Patrick Magee (actor)

Patrick Magee
Magee in Dementia 13 (1963)
Born
Patrick George McGee

(1922-03-31)31 March 1922
Armagh, County Armagh, Northern Ireland
Died14 August 1982(1982-08-14) (aged 60)
London, England
EducationSt Patrick's Grammar School, Armagh
Occupations
  • Actor
  • stage director
Years active1959–1982
Spouse
Belle Sherry
(m. 1958)
Children2
AwardsTony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play
1966 Marat/Sade

Patrick George Magee (né McGee, 31 March 1922 – 14 August 1982) was an Irish actor. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter, sometimes called "Beckett's favourite actor," as well as creating the role of the Marquis de Sade in the original stage and screen productions of Marat/Sade.

Known for his distinctive voice, he also appeared in numerous horror films and in two Stanley Kubrick films – A Clockwork Orange (1971) and Barry Lyndon (1975) – and three Joseph Losey films – The Criminal (1960), The Servant (1963) and Galileo (1975). He was a member of the Royal Shakespeare Company from 1964 to 1970.

Critic Antonia Quirke posthumously described him as "a presence so full of strangeness and charisma and difference and power," while scholar Conor Carville wrote that Magee was an "avant-garde bad-boy" and "very important and unjustly forgotten figure who represents an important aspect of the cultural ferment of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain."