TV spy Patrick McGoohan, 80

Patrick McGoohan, 80, an Emmy Award-winning actor who starred as a British spy in the 1960s TV series

Secret Agent

and

The Prisoner

and was known for playing various villainous roles in films and on television, has died.

Mr. McGoohan died peacefully Tuesday at St. John's Health Center in Santa Monica, Calif., after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, Mr. McGoohan's son-in-law. The family did not provide further details.

It was the height of James Bond mania in 1965 when Mr. McGoohan showed up on American TV screens in

Secret Agent

, a British-produced series in which he played John Drake, a special security agent working as a spy for the British government.

The hour-long series, which ran on CBS until 1966, was an expanded version of

Danger Man

, a short-lived, half-hour series on CBS in 1961 in which Mr. McGoohan played the same character.

But it was Mr. McGoohan's next British-produced series,

The Prisoner

, on CBS in 1968 and 1969, that became a cult classic.

Once described in the Los Angeles Times as an "espionage tale as crafted by Kafka,"

The Prisoner

starred Mr. McGoohan as a British agent who, after resigning his post, is abducted and held captive by unknown powers in a mysterious village, where he known only as No. 6.

Mr. McGoohan was creator and executive producer of the series, which ran for only 17 episodes. He also wrote and directed several episodes.

Among the memorable villains he played on screen was England's sadistic King Edward I in Mel Gibson's 1995 film

Braveheart.

As a guest star on TV's

Columbo,

Mr. McGoohan won Emmys in 1975 and 1990.

Born in New York on March 19, 1928, Mr. McGoohan was raised in England and Ireland, where his family moved shortly after his birth. He had a busy stage career before moving to television, and won a London Drama Critics Award for playing the title role in the Henrik Ibsen play

Brand

.

He married stage actress Joan Drummond in 1951. The oldest of their three daughters, Catherine, is also an actress.

Mr. McGoohan is survived by his wife and three daughters.