The Associated Press reports that actors Ricardo Montalban and Patrick McGoohan have both passed away.
Montalban, the Mexican-born actor who became a star in splashy MGM musicals and later as the wish-fulfilling Mr. Roarke in TV’s “Fantasy Island,” died Wednesday morning at his home, a city councilman said. He was 88. Montalban had been a star in Mexican movies when MGM brought him to Hollywood in 1946. He was cast in the leading role opposite Esther Williams in Fiesta. He also starred with the swimming beauty in On an Island with You and Neptune’s Daughter.
A later generation knew Montalban as the faintly mysterious, white-suited Mr. Roarke, who presided over an island resort where visitors were able to fulfill their lifelong dreams. “Fantasy Island” received high ratings for most of its 1978-1984 span on ABC television and still appears in reruns.
Emmy-winning actor McGoohan, who created and starred in the cult classic television show “The Prisoner,” died Tuesday in Los Angeles at the age of 80 after a short illness, his son-in-law, film producer Cleve Landsberg, said. McGoohan won two Emmys for his work on the Peter Falk detective drama “Columbo,” and more recently appeared as King Edward Longshanks in the 1995 Mel Gibson film Braveheart.
But he was most famous as the character known only as Number Six in “The Prisoner,” a sci-fi tinged 1960s British series in which a former spy is held captive in a small enclave known only as The Village, where a mysterious authority named Number One constantly prevents his escape. He also appeared as a warden in the 1979 Clint Eastwood film Escape From Alcatraz and as a judge in the 1996 John Grisham courtroom drama A Time to Kill.
McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.
