More Good People, Past and Present

Hello all….leaving for the UK again in a couple of days and will be turning up at one or two events.

Jane working with the great Patrick McGoohan in THE PRISONER

One is a tribute to Patrick McGoohan for charity, which his daughter Catherine will attend.   I met her at the  Prisoner 50th Anniversary Event held at Portmeirion last year.   We got on really well and in some ways she reminded me of her father.    That event was largely about  The Prisoner, the TV series which Patrick created, produced and in which he starred.   This tribute will be more about the rest of his extraordinary career.  I wish there was more online about his early theatre career, best known for his brilliant performance in Ibsen’s play Brand, which set him on the road to stardom.

I loved working with him…I did three episodes of Danger Man with him (first one in picture A Date With Doris)and one episode of The Prisoner.   His instincts and his pacing as an actor were a joy and his energy – relentless…he dared you to keep up with him and I, being a very competitive person was determined to “stay” with him.   That’s what made the work so exhilarating.   To work with that kind of drive is the best….some have it, Peter O’Toole, Anthony Hopkins, Glenda Jackson, Katharine Hepburn and others with whom I have been lucky to have worked with.   Going back to Patrick, for me, one of the most terrifying moments in the film Braveheart,  was when he playing Edward I of England and threw his son’s young lover out of the open window (no glass then)…it was unexpected and brutal.  What a wonderful actor he was!

Last week I met up with a friend, another person I like and admire, the Right Reverend John Thornton, retired Bishop of Idaho.  He and his lovely wife Jan have become friends since I based myself in Idaho.   John is a remarkable man, again a person of enormous passion and enthusiasm along with that other quality that marks  people as interesting, his curiosity.  And his energy is apparently endless.    Since retiring John and Jan live on a beautiful farm, with a river running through it, in Oregon amongst chickens and many fruit trees……  I feel that they “get” life, a rare gift.   He has published a book of his sermons …a wonderful and often funny book :  The Backside of God and is now writing poetry.   Some of us never, never stop and that’s what makes life great!