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Patrick Murray, who has passed away at 68, gained fame for his portrayal as the character Mickey Pearce, the spiv with a trilby hat who teams up briefly with his old schoolfriend Rodney Trotter in the beloved TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

First Episode

He was introduced in season three in an episode from 1983 named Healthy Competition, in which Rodney's ambition to advance from being just a lookout for Del Boy was immediately foiled when Mickey ripped him off. Del and Rodney joined forces again, and Mickey stayed a recurring character throughout the final festive episode in 2003.

Character Background

This figure had been mentioned repeatedly after the show began in 1981, like in episodes where he took Rodney's girlfriend, but did not initially appear. Once the show's creator wanted to expand the ensemble of characters, the producer remembered Murray's appearance in an advertisement, trying to flirt with two women, and suggested him for the part. The actor tried out on a Friday and started filming a few days after.

Mickey was conceived as “Del Boy lite”, less shrewd but, in the same vein as Del, usually having his entrepreneurial antics go wrong. He's willing to attempt anything, but you can't depend on him,” the actor stated. “He’s always stitching Rodney up, and Del regularly warns to clump him for it.” Mickey consistently mocks Rodney about not having a girlfriend while fabricating his supposed love life and changing occupations often.

Production Stories

One 1989 storyline needed quick rewriting following an incident in which the actor stumbled over his dog at home and smashed into a window, cutting a tendon in his right arm and losing five pints of blood. With Murray's arm in a plaster cast, John Sullivan rewrote the next episode to include Mickey getting beaten up by local gangsters.

Later Years

The show's conclusion was screened in 1991, but Murray joined the performers who returned for Christmas specials for a dozen more years – and stayed in favor at fan events.

Murray was born in Greenwich, south London, with a mother named Juana, a dancer, and Patrick, a public transport inspector. He went to St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. When he was 15, he noticed a notice for a talent agency in the Daily Mirror and shortly after landed a role in a stage play. He quickly started TV parts, debuting in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play adapted from a novel about college demonstrations. This was soon followed, he had a leading role in the youthful adventure show The Terracotta Horse, produced in those countries.

He also had roles a short TV play Hanging Around (1978), focusing on troubled teens, and the movie The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), with Glenda Jackson as a passionate instructor, before his big break arrived.

For Scum, a story centered on the oppressive reform school environment, he portrayed Dougan, a friendly detainee whose mathematical ability meant he was trusted to manage funds smuggled in by visitors, that he gathered on his rounds with a trolley. He even managed to reduce the “daddy’s” percentage when Carlin (Ray Winstone) assumed that role.

This play, created for television in 1977, was prohibited by the BBC for the extent of its violence, yet it was later shown in 1991. In the meantime, the filmmaker turned it into a movie in 1979, with Murray among six from the original cast playing their characters again.

Subsequently, he played supporting parts in features like Quadrophenia (1979) and Breaking Glass (1980), and took the role of a bellboy in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).

Success on the show earned him numerous TV roles in the 1980s and 90s in series such as Dempsey and Makepeace, Lovejoy, The Return of Shelley and The Upper Hand. He played two characters in The Bill.

Yet his personal life declined after he took over a pub in Kent in 1998, overindulging in