Patrick McGoohan Passes Away

Patrick McGoohan played parts from Secret Agent to the mysterious Prisoner Number 6, but to me he will always be known for his cold calculating portrayal of Edward Longshanks in Braveheart.

Sadly, the man has passed away.

LA Times reports:

Patrick McGoohan, the Emmy-winning actor who created and starred in the cult classic television show “The Prisoner,” has died. He was 80.

McGoohan died Tuesday in Los Angeles after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said.

McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama “Columbo,” and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film “Braveheart.”

But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in “The Prisoner,” a sci-fi tinged 1960s British series in which a former spy is held captive in a small enclave known only as The Village, where a mysterious authority named Number One constantly prevents his escape.

Those old black and white serials were a staple of my upbringing and I didn’t make the connection of Longshanks to Number 6. I am disheartened that it took his passing for me to bind the actor to his roles.

Goodnight Mr McGoohan, and Godspeed.