It was my wife Morag who put the question to me last night - Did anyone, who worked on the Prisoner, gain anything by it? Working on the Prisoner led Leo McKern to have a breakdown. As for Patrick McGoohan, the Prisoner was both the making and breaking of him. He was hassled by members of the general public. Himself and his wife threatened, his house attacked {this according to McGoohan}, and of course he was in hock to the British Inland Revenue in the region of £60,000. And so soon after producing the Prisoner, McGoohan along with his family, took to his heels {so legend has it} first to Wales {no not to Portmeirion}, then on to Switerland, finally to settle in America.
David Tomblin, who had been scriptwriter, producer, and director on the Prisoner, who afterwards returned to assistant director on television productions such as UFO, before then going on to better and greater things. Then there are some members of the cast who died within a year or two after working on the Prisoner.
Actress Victoria Maskell, who played the role of No.9 in Arrival, committed suicide in 1968.
Actor Finlay Currie, the General in The Chimes of Big Ben,whose stage debut was in 1898, also died in 1968.
Duncan Macrae, the doctor-No.40 in Dance of the Dead, he died in 1967.
Martin Miller, No.51 the Watchmaker in It's Your Funeral, who died in 1969.
Peter Swanwick the Supervisor-No.28, who also died in 1969.
I know, people have to die sometime, and I'm not making out there to have been some kind of curse on the Prisoner, and anyone who whorked on it's production, that would be completely wrong to suggest. This is simply to indicate the effect the Prisoner had on some people who worked on the series. Because as far as I can see, no-one actually benefitted from working on the Prisoner....................well perhaps there was one person who did benefit from being in the Prisoner in an odd sort of way, it was Alexis Kanner. As a whole, before the Prisoner, he had a very forgettable acting career, and no-one would have heard of him, but he became, I thought, an undeservedly cult figure within Six of One: The Prisoner Appreciation Society. Because before the Prisoner I had never heard of Alexis Kanner. I think had Kanner not been in the Prisoner he would have passed without note!
Be seeing you.
For someone who was known to be the highest-paid TV star in Britain at the time, I don't think £60k in any one tax year would have been much of an issue. So far as I know Everyman didn't go into liquidation until 1974 anyway, so it doesn't look like there was much pressure from anyone. Terence Feely tells of how he, McGoohan and Tomblin were offered £900k to make a new show so there was plenty of liquidity on offer. I've sometimes wondered what that money would have been for exactly.
ReplyDeleteKenneth Griffith (in his autobiography) describes McGoohan as financing him to make documentaries in South Africa in what must have been the immediate years following the prisoner. Griffith also mentions that there was a *misunderstanding* about monies owed [by him]. It has crossed my mind that that famous debt was nothing to do with the show you are interested in anyhow.
I would imagine Maskell's suicide must have had quite a personal impact on McGoohan. He was still completing the show when she was found dead in the woods, I think. It must have emphasised even more in his mind how ridiculous *fame* can be.
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteJust because Patrick McGoohan was the highest paid actor of his time, does not necessarily make him a rich man.
'Everyman' was wound up by the Inland Revenue, so clearly 'Everyman' must have owed tax. To the besy of my knowledge, 'Everyman' did not produce anything after 'the Prisoner.' Therefore, I think it's fair to assume that the tax owed to the Inland Revenue had stemmed from the production of 'the Prisoner.'
As far as Kenneth Griffith goes, and his documentaries, which he says McGoohan financed, which is fair enough. But financing is one thing, but did 'Everyman' actually produce any of those documentaries?
Let me give you an example about film funding, and I don't mean to teach anyone to suck eggs in this regard. In the years 1998 and 1999 I formed a small film production company called 'Screen Six,' I did this to produce a film inspired by 'the Prisoner.' 'Screen Six' had no funds, so I had to gain funding by getting people interested in sponsoring the film. The monies raised were put into 'Screen Six, ' to fund the film. By the end of the film's prodcution, 'Screen Six' was in debt. The money raised by sponsorship, had been all used up, and I was actually putting my own money into the films production, just like Patrick McGoohan was doing with 'the Prisoner.' 'Screen Six' does still exist today, but has only ever produced one film.
The suicide of Virginia Maskell was a very sad thing, and perhaps it did have a personal impact on McGoohan, who can say. Virginia Maskell was a married woman at the time, who was having an affair, and there were rumours at the time of there being a third man involved.....who that man was, or even if he really existed, or was simply in Virginia's mind, is unknown, as is the third man, whose identity was never known. That is how the story went at the time, as I understand it. Virginia must have been a poor and desperate woman, and I have always thought it was her personal life which drove her to take her own life, and nothing to do with fame.
Regards
David.
I certainly agree that neither of us really knows about Everyman's accounting issues. However I cannot see why the Inland Revenus would have waited for six years before trying to get their money. They're certainly not that patient with me... :-D
ReplyDeletePossibly the biggest nett gainer from The Prisoner was George Markstein. He was an unemployed local London journalist before being employed by McGoohan. The association gave him a leg-up and he became a popular script editor and then made himself into a successful pulp novelist in the end, having become inspired by the creativity he experienced perhaps. He was 45 by the time he wrote The Cooler and hit paydirt. By then, McGoohan was making his first Columbo. McGoohan was a year younger by the way.
Many of the other crew and actors were already established professionals. Bernie Williams did rather well too. He was another complete novice when McGoohan gave him his first production job.
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteThese days the Inland Revenue are very strict on those who are late paying their Income Tax, and drop on anyone from a great height if they are even as much as a day late. But back in the olden days, they were a little more lax about things, and one could go years before the Inland Revenue caught up with you. It might have taken years for the IR to catch up with anyone owing tax. But one thing was certain in those days, the Inland Revenue never forgot those who owe them tax.
I had not realised about George Markstein, or Bernie Williams. It would appear that more people benefitted from their work on the production of 'the Prisoner' than first thought. Thank you for the information.
Regards
David
BCNU
Fact or Friction?
ReplyDelete"In 1974, after the failure of another venture at an early stage of production, Everyman Films went bankrupt with debts of £63,000, more than half of which was owed to the Inland Revenue."
https://groups.google.com/group/colony3/browse_thread/thread/2fb039aedd72871e/530a44fae93824d8?hl=enȒa44fae93824d8
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteFact or Friction indeed. You certainly have your finger on the pulse as it were. I've no idea what that other venture was, which Everyman was working on before it went bankrupt. But seeing as how the venture was never finished, the fact remains that 'the Prisoner' is the only production Everyman produced.
By the by, I happened to be in the local library this morning, and there, on a shelf in the biography section, sat a copy of Rupert Booth's book 'Not A Number: Patrick McGoohan A life.' Now I am no lover of biographies. I don't read biographies, and I'm not about to start with one on the life of Patrick McGoohan. However, I did just thumb through the copy, and saw your name Moor Larkin, listed amongst those who gave of their time during the writing of the book. I've no idea whether or not you are quoted within the pages.
Regards
David
BCNU
I have heard that too. I think it is there because of my web activity in the past, I was quite surprised to hear it is so as that information was the first I knew about it. I suppose I should feel flattered. Roger Langley quoted one of my imdb reviews of an old McG movie in his book... I figured it saved him bothering to watch the movie himself...... :-D
ReplyDeleteAnother chap did a play a while back and thanked me for my "Information". That was nice of him, even though he never mentioned me again, but he did send me a copy of his script draft, which was very good [mostly].... ;-D
I'm waiting to get a copy of the other book second-hand. That way I won't have to give the people who publish books with such mournful pictures on the front any more encouragement than I seem to have done already.... ;-D
Going back to Everyman, how do you know Everyman was not used to finance Griffith? It's a matter of his own biographical fact that he was financed by McGoohan and the programme was broadcast by the BBC I believe, although I have never found much trace of it. Something to do with the boer war and Cecil Rhodes. I doubt CBS were making it a summer season. There was supposed to have been money owing in the end. The story seems to make more sense to me than that it was anything to do with the prisoner directly. Mind you, McGoohan had more than one registered company.
