Patrick Macnee Recalls His Life As An Actor - And Avenger
Trusty Steed
by John Robert-Blunn

No, the girl at the hotel reception desk could not find him in her records. And she couldn't say whether she had seen him because she didn't know what Patrick Macnee looked like. Nor did the helpful young male colleague she consulted.

It was now past the time I had arranged to meet the actor turned author, so I tried again: "You know the man. Steed; the Avengers; bowler hat; rolled umbrella..." Blank faces.

I wandered off into the lobby, and there, sitting patiently in an alcove was the famous man himself.

His companion and co-author of his autobiography, Marie Cameron, seeing me wandering aimlessly, sprang out and introduced me to Macnee.

Hearing that reception hadn't even heard of him, he said: "I've been around for 67 years, and nothing surprises me." No hint of crushed pride, or anger or irritation at not being recognised instantly as the centre of the universe.

Mind you, as it was indoors, he wasn't wearing a bowler or carrying an umbrella. It may have been overcast but it wasn't raining.

He was, however, in a tweed three-piece suit, with neat collar and tie, shirt cuffs just peeping beyond the sleeves of his jacket. His hair immaculately groomed. The very model of an archetypal English gentleman. John Steed would have approved.

True, Macnee was born in London because his outrageous, high-powered Mama happened to be there at the time. Just where in London, Mama never remembered. It may have been in the carriage as two horses sped towards Bayswater, or it may have been at the hospital. Mama blacked out, so Macnee may never know.

But London it certainly was, and Macnee's early formative years were spent in a social whirl in the south of England. Yet, as he was quick to point out to me, he is Scottish.

His five-foot father, who loved horses and gin and put his personal medical affairs in the hands of a vet, was in a proud Scottish line and involved with the family engineering firm in Scotland.

Said Macnee: "I'm certainly British and I regard myself as Scottish and not English."

He has lived in California for many years, and is well aware that foreigners are hazy about Britain's different nations. Macnee therefore settles for being British.

Despite the image of a typical Briton which he created worldwide in The Avengers, he is not typically British so much as possibly typical upper-middle-class, with his mother running off with him to join her lesbian lover Evelyn at a strange Wiltshire house called Rooksnest - after Pa had made good his escape to India.

His Scottishness was made clear to him as a child when Evelyn insisted that young Patrick should wear a kilt about the house. He also had to have his hair twisted into a pigtail

Romantic

Says Macnee: "My hair not only gave me a headache, but also the appearance of a Chinese boy dressed up as a Scotsman."

Evelyn and her pet monkey approved and, who knows, it might have given Patrick the idea of dresssing up as an actor - or explain his preference in later life for three-piece suits.

With a background like this, it would have been something of a surprise if Macnee had not been expelled from ("asked to leave") Eton (where he did well as a bookie and dealer in pornography) or led an eventful and sometimes bizarre life, includind herding swine, gin-smuggling, a nagging drink problem and many triumphs and disasters.

There was also five years in the Royal Navey during the Second World War, most of it serving in motor torpedo boats in the Channel.

He said: "People ask me what it was like then, but it's history. I did my bit like so many others did - and it's behind me now. War is never a pleasant thing."

After two previous marriages (to Barbara Douglas and Kate Woodville) he married a third time in February this year. He is enjohing life with wealthy Hungarian Baba Majos de Nagyzsenye. On marriage they became - according to Macnee - "two youthful, happy 66-year-old romantics."

Over the years, Macnee's weight has varied, very often because of eating and drinking too much, and he must be reminded of this when he see films featuring the younger, slimmer Macnee.

He said: "It doesn't matter whether I'm thin or fat or in between provided I act well and do the job properly - that is what is important."

Will the Avengers fade? "Maybe," he said, "but remember it was way ahead of its time, a thriller in comic-strip form, if you like.

"One thing I'll say for the series, we were among the first to have a woman as a major character in her own right and not just for being a woman."

Despite the passage of all those years, Macnee still clings to his Britishness much as three-piece suits cling to him.

He said: "At the moment in America we have all the business of the presidential election, with Bush and Dukakis getting very emotional in public. British don't show emotions very much, and I think that's a good thing, don't you? Why should people know what we're thinking?"

Blind In One Ear, by Patrick Macnee and Marie Cameron (Harrap, £12.95)

From The Manchester Evening News, England, October 18th 1988. Written by John Robert-Blunn.

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