Patrick McGoohan, star of cult '60s TV show The Prisoner, has died in LA after a short illness.
McGoohan, who was briefly considered for the role of James Bond, was mostly a stage and TV star. But he did pop up in the occasional movie role.
We enjoyed him best as the crazed Dr. Paul Ruth in David Cronenberg's Scanners , and evil filthy-English Scottish-oppressing King Edward 'Longshanks' in Braveheart .
But he'll be most widely remembered for his icy, iconic turn as 'Number Six' in the brilliantly baffling TV series - which resisted several attempts at movie adaptation.
Christopher Nolan pondered it just before he took on The Dark Knight. But even he couldn't wrap his brain around the very '60s blend of psychedelic surrealism and Kafkaesque paranoia. ("I am not a number. I am a free man!")
If you've never seen The Prisoner, give it a go. It's incredible - an utterly out-there, one-off work of borderline genius/madness.
US readers can watch every episode for free here .
UK folk will have to spend money on the DVDs.
What are your thoughts on McGoohan? Tell us what The Prisoner was 'about' in no more than fifteen words...
