It has been a very sad week.

Two actors that I can say have had a definite impact on my life have passed away. While Patrick McGoohan seemed to get all the attention (at least in the UK), Ricardo Montalban slipped away as well.

The car made the show for me. I have wanted one ever since.

Patrick McGoohan

Best know for his role in “The Prisoner”. A classic series, renowned for its strangeness as well as its brilliance. This was entirely McGoohan’s project and without interference from outside he created the surreal would of the prisoner. An ex-spy imprisoned by his own side in “The Village”. Known as Number 6 he tries to escape the strange place and find out who is holding him and why. The actual series is quiet hard to watch, not because it is bad, but because his is trying to push so many ideas at once, never fully explaining the reasons. It is the kind of show making that only comes along every so often, when someone is allowed to try something new without interference.

Before doing “The Prisoner” McGoohan worked on a spy drama called “Danger Man”. This can be said to be the birth place of the intelligent spy. A man who would rather use his wits than his fists to win the day. McGoohan insisted that his character always tried to reason his way out of a situation. It was this idea that lead him to be offered the leading role in “James Bond : Dr No” as well as “The Saint”. He turned them down to do his own work on “The Prisoner”. But the world would have been a very different place if he had taken one of those roles. Sean Connery and Roger Moore would be very different people without McGoohan. We might not even have the type of spy dramas like James Bond or The Borne Identity without him.

“The Prisoner” gave me more than a love of this type of surreal show. It also gave me a love for the Lotus 7. An iconic vehicle that was brand new at the time. It is “The Prisoner” that help show the car to the world, but worked well with strange look of the show.

Ricardo Montalban

I can guarantee every nerd in the world will know this man, even if they don’t know his name. Just saying “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan!” will be enough to tell anyone who he is. An accomplished actor with a long career behind him. I was pleased to see something of a resurgence of him recently in the “Spy Kids” films. But with such a distinctive voice he has also done his fair amount of voice work as well.

I will remember him best for his great work in Star Trek 2 : Wrath of Kahn (the best Star Trek film, in no small part because of him. He even managed to get a good performance from Shatner). But other iconic films like Cannonball Run II, and Naked Gun.