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteWell it's a hell of a way to write a book, to quote people, and not to even ask them first, or indeed not to interview people face to face! Roger Langley is good at that as well. I remember that he once sent me a free copy of one of his books about 'the Prisoner,' I think he was after a free quote about it. So I gave him a free quote. But he edited it so it looked as though I was praising the book more than I actually did! I was also quoted in 'The Prisoner Handbook' by Steven Paul Davis, which I wasn't too happy about, as he had not asked me for the quote in the first place. He simply took it from a piece of my written work.
As far as the front cover picture goes, it's pathetic. A sheer lack of imagination was demonstrated when whoever it was designed the cover of Booth's book. Now I have been a fan of 'the Prisoner' for nearly 45 years, but I have been no fan of Patrick McGoohan, only of the character he played. I have no intention of reading McGoohan's biography, I don't like, nor read biographies. But what disappoints me with Booth's book, and Roger Langley's for that matter, is that both books have a fictional character on the front cover, and not simply Patrick McGoohan the man himself!
Apparently Booth writes in Mcgoohan's biography, that he lost his rights to 'the Prisoner' in a game of cards. I was aware that McGoohan actually sold his rights to the Prisoner to ITV.
As far as Everyman goes, Kenneth Griffith never said that it was Everyman which produced his film project. As Patrick McGoohan had more then one registered company, it is highly likely that one of those might have produced Giffith's project. Although as far as I am aware, McGoohan only raised the funding for Griffith, and was not involved with actual production work, although I could be wrong.
Regards
David
BCNU
Hi David, I was tempted to remark about that "card game" fable that *you couldn't make this stuff up*.... But evidently somebody has... :-D
ReplyDeleteInsofar as my flatteringly "unauthorised credit" goes, I suppose I can only claim to be a web-id, not a person - so I suppose my rights are inevitably circumscribed accordingly... ;-D
Griffith's own words:
pg 251: "Yes, he would produce "The Rise and fall of the British Empire" .........
pg 254: "Patrick oversaw the basic production arrangements with us in Pretoria.... "
But he never mentions Everyman - you are right. He seems almost evasive really because he says a Cecil Rhodes show was sold through McGoohan to the BBC but then seems to suggest he used all the other footage McGoohan had financed to make his own series of further documentaries directly with the BBC...... The Rhodes thing seems to have been broadcast in 1971, and the later Boer stuff in 1972.
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed your comment. Evidently, as you say, it would seem that someone is making is up. And if someone reading it doesn't know the life of Patrick McGoohan very well, and none of us do know it all, then they may take what they read as fact. And that's the danger. Indeed I know something of the life of Patrick McGoohan, but not all. My wife and I have researched McGoohan's early life, much of which he lived out here in Loughborough after his evacuation, along with his sisters. In fact Patrick McGoohan lived here in Loughborough far longer than people might imagine. More then that I am not prepared to talk about, as I am going to include a chapter on the early life of Patrick McGoohan in a manuscript I have written about 'the Prisoner.'
Ah, I didn't know that Patrick McGoohan oversaw the basic production arrangements with Kenneth Griffiths in Pretoria.
I was fortunate enough to have met Kenneth Griffith at a 'Prisoner' convention at Portmeirion in the early 1990's. He talked to me for a few moments on my acting the role as No.6 in a re-enactment of a scene from 'Dance of the Dead.' In fact he gave me some words of advice over what was best to do when another actor dried - don't help them!!!!
Regards
David
BCNU
McGoohan himself commented in later life that he was an insufferably moody young man and must have driven his family crazy with his behaviour, so his time in Loughborough will be interesting to read about. It will certainly be better than reading the sort of drivel abounding elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI have noticed that Ratcliffe had entirely forgotten he was ever there. Some of his contemporaries are mentioned in the school magazines I have looked through, as they forged their careers, men such as Ian Bannen, but even at the height of his fame McGoohan remains unmentioned in their pages. In more recent years they have remembered he was there, but his page on their website largely says nobody remembers much about him.... :-D
A few years ago their *alumni* list never mentioned him, so far as I recall. I guess he was only there because of the war. It was a pretty privileged place and I doubt that under peacetime conditions he would ever have been admitted - scholarship notwithstanding.
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteMcGoohan, a moody young man, oh yes, and much more besides. Once I have found a publisher for my manuscript about 'the Prisoner' I'll be able to put some real flesh on the bones of McGoohan's early life. That will open the eyes of the most blinkered fan of Patrick McGoohan!
Had it not been wartime, it is highly unlikely that McGoohan would have ever gone to Ratcliffe. I don't think he would have been excluded, because they always took "deserving cases." But the likelyhood is it would never have arisen, he would have gone to a day school in Sheffield.
My wifes two sons who were pupils at Ratcliffe, did manage to dig out a few facts about McGoohan. But they have to remain underwraps for the moment.
I think probably the reason he was not mentioned in the pages of 'The Ratcliffian' was because he never maintained a contact with the school, as with the likes of Ian Bannen, and Norman St. John Stevas. But McGoohan was never forgotten by the Brotherhood at Ratcliffe. One old Priest actually remembered him, but they were all fans of 'the Prisoner.' And he would often get referred to in lessons as one of Ratcliffes most famous old boys.
Regards
David
BCNU
I think you are right about the magazine content.
ReplyDeleteMy impression from the magazine articles was that perhaps the individual (or a confederate) had to keep the school informed, rather than that the school would do the research. Some of the accounts resemble the sort of thing people write on xmas-cards to friends they never see...... :-D
He was not really a joiner old Mr.McGoo, was he..... although some biographers suggest he was a carpenter at least...... amongst other things....... ;-D
The significance of Ratcliffe on him and therefore elements of The Prisoner, does seem quite pround I believe however. I blogged a little about my impressions here:
http://numbersixwasinnocent.blogspot.com/2011/01/mcgoohan-in-his-own-words-ive-always.html
"Tight self-contained communities that did not necessarily seek to punish were however something quite familiar in McGoohan’s real life. His time at Ratcliffe College is fairly well known nowadays, although his passing through that school seemed unremarked at the time. As a poor Scholarship boy from an industrial Sheffield working-class family his own personal isolation in a prominent fee-paying British public school was not necessarily likely to be the happiest time of his life. With his usual self-deprecation he offered a flavour of his predicament in his 1965 autobiography"
Hello Moor Larkin,
ReplyDeleteI've no idea how good or bad the young Patrick was at woodwork, and certainly I don't know if he was ever 'top of his class' in the subject. However, I do know that one of the first tasks given to every new boy at Ratcliffe was to make his own chair for the Dining Room, carving his initials on the back of the back-rest. When this tradition finished, I'm not sure, but it was probably in the 1950's or 60's. To the best of my knowledge these chairs are still used in the Dining Room today. Certainly they were still being used a few years ago when my wife and myself scoured the Dining Room scrutinising the back of every chair for those elusive initials. Sadly the chair was not to be found. It is possible that Patrick took the chair with him when he left, as they were allowed to do this if they wished.
Certainly Patrick's time at Ratcliffe had a profound effect upon him, as many elements of the school can be found in 'the Prisoner,' the school being like that of the Village, a self-contained community, it even has it's own graveyard!!!!! Each pupil is given a number, and is known more by that number than his or her own name. The huge wrought Iron gates at the end of the drive leading up to the school, which would slam shut with a resounding clang, keeping the young Patrick Prisoner for another term, as the closing bars slam shut in the Prisoner's face at the end of each episode!
Regards
David
BCNU