Patrick Magee (actor)
Patrick George Magee (né McGee, 31 March 1922 – 14 August 1982) was a Northern Irish actor. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, sometimes called "Beckett's favourite actor," as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade.
Patrick Magee | |
|---|---|
Magee in Dementia 13 (1963) | |
| Born | Patrick George McGee 31 March 1922 Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland |
| Died | 14 August 1982 (aged 60) London, England |
| Education | St Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh |
| Occupations |
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| Years active | 1959–1982 |
| Spouse |
Belle Sherry (m. 1958) |
| Children | 2 |
| Awards | Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play 1966 Marat/Sade |
Known for his distinctive voice, he also appeared in numerous horror films and in two Stanley Kubrick films – A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975) – and three Joseph Losey films – The Criminal (1960), The Servant (1963) and Galileo (1975). He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964 to 1970.
Critic Antonia Quirke posthumously described him as "a presence so full of strangeness and charisma and difference and power," while scholar Conor Carville wrote that Magee was an "avant-garde bad-boy" and "very important and unjustly forgotten figure who represents an important aspect of the cultural ferment of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain."