Patrick Macnee (1922-2015)

Patrick Macnee in Lobster Man From Mars.

Patrick Macnee in Lobster Man From Mars.

Actor Patrick Macnee died June 25 at home in Rancho Mirage, California. He was 93.

Macnee became a TV icon as the perfect gentleman spy John Steed in The Avengers (1961-1969) and The New Avengers (1976-1977), series in which he was complemented by a succession of celebrated female partners, Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, Linda Thorson, and in the relaunch, Joanna Lumley.

Macnee was not one of those actors who loathed to be identified with his most famous role. He co-wrote two Avengers tie-in novels, Dead Duck and Deadline. He titled his autobiography Blind in One Ear: The Avenger Returns, (1988, dictated to Marie Cameron). He did commercials in character and was even recalled to play Steed in original Avengers footage made for The Pretenders’ 1986 music video “Don’t Get Me Wrong.”  Although Ralph Fiennes played Steed in the 1998 movie of The Avengers , Macnee was present in a voice cameo as “Invisible Jones.”

Macnee’s first film appearance was as an uncredited extra in Pygmalion (1938). His acting career did not take off until he returned from service in WWII, when he worked in several live TV productions for the BBC, including The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1950). He also had a small role in the movie A Christmas Carol  (1951) with Alastair Sim. Before starring in The Avengers he worked steadily in US and Canadian television.

His genre work includes The Twilight Zone episode “Judgment Night” (1959), a segment of Rod Serling’s Night Gallery (1971), and a Ray Bradbury Theatre episode “Usher II” (1990). Macnee voiced the Cylon leader in 13 episodes of Battlestar Galactica (1978-1979). He starred in the 1990s science fiction series Super Force and played a supporting role in the parody Lobster Man From Mars (1989). His last credit was The Low Budget Time Machine in 2003.

19 thoughts on “Patrick Macnee (1922-2015)

  1. Unfortunately the telescope is pointing at the floor. But I loved his work. The Cylon leader was scary when I was a boy!

  2. off topic, though I was quite fond of the Avengers as a boy:

    Does anyone know how to contact Mike Glyer directly, or through email? I have a topic that I think might be of interest to him and File 770 fans.

  3. Does anyone know how to contact Mike Glyer directly, or through email?

    It’s on the ‘about File770’ page, from the front page.

  4. He went to school with Christopher Lee. I have a feeling this is going to one damned lousy year.

  5. I’m very sorry to hear it.

    This has already been a terrible year for SFF legends.

  6. The smallest of nitpicks, but having never known about the Pretenders video, I just watched it. They seem to be using old film clips of Macnee. But still worth mentioning, for folks to catch another AVENGERS pastiche!

  7. He also had a significant role in The Howling, as a werewolf psychiatrist. (No, really!)

  8. But how about this–

    For those of you who still read non-Puppies posts!–

    And interesting to remember, this was seven or eight years after THE NEW AVENGERS completed filming:

  9. Some of us intentionally scroll ad nauseam past the thousands of puppy droppings to get to the news of science fiction fandom.

  10. Damn. I wish I never had to read this post. John Steed was the character I always wanted to be, and his character always seemed to be rooted deeply in that of Patrick Macnee.

    @JeffWarner, Likewise, sir.

  11. Macnee also played Count Iblis in a couple of episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica, and provided the narration for the start of the pilot/movie.

    He also recorded the song Kinky Boots with Honour Blackman, which… is a song that exists.

  12. Lorcan Nagle on June 26, 2015 at 5:36 am said:

    Macnee also played Count Iblis in a couple of episodes of the original Battlestar Galactica, and provided the narration for the start of the pilot/movie.

    I remember. At the time I was terribly upset that he was a bad guy.

  13. Here are some parts of Matt Schudel’s obituary for Macnee in the WASHINGTON POST that I thought were interesting:

    “The show’s (“The Avengers”) wanted to provide Steed with a gun, but Mr. Macnee–who commanded torpedo boats during World War II as a British naval officer–refused.

    “When they said, ‘You’ve got to carry a gun,’ he told the WINSTON-SALEM JOURNAL in 2002, I said, ‘I’ve been carrying a gun for five years; I’ve killed more people than you..and I won’t carry a gun.”

    His full name was Daniel Patrick Macnee.

    He was a very close friend of Sir Christopher Lee and began acting with Lee in school plays at the age of 8.

    “My mother was a reefer-smoking lesbian feminist,’ Mr. Macnee told the DAILY MAIL. “When I was 4 my mother walked out to live with an heiress called Evelyn, who I had to call ‘Uncle.”

    “Mr. Macnee was the only male in the household, and he said ‘Uncle Evelyn” wanted him to dress in skirts.

    “As a compromise,’ he said, ‘my mother suggested I wear skirts instead.”

  14. Martin Wooster —

    “Mr. Macnee was the only male in the household, and he said ‘Uncle Evelyn” wanted him to dress in skirts.

    “As a compromise,’ he said, ‘my mother suggested I wear skirts instead.”

    Uh, I don’t get it. Typo?

  15. NelC: Thanks for catching my mistake. Patrick Macnee’s mother thought her son should wear kilts, not skirts.

  16. Here are a couple of interesting facts about Macnee, this time from his obituary in the DAILY TELEGRAPH.

    “His father was a racehorse trainer, a diminutive man known as ‘Shrimp” Macnee whose dapper wardrobe his son later recreated for Steed.”

    * His mother was a close friend of Tallulah Bankhead.

    * At Eton “his corruption began when he was introduced to whisky by the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Cardiff, who had escaped into the garden with a bottle when brought in to consecrate Evelyn’s private chapel. Macnee was then expelled from Eton for running a pornography and bookmaking empire.”

    * (Macnee) “served in Motor Torpedo Boats until 1946, rising to lieutenant. He caught bronchitis shortly before D-Day, while in hospital his boat and crew were destroyed in action.”

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