About Patrick Magee (actor)
Patrick George Magee (né McGee, 31 March 1922 – 14 August 1982) was an actor and theatre director from Northern Ireland. He was noted for his collaborations with playwrights Samuel Beckett and Harold Pinter (being sometimes described as "Beckett's favourite actor") as well as for 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. After Magee's death, critic Antonia Quirke 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 a "very important and unjustly forgotten figure who represents an important aspect of the cultural ferment of the 1960s and 1970s in Britain". First produced at the Royal Court Theatre in London on 28 October 1958, the play starred Magee directed by Donald McWhinnie. In 1965 he portrayed the Marquis de Sade in Peter Brook's production of Peter Weiss' Marat/Sade, and when the play transferred to Broadway he won a Tony Award for Best Featured Actor in a Play.
Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.