Patrick Magee

Patrick Magee (born Patrick George McGee, 31 March 1922, Armagh, County Armagh; died 14 August 1982, London) was an Irish stage and screen actor whose Broadway career spanned 1965 to 1971. The eldest of five children born into a middle-class Catholic family at 2 Edward Street, Armagh, he was educated at St. Patrick's Grammar School. When he entered the profession, he altered the spelling of his surname from McGee to Magee, most likely to avoid confusion with another actor.

Magee's earliest stage work was in Ireland with Anew McMaster's touring company, where he performed Shakespeare and first encountered Harold Pinter. Tyrone Guthrie subsequently brought him to London for a series of Irish plays. A pivotal professional relationship began in 1957 when Magee met Samuel Beckett and recorded passages from the novel Molloy and the short story From an Abandoned Work for BBC radio. Struck by what he described as the cracked quality of Magee's distinctly Irish voice, Beckett requested copies of the recordings and wrote Krapp's Last Tape specifically for him. The play received its first production at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 28 October 1958, with Magee in the title role directed by Donald McWhinnie. McWhinnie directed Magee again in a BBC2 televised version broadcast on 29 November 1972.

In 1964, Magee joined the Royal Shakespeare Company after Pinter, directing his own play The Birthday Party, specifically requested him for the role of McCann and identified him as the strongest member of the cast. Magee remained with the RSC from 1964 to 1970. During that period he appeared in the 1966 RSC production of Staircase opposite Paul Scofield, played Inspector Hawkins in the company's original 1969 production of Dutch Uncle, and concluded his time with the RSC in Peter Hall's 1970 production of Battle of Shrivings at the Lyric Theatre.

His Broadway debut came in 1965 when he portrayed the Marquis de Sade in Peter Brook's production of Peter Weiss's The Persecution and Assassination of Marat as Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton Under the Direction of the Marquis de Sade. The role earned him the Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play in 1966. He reprised the role of de Sade in the 1966 film adaptation, also directed by Brook. Magee returned to Broadway in Keep It In the Family and, in 1970, played Daniel Webster in Scratch, an adaptation of The Devil and Daniel Webster by Archibald MacLeish.

His film career encompassed a wide range of genres. Early screen credits included Joseph Losey's The Criminal (1960) and The Servant (1963), the latter scripted by Pinter, as well as Dementia 13 (1963), Zulu (1964), Séance on a Wet Afternoon (1964), and The Birthday Party (1968). He worked twice with Stanley Kubrick: as the victimized writer Frank Alexander in A Clockwork Orange (1971) and as the Chevalier de Balibari in Barry Lyndon (1975). Three of his films were directed by Joseph Losey, including The Criminal, The Servant, and Galileo (1975). Magee appeared frequently in horror productions, among them Roger Corman's The Masque of Red Death (1964), Tales from the Crypt (1972), Asylum (1972), and Demons of the Mind (1972). His final film role was in Walerian Borowczyk's Docteur Jekyll et les femmes (1981).

In his personal life, Magee married Belle Sherry, also a native of County Armagh, in 1958. The couple had twins, Mark and Caroline, born in February 1961, and remained together until his death. He was a staunch Irish republican and an active campaigner for left-wing causes. In 1976, he played an instrumental role in persuading his trade union, Equity, to boycott South Africa over the country's apartheid laws. He struggled with alcoholism and gambling throughout his life, difficulties that affected both his finances and his professional relationships.

Magee died of a heart attack at his flat in Fulham, southwest London, on 14 August 1982, at the age of 60. His final screen appearance was in an episode of Play for Today, which aired on 14 December 1982, three months after his death. On 29 July 2017, actor Stephen Rea unveiled a blue plaque at 2 Edward Street, Armagh, commemorating Magee's birthplace.