Daniel Patrick Macnee was born on 6th February 1922 to wealthy parents of aristocratic aspirations. His father was a racehorse trainer who spent much of his time gambling and drinking away the family’s money. His lesbian mother took young Patrick to live with her lover Evelyn in a huge mansion in southern England where he was dressed in girl’s clothes until the age of 11. The residents and staff of Rooksnest all appeared to be absolute fruitcakes. So began the extraordinary life of Patrick Macnee.

Just like his character John Steed, Pat attended the public (private!) school Eton but was expelled for running a gambling syndicate, though it was during his time there that he became interested in acting. He served the war years in the Navy and on demobbing set out to seek acting work.

But opportunities were few and far between. Unusually, for the time, his aristrocratic background did not prove to be of much help. By the late 1950’s he had married and had two children, Rupert and Jenny. Pat discovered that the Canadian television industry was beginning to flourish and took himself across the Atlantic, leaving his family in London.

In Canada Pat managed to find a few, small acting jobs and even occasionally crossed the border to the USA where he would often turn up in now long-forgotten Westerns (and even an appearance in an episode of The Twilight Zone - see below). But, as he confesses in his autobiography, Pat was so busy trying to get work that he virtually forgot about his family – something which he feels guilty about to this day. Years later the couple divorced.

On returning to England in 1958 he came into contact with a producer by the name of Sydney Newman. At the time Newman was considering creating a television series about the life of Winston Churchill and asked Patrick to partner him in a producer’s role. It was a job Patrick accepted with glee and, as it turned out, the resulting series, entitled Winston Churchill – The Valiant Years, proved to be highly successful.

Given the success of this series, Pat decided to abandon acting and work behind the camera. However even then work remained very elusive and by 1960 he was feeling as desperate as ever. Then he bumped into Sydney Newman again....

At that time ABC Television (the UK company) had a series called Police Surgeon which starred Ian Hendry in the title role. Although the series was not particularly successful, it was obvious that young Hendry was very popular with what little audience the show had. ABC decided to scrap the series and replace it with something a little more light-hearted. And thus The Avengers was born. Newman’s idea was to continue with Hendry playing a similar character to his Dr Brent of Police Surgeon and team him with a shadowy Government agent who together would tackle high-level crime in inner-city London.

Newman had decided that the ideal person to play Hendry’s partner in the new show was Pat Macnee. At first Pat was hesitant to accept – after all, he was a producer now, wasn’t he? But his love for acting had never really died and given the fact he was virtually penniless at the time, he decided he had nothing to lose.

The premise of the first episode, ‘Hot Snow’, was that Dr David Keel (Hendry) returns to his surgery to discover his fiancee has been murdered by a gang of criminals during a mix-up over illicit drugs. Vowing to avenge her death, he is suddenly contacted by a shadowy Goverment agent by the name of John Steed. The two form an unlikely partnership as they each have their own reasons for capturing the killers....

The unfortunate fiancee was played by Kate Woodville, whom Pat later married.

Throughout it’s history, production on the Avengers was never straightforward and there were a number of occasions when Pat was sure the show would be cancelled – usually when his various co-stars decided to leave the series. In the case of the sixth season (1968) it was his co-star that was the problem – Linda Thorson receiving a very undeserved ‘thumbs-down’ from the public. Financial input from the USA was also lost and so the series could simply not afford to carry on.

During Diana Rigg’s turn, Patrick’s marriage to Kate broke down and two or three attempts to resuscitate it failed.

The success of The Avengers had made Pat a wealthy man and during his time on the show he bought property in Palm Springs, California (where he still resides today). Despite his love for Britain he chose to live in USA and makes infrequent visits to the UK.

After The Avengers Patrick found a steady stream of acting work in Hollywood (as you can see from the table below!).

In late 1975 Pat was asked to consider taking part in a revival of The Avengers. Although initially hesitant to accept, he decided he still had more to bring to the part of John Steed. Unfortunately the addition of a third lead character to the show left Patrick feeling a little left out. Also he did not care for the direction of the episodes - the new show being grittier and grounded more in the real world than the outright fantasy of the previous series. Nevertheless he conceded that the stories themselves worked very well. But Pat wasn’t sorry when the The New Avengers finished after just 26 episodes.

Back in California Pat’s film and TV work continued and he met his latest (!) wife Baba in 1986. His autobiography ‘Blind in One Ear’ followed two years later and is a splendid read! (See the Printed Matter page for further info.)

Many thanks indeed to David Yee and others for help with the filmography! The list is given chronologically, though there are some entries for which I have no year (and, indeed, no other info at all!) – these are placed at the end of the list. Any help with the filmography would be much appreciated!