Good bye, Patrick McGoohan

[tenaya]

It is so sad to hear of his passing. I've admired him since the days of The Prisoner, an amazing show that took a crowbar to your brain and pried it open, especially if you keep in mind that it was aired in the mid-sixites. He projected such intensity and intelligence, he was an actor that drew your attention because you knew something important was going to happen.

I was born in 1957, so the mid sixites were formative years for me. I feel my attraction to hurt/comfort was because I was watching the buddy shows of Star Trek, Wild Wild West, Man From Uncle and Alias Smith and Jones during those years. Those guys were constantly getting captured, tied up, threatened by bad guys and those were the best episodes.

The Prisoner was a bit different though. Number Six was captured but the torment was all psychological. He was an man of integrity and he was all alone in a place where the rules were fluid and/or unfathomable and danger was everywhere. The people in charge--in fact, even his old bosses on the outside who had betrayed him into this prison--were untrustworthy, and viewed individualism as something to be beaten out of people. Number Six fought them with every fiber of his being. His battle for freedom and his resistance to conformity was heroic and exciting. I also tend to think that influenced me to resist conformity, to do things 'normal' people wouldn't think of doing such as fandom and travel. I know in this group of lj fans, this is the standard of behavior. But when I go work and see/hear how carefully normal everyone is, they feel stifled to me. It's rare to hear that any of them have traveled anywhere new, or have entertained a radical thought, and many accept what they are told without analyzing it.

I really appreciate and am thankful for the impact McGoohan made on my life. And for giving us the immortal quote: "I am not a number, I am a free man!" In this day and age of bar codes and ID numbers, that will always have relevance. I still can't say that quote without feeling some of the stormy, fierce independence of Number Six.

Be seeing you.

Comments

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

Beautifully said. Brilliant actor. That show had such an impact on me; on my thinking about conformity and individuality. And wasn't it lovely and shocking seeing intelligence presented as being of value?

>>>But when I go work and see/hear how carefully normal everyone is, they feel stifled to me.

That long term temp job I had at a hospital for the first half of the year was just like that. They were like Stepford people. No one is carefully normal at the place I'm working now, and for that and many other things I am very grateful.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

His intelligence was his weapon of choice and he was quite successful with it (in Danger Man and The Prisoner.) I've always been drawn to the 'smart' character in buddy shows, and half the time that's the sidekick.

So where do you work now? Still in the tax preparing business?

[catalenamara.livejournal.com]

>>>I've always been drawn to the 'smart' character in buddy shows, and half the time that's the sidekick.

I find intelligence very sexy. And yes, a lot of the time that's the sidekick.

>>>So where do you work now? Still in the tax preparing business?

I'm a secretary - "administrative assistant" - and have worked in a whole lot of different fields. When I lived in the Bay Area I mostly worked for electronics companies, but I also worked for a real estate appraiser; I spent four years working in the water department at "city hall", and also spent a year "temping", and worked for everyone from contact lens corporations to a company that did seismic retrofit for bridges. Down here, I've worked for a film director; a book publisher; I spent 13 years at a commercial real estate company; nearly eight years at the income tax firm. I also had a part time job in the 90s doing medical transcription. Now I'm working for a company which provides independent living skills training for the developmentally disabled. I absolutely love this job; the people are great and the work is interesting.

[moonchildetoo.livejournal.com]

I was very sad, and shocked, to hear of his passing. He was only just hospitalized, and the next day, gone. I was at the King's Head one New Year's Day and he came in, with a head of snow white hair and full white beard. Most impressive.

Although of course I knew of The Prisoner, I'm a little older and my memories of PG center around Danger Man/Secret Agent, also a great series. I always wondered how he felt about being such a cult icon for so many 60's kids.

[tenaya.livejournal.com]

Wow, that was a short illness. I remember you saying you had seen him at the pub.

I recently got the Danger Man dvds, but I haven't seen them.

[moonchildetoo.livejournal.com]

I think you'll enjoy those DVDs. Amusingly dated in some ways, but he still set my heart to pitty-pat when I was about 17 ;-)