Mad-eyed Patrick Magee began as he meant to continue in Rag Doll (d. Lance Comfort, 1961) as a drunken, bullying roadhouse proprietor, revealing already the unsettling presence he would bring to his stage roles in Beckett (who wrote Krapp's Last Tape for him) and Pinter. In films, even in small roles like the Bishop in the restaurant in The Servant (d. Joseph Losey, 1963), you couldn't miss him, and when he was given something to get his teeth into - repeating his stage role of De Sade in Marat/Sade (d. Peter Brook, 1966), Cornwall in King Lear (UK/Denmark, d. Brook, 1970), the vengeful Mr Alexander in A Clockwork Orange (d. Stanley Kubrick, 1971), or the Chevalier in Barry Lyndon (d. Kubrick, 1975) - he was formidable indeed. His first stage experience was in Ireland with Anew McMaster's company, and he was on the London stage from 1958. Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Film
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