Patrick McGoohan was No. 1 as 'Prisoner's' Number 6

Nearly 40 at the time (and the father of three), he was heroic in a way that mixed the self-reliance of the classic secret agent with the comedy of the new age's anti-authoritarian tricksters. Good-looking, in an Everyman sort of way, he had a musical voice, a light step, a twinkling eye -- he was a bit of a John Lennon, come to think of it -- that in itself bespoke a kind of freedom. There was always humor in his contrariness, and if Number 6 was fated corporeally to remain a prisoner -- caught at the border by Rover, the bouncing ball from hell, or shown that his imagined escape was merely an illusion -- he remained himself. As hard as they tried, they could not wash his brain.

It is not McGoohan's fault that he is so closely connected with that role in my mind that I cannot clearly assess his larger gifts as an actor. He played many parts before it, and many parts over the remaining, second half of his life, including the 1977 series "Rafferty," several turns on "Columbo" and in the films "Silver Streak" and "Braveheart." I was always glad to see him working, because I felt I owed him something, and though he was not the busiest of actors, he may have been as busy as he liked.

Having early in his career deprived himself of an annuity by passing on Bond (and "The Saint," whose Roger Moore became Bond), he more recently turned down both the roles of Gandalf in "The Lord of the Rings" and Dumbledore in the Harry Potter films. This might have been for reasons of health, as has been reported, but I prefer to think of him once again exercising his right to be perverse: "I am not a wizard," he might well have said, "I am a free man."

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robert.lloyd@latimes.com