< Previous18 Olivia de Havilland, Errol Flynn, David Niven and company at the premiere of Dawn Patrol.19 ALAMY20 GET TY IMAGES , REX FEA TURES WHO IS THE RAKE Clockwise from top left: Niven trying archery, circa 1947; in 1951; as A.J. Raffl es in Raffl es (1939); with his wife Hjördis Tersmeden and daughter in their swimming pool, 1964; in 1971; fi lm posters for The Pink Panther (1963); and Casino Royale (1967); with Roger Moore, Gregory Peck and Trevor Howard in 1979. (Niven would later be Fleming’s first choice for James Bond, but would play him only in the misfire-spoof Casino Royale). He also met an “utterly gorgeous” WAAF named Primula Rollo, and they married after a wartime-whirlwind 10-day courtship. Following the Normandy campaign, Niven found himself in a liberated Paris, free-wheeling down the Champs-Élysées on a borrowed bicycle “to the admiring plaudits of the crowd”, but later, crossing the Rhine at Wessel and seeing Germany’s devastation, he was “unable to raise the glimmer of a gloat”. On his post-war return to Hollywood, Niven did some of his best work, as the airman caught in spiritual limbo in Powell and Pressburger’s A Matter of Life and Death (1946) and the playboy on his uppers in 1958’s Bonjour Tristesse. His polish was now imbued with a ruefulness informed not only by his wartime experiences but also by personal tragedy: after bearing him two sons, Primula had died aged 28 in a bizarre accident at Tyrone Power’s house, when she fell down some cellar steps during a game of hide and seek. A couple of years later, however, Niven met the Swedish model Hjördis Tersmeden when he found her occupying his chair on the set of Bonnie Prince Charlie. “The French have the right phrase for it,” he wrote of their encounter: “coup de foudre.” They were married in the seemingly statutory 10 days, and moved into the Pink House, an ocean-view pile next door to Douglas Fairbanks. Though more box-office successes would come — chiefly Around the World in 80 Days and Please Don’t Eat the Daisies (1960), where he played opposite Doris Day — Niven found his brand of breezy urbanity increasingly out of step with a Hollywood pivoting toward gritty realism (it’s telling that, when working with Marlon Brando on a dud called Bedtime Story in the early sixties, Niven characterised his incendiary co-star as “the biggest giggler out there”). “The lovely joke was over,” he wrote, as the family — by now also including two adopted girls — decamped to Europe in the early sixties, settling first in Switzerland and then moving into “an old monstrosity” on Cap Ferrat, where, inevitably, Prince Rainier and Princess Grace would stop by to “eat sardines by candlelight”. Niven would continue to do star turns in the likes of Death on the Nile and The Pink Panther, but he was most in demand on the chat show circuit, where he liked to refer to himself as “a displaced Cary Grant” and would rattle off many of the (often heavily embroidered) anecdotes he’d burnished in his memoirs, eyebrows arched and self-deprecatory twinkle intact. “Has anyone ever been more British than David Niven?” asked one of the obituarists on his death, from Lou Gehrig’s disease, in 1983. As the personification of unflappability under fire — whether in the trenches or among Hollywood’s fleshpots — the answer was surely a resounding no. After the war, crossing the Rhine and seeing Germany’s devastation, he was “unable to raise the glimmer of a gloat”. Left to right: Niven with Tersmeden and their daughter at home in 1964; fi lm posters for Around the World in 80 Days (1956) and Bedtime Story (1964). 2122 ames Bond and I have nothing in common. Both men are secret agents, but that’s as far as it goes.” So said Patrick McGoohan while playing the international spy John Drake in the successful British television series Danger Man (Secret Agent in the U.S.) from 1960 to 1968. McGoohan turned down the opportunity to play Bond in Dr. No after three approaches. As he once said to me, he considered Bond an anti-hero who could exist only on the basis of violence and promiscuous sex, with his ability limited to choosing a wine and wearing a suit well. So McGoohan found it easy to justify his refusal. “I just didn’t care to do it, and I have no regrets,” he said. It was quite a refreshing point of view. “I was offered the part of the Saint before Roger Moore got it,” McGoohan added. “The producers wanted me to carry a gun and have an affair with a different girl every week. But I refused doing The Saint for just that very reason.” He is proud to have done something different with the part of John Drake: “I am self-conscious and remote, and I don’t like violence. You will notice that Drake always fences around violence. He is not an anti-hero like Bond. Drake really is a good guy. And that is why — if you can imagine it — Drake would always beat Bond in a fight. Mind you, this is not to say anything against Sean Connery. I’m just attacking something that is the opposite to [the] many ideals Drake symbolises.” How could he have criticised a gentleman who was sharing the same tailor as him? While most of the suits and dresses of the T.V. shows were supplied by the Fashion House Group of London, McGoohan’s personal suits in Danger Man came from the renowned tailor Anthony Sinclair. Some fine observers may have noticed that McGoohan’s suits had a similar cut to Bond’s suits: a button-two jacket with flap pockets, four buttons on the cuffs and a single vent, with natural shoulders, roped sleeveheads, a draped chest and a gently suppressed waist. The trousers have double forward pleats and turn-ups. In subsequent appearances, John Drake occasionally wears a matching six-button waistcoat, with five to button — pretty similar to 007’s attire in Goldfinger. Indeed, Patrick McGoohan knew well what he was doing, portraying a spy in his own way. While I was researching my book on Cary Grant, McGoohan told me about the pleasure he had in imagining the little electronic gadgets Drake would use, and taking inspiration from everyday objects. Also, he carefully selected his hats. “If you want to get ahead, get a hat,” he said. He wore some headgear for one episode of Danger Man, and he continued to wear hats thereafter. They came from one humble store, not from a ritzier hatter. It was a symbolic down-to-earth touch — as with his dress, distinctive without being implausibly obtrusive. So hats became the most idiosyncratic part of the Drake image, with a range of modish, narrow-brimmed trilbies, most notably one pork-pie in dark straw and some trilbies in vinyl, leather or houndstooth, which complemented a similarly checked overcoat he wore with only the last button fastened. The rest of Drake’s outfits were characterised by their practicality, with some stylish checked sports jackets (always well cut, as Drake was an important agent and not just an underpaid military man, such as Harry Palmer in his poor old tweed jacket), striped blazers, fleece reefer and suede bomber jackets. Drake is a man of the moment, with an international modern silhouette, who uses light fabrics for his travel suits, not some heavy flannels as might a conservative figure of the old empire. McGoohan looked immaculately masculine, with an attractive yet unpredictable presence. He practised squash and weightlifting regularly, and was known outside work for his discreet and modern elegance, with some very comfortable and casual twists. Ian Sproat, who published a long portrait of the actor in 1965, identified him as one of the 10 best-dressed men of the year, writing: “Wearing a well-cut, dark-grey suit, a light- blue shirt, a black knitted tie and black laceless shoes… He was carrying a very slimly rolled umbrella.” His former stand-in and personal assistant, Jimmy Miller, once said: “It’s not the quality of the clothes that has put him into the top 10 but the way he wears them.” McGoohan had an eye for suiting, a personal taste that emerged around 1955, when he was spotted by Orson Welles for Moby Dick — Rehearsed. He met the dapper Dirk Bogarde, whose The late Irish-American actor Patrick McGoohan turned down the chance to play James Bond not once but three times. Where did he find the nerve? MR. NO by frédéric brun GET TY IMAGES “John Drake would always beat Bond in a fi ght. Mind you, this is not to say anything against Sean Connery.”FOLLOW SUIT Patrick McGoohan plays the drums for a scene in All Night Long, 1962. 24 Patrick McGoohan in Life for Ruth, 1962.FOLLOW SUIT 25 ALAMY26 GET TY IMAGES , SHUTTERSTOCK, ALAMY FOLLOW SUIT Clockwise from top left: McGoohan as John Drake in Danger Man, 1964; with Richard Pryor in 1976; on set in 1965; on a go-kart in 1965; in The Prisoner, 1968; in Brass Target, 1978; a lobby card for All Night Long, 1962; in The Prisoner, 1967; with Ernest Borgnine in Ice Station Zebra, 1968. FOLLOW SUIT 27 elegant power suits impressed him. McGoohan remembered it well, and he always paid attention to the details of cloth and the quality of the cut and fabrics. In appearances as in other matters, McGoohan did not want to be pigeonholed. “I will not be pushed, filed, indexed, briefed or numbered,” he said. “I am not a number. I am a person.” He also said: “You know, I fear by A.D. 2000 we’ll all have numbers, no names. Workers will be able to operate their lathes by push-button from their beds. How are we going to educate people for an abundance of leisure like that?” The question obsessed him, and a solution was already in his mind. So, by 1967-68, he imagined, wrote, directed and starred in a visionary programme, The Prisoner, an elaborate parable of modern man caged in an automatised society. “In The Prisoner I tried to create a first-class piece of entertainment, but I hoped it had truth, too, because here also I was concerned with the preservation of the individual and his liberty,” he said. Individual elegance is part of the liberty. As he understood the importance of appearances, the ubiquitous Mr. McGoohan had, for The Prisoner, some precise ideas about the suits, costumes, set designs — the extravagant Control Room, or No.2’s office in the Green Dome — and accessories, such as the famous Aarnio globe chair. The hero’s personal car, a sporty Lotus 7, is the vivid symbol of freedom, facing the black Austin Princess Hearse used by the jailers. As he is supposed to travel for some island vacations, just after resigning, the hero appears, in the opening sequence, in an elegant dark suit, worn on a dark knitted shirt. No neck-tie, as he is not formally dressed for service. So McGoohan took an accurate eye about this symbolic suit. The piece was cut by Dimi Major, who at that time was known for his work in theatre in association with Douglas Hayward, before Hayward opened his own premises on Mount Street and became the showbusiness specialist, with famous clients such as Moore and Michael Caine. Only in the last episode of The Prisoner is the hero authorised to dress ‘like himself’, which means with his dark city suit and proper shoes (some very fashionable black Chelsea boots). In the modernist nightmare of the Village — the show’s fictional setting — people dressed casually, always wearing sneakers. No identity, no suit, no neck-tie, no individuality. “I’ve sometimes been accused of being difficult, edgy and complicated, but only because I want the end product to be as perfect as possible,” McGoohan said. “I haven’t always endeared myself to some people, perhaps.” Perfection was Patrick McGoohan’s prison. “I fear by A.D. 2000 we’ll all have numbers, no names. Workers will be able to operate their lathes by push-button from their beds.” Danger Man bubblegum cards featuring Patrick McGoohan as John Drake, 1965.Next >