Patrick MacNee

Daniel Patrick Macnee was born on 6 February 1922 in Paddington, London, the elder of two sons of Daniel Macnee, a racehorse trainer in Lambourn, and Dorothea Mabel Macnee, a British socialite. His father was a grandson of the Scottish artist Sir Daniel Macnee and had served as an officer in the Yorkshire Dragoons during the First World War. His maternal grandmother, Frances Alice Hastings, was the daughter of Vice-Admiral George Fowler Hastings and a granddaughter of the 12th Earl of Huntingdon. His younger brother James was born five years after him. After his parents separated — his mother having come out as a lesbian — his father relocated to India while his mother began living with a wealthy partner, Evelyn Spottiswoode, whose fortune derived from the Dewar's whisky business. Macnee referred to Spottiswoode as "Uncle Evelyn" in his autobiography and credited her with helping fund his education. He attended Summer Fields School and Eton College, where he was a member of the Officer Training Corps and served in the guard of honour for King George V at St George's Chapel in 1936, before being expelled for selling pornography and operating as a bookmaker among fellow students.

Macnee trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Shortly before he was to take a West End leading role opposite Vivien Leigh, he was called up for the Royal Navy. He enlisted as an ordinary seaman in October 1942 and was commissioned as a sub-lieutenant in June 1943, serving as a navigator on Motor Torpedo Boats in the English Channel and North Sea. Reassigned as first lieutenant on a second MTB, he contracted bronchitis just before D-Day; while he was in hospital recovering, his boat and crew were lost in action, with two crew members receiving the Distinguished Service Medal. He left the Royal Navy in 1946 holding the rank of lieutenant.

Following the war, Macnee appeared as an uncredited extra in the British films Pygmalion (1938), The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (1943), and Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948). He went on to earn credited film roles, including young Jacob Marley in Scrooge (1951), a role in the war film The Battle of the River Plate (1956), and a barrister in the Gene Kelly vehicle Les Girls (1957). Much of the 1950s was spent in small television and theatre roles in the United States and Canada. In 1954, he appeared on stage in Richard of Bordeaux and Haste to the Wedding at the Crest Theatre in Toronto, experiences he later described as defining moments in his development as an actor. His television work during this period included episodes of One Step Beyond and The Twilight Zone, the latter in the 1959 episode "Judgment Night."

Macnee was also a Broadway performer whose stage work in New York spanned from 1954 to 1970, with credits including A Midsummer Night's Dream and Sleuth. In the early 1960s, before his career-defining television role, he stepped away from acting to serve as one of the London-based producers on The Valiant Years, a documentary series drawn from Winston Churchill's Second World War memoirs.

It was while working in London on that Churchill project that Macnee was offered the role of John Steed in the British television series The Avengers (1961–1969). Originally conceived as a supporting character assisting Ian Hendry's Dr. David Keel, Steed became the central figure after Hendry's departure at the end of the first series. Macnee appeared in 159 of the 161 completed episodes, partnered across the run with Honor Blackman, Diana Rigg, and Linda Thorson. The character's signature look — bowler hat, umbrella, and tailored suit — became fully established from the Blackman episodes onward. Macnee worked alongside designer Pierre Cardin to develop the style and personally designed several of Steed's outfits himself. He also insisted on almost never carrying a gun in the series, citing his wartime experience of losing friends in combat. Steed returned in The New Avengers (1976–1977), in which he was paired with agents Purdey, played by Joanna Lumley, and Mike Gambit, played by Gareth Hunt. During the 1960s, Macnee co-wrote two original novels based on the series, Dead Duck and Deadline, and he later hosted the documentary The Avengers: The Journey Back (1998).

Macnee's film work included Sir Denis Eton-Hogg in the mockumentary This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and Sir Godfrey Tibbett in the James Bond film A View to a Kill (1985). He is among the few actors to have portrayed both Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in separate productions. In 1984, he was the subject of the British television program This Is Your Life. His television appearances across several decades included Columbo, Magnum P.I., Hart to Hart, Murder She Wrote, The Love Boat, and Frasier. In 1990, a 1964 recording he had made with Avengers co-star Honor Blackman, titled "Kinky Boots," reached the UK Top 10 following renewed airplay on BBC Radio One. He also appeared in Oasis's 1996 music video for "Don't Look Back in Anger." For the 1998 film version of The Avengers, he contributed a voice cameo. Macnee died on 25 June 2015.