Patrick McGoohan 1928 - 2008
He was TVs "Secret Agent Man," John Drake, and an early "man in my life." His self possession, his cool, his easy intellect, all marked him as a very interesting fellow. Like "The Prisoner" (1968) I too rebelled against the enforced conformity of my suburban youth. He was a natural ally, a cool guy, who embodied the spirit of the Sixties as much as the Beatles or Emma Peal. He has finally escaped the manipulations and pursuit of Number Two and "The System" R.I.P.
" 'The Prisoner' was a television show of ideas -- the inalienable if inconvenient right to self in a world that demands your cooperation, if not capitulation -- which also distinguished it from pretty much every other television show I had ever seen. The fact that I was just then working out that my own junior high school was a kind of jail made its appearance timely and amplified its meaning, as did most everything else about that chaotic summer of the battlements." "
Robert LLoyd, L.A. Times
