I latched onto McGoohan back in junior high school, in his series Danger Man/Secret Agent. He was cool and confident and unflappable. And he didn't get involved in all that sticky sex stuff.
And The Prisoner was the greatest television adventure series ever created; taking the idea of secret agents and building it into a paranoia about society and popular culture.
McGoohan was my idol. I started wearing black turtlenecks outside of school. I tried to model his don't-give-a-damn behavior in uncomfortable social situations (which were most of them). And then...I started learning about the man behind the characters.
He was isolated, cold, distant even from his fellow actors. The only American actor who appreciated him was Peter Falk, who put him in two good Columbo episodes. When his daughters wanted to make a film, he made them do all the paperwork like shooting schedules, budgets and storyboards. He hated talking about The Prisoner, arguably his greatest work, but didn't create anything as valuable or compelling afterwards. His lack of steady work after his relocation to California was not due to lack of talent, I think, as his inability to be affable with others.
The mention of Silver Streak was important. The screenplay had McGoohan's character playing a haughty racist. When he calls Richard Pryor's character the "N word" he growls the world in a melodramatic, unauthentic way - as if he was disgusted at having to play such a character. Although...there was friction there, between the drug-using, casual, instinctively comic Pryor and the anal-retentive, discipline-driven McGoohan. McGoohan usually was cold to others, but it really came through on screen.
I liked McGoohan's performances. I just kind of wished he had lead a life that was better connected to his fellow humans. And I wish I hadn't picked him as a role model, and had found somebody a bit more warm to emulate.
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Date: 2009-01-14 06:02 pm (UTC)And The Prisoner was the greatest television adventure series ever created; taking the idea of secret agents and building it into a paranoia about society and popular culture.
McGoohan was my idol. I started wearing black turtlenecks outside of school. I tried to model his don't-give-a-damn behavior in uncomfortable social situations (which were most of them). And then...I started learning about the man behind the characters.
He was isolated, cold, distant even from his fellow actors. The only American actor who appreciated him was Peter Falk, who put him in two good Columbo episodes. When his daughters wanted to make a film, he made them do all the paperwork like shooting schedules, budgets and storyboards. He hated talking about The Prisoner, arguably his greatest work, but didn't create anything as valuable or compelling afterwards. His lack of steady work after his relocation to California was not due to lack of talent, I think, as his inability to be affable with others.
The mention of Silver Streak was important. The screenplay had McGoohan's character playing a haughty racist. When he calls Richard Pryor's character the "N word" he growls the world in a melodramatic, unauthentic way - as if he was disgusted at having to play such a character. Although...there was friction there, between the drug-using, casual, instinctively comic Pryor and the anal-retentive, discipline-driven McGoohan. McGoohan usually was cold to others, but it really came through on screen.
I liked McGoohan's performances. I just kind of wished he had lead a life that was better connected to his fellow humans. And I wish I hadn't picked him as a role model, and had found somebody a bit more warm to emulate.