Portal:Speculative fiction/Selected biography/69

Patrick Joseph McGoohan (19 March 1928 – 13 January 2009) was an Irish-American actor, screenwriter and director. He began his career in the United Kingdom in the 1950s, relocating to the United States in the 1970s. His career-defining roles were in the British television series Danger Man (US: Secret Agent) and the surreal psychological drama The Prisoner, which he co-created. During his career, he received two Primetime Emmy Award's and a BAFTA.

Apart from being the star of The Prisoner, McGoohan was the executive producer, forming Everyman Films with series producer David Tomblin, and also wrote and directed several episodes, in some cases using pseudonyms. McGoohan wrote "Free for All" as Paddy Fitz and directed "Many Happy Returns" and "A Change of Mind" as Joseph Serf. He also wrote "Once Upon A Time" and "Fall Out" using his own name. The originally commissioned seven episodes became seventeen.

The title character of The Prisoner (the otherwise-unnamed "Number Six") spends the entire series trying to escape from a mysterious prison community called "The Village", and to learn the identity of his nemesis, Number One. The Village's administrators try just as hard to force or trick him into revealing why he resigned from his previous job as a spy, which he refuses to divulge. The location used was the Italianate village of Portmeirion in North Wales, which had featured in occasional episodes of Danger Man.