won two Emmys in 1975 and 1990 for his participation as director and actor in several episodes of the series Columbo, Peter Falk (1927-2011), the unforgettable detective in the disheveled trench coat, rated him like this: "He is the most underrated and underrated talent on the face of the earth. I have never worked with an actor who attracted my attention as much as Pat."
Pat McGoohan directed several episodes of the series Columbo and as an actor he was the one who reprized the murderer the most times, up to four. Given the longevity of this production, which covers three stages (1971-78, 1989-90 and individual chapters from then to 2003), he was seen aging in parallel with Peter Falk.
Mel Gibson did not think of anyone else to play, as an old man, the scoundrel King Edward I in Braveheart (1995), which would be his last great work in the cinema.
In his review of the film in The Times, Peter Rainer paid attention to him without sparing praise: "Patrick McGoohan enjoys perhaps the most villainous intonation in the history of acting."
The responsibility of those who make television
Throughout that rich film career, where he was also a producer and director, McGoohan demonstrated several times that he was guided by principles rather than money.
In Danger Man he imposed that John Drake would not carry weapons or seduce any women. The British series was on the air until 1968 (86 episodes), when it was acquired by American producers who wanted to introduce car chases, shootouts and scenes. One of the new CEOs invited him to lunch to explain that they wanted to surround him with glamorous girls. The meal lasted six minutes because he refused "a maudlin spectacle that would put the publicity machine into overdrive."
Along with Rock Hudson in "Zebra Polar Station" (1968), by John Sturges, a Cold War thriller based on a novel by Alistair McLean. She was nominated for two Oscars.
The brevity of the meeting did not surprise those who knew his punctilious and somewhat irascible nature, nor did his response surprise those who knew of his high concept of marital fidelity. His biographer, Roger Langley, notes that he was always loyal to his wife and put his obligations as a husband and father before the demands of work.
Comfortable in hero but also 'bad' roles, McGoohan played Clint Eastwood's warden in Don Siegel's 'The Escape from Alcatraz' (1979).
He was clear from the beginning what he did not want to do in his profession: "When we started with Danger Man, the producer wanted me to carry a gun and have an affair with a different girl every week. I rejected it. I am not against romance on television, But s-x is the antithesis of romance."
