Getting Into Character

Isobel Smith looks at the ‘villainous’ roles of Patrick McGoohan 

Often when you ask an actor or actress which type of role do they enjoy playing the most - a hero or a villain - nine times out of ten, they usually say a villain, as it has much more 'bite' to it than a hero.  Not that I am saying Number Six is not a hero, but he has shades of anti-hero in him as well. 

For most of his career in films, Patrick McGoohan has portrayed a villain - from his earlier roles of Red in Hell Drivers and Simon Breck in High Tide at Noon through to later ones such as Roger Deveraux in Silver Streak, Nicholas Fouquet in Man In The Iron Mask (a real life villain for the first time) and to King Edward I in Braveheart.  His villains are cold, calculating, and often let nothing, even death, stand in their way.  

The first villain, and my personal favourite that Patrick McGoohan played was Red in Hell Drivers.  His character is the Number One - the top dog among the drivers who seem to shake in their wake.  Their only goal is to take the silver cigarette case from Red but he is the one to set the pace.  He meets his match in Tom Yately, played by another great cinema villain, Stanley Baker, whose role of Mordred in Knights of the Round Table would have suited Patrick extremely well.   

The next villain I like is Nicholas Fouquet, finance minister to King Louis XIV and who was the true power behind the French throne.  Patrick's portrayal of Fouquet is like a wily fox, manipulating the weak Louis, so that his finances are being funded by the King himself.  I love the way he watches the jailer imprison Phillipe, the elder twin, into the iron mask.  It seems to give him great personal pleasure.  Even at the end of the film when he has been tricked, he still believes he has the upper hand.  After I had read the novel for the first time, I wanted to know more of what happened to Fouquet.  I found out that he had ended his days under house arrest, with only his mistress, Suzanne de la Billière, for company, for she had tried to buy his freedom by selling her treasures to help him.  The mistress is never seen in any filmed version of the story.  What a shame!  

The next villain I recall is Roger Deveraux from Silver Streak - a calculating and manipulative villain, similar in many ways to Fouquet.  Again McGoohan gives the same sneer of villainy when burning the letters, wanted by George Caldwell (Gene Wilder) and Hilly Burns (Jill Clayburgh).  He is also cruel, enjoying the pain when he hits Hilly around the face.  When he falls into the path of an oncoming train, it chills the blood as he presents a face of sheer terror identical to the one he shows when he is about to die in Hell Drivers.  

Patrick McGoohan's latest villain is King Edward I in Braveheart and the role is played with great relish.  The sides of the character - a grieving widower and tyrant, merge.  Edward I is written in history as a masterful ruler, military genius and the first truly English king.  The role seems to sit on Patrick McGoohan's shoulders very easily and he makes a very believable king. 

If I am ever given the chance to meet Patrick McGoohan, I know what I would want to talk to him about, as like him, I enjoy (although only in amateur dramatics) playing the nasty or villain.  I would like to ask him which of the villains he has portrayed, he enjoyed the most.  I do hope it is one of the ones I have mentioned. 

Which is your favourite McGoohan character?  Write and let us know - Ed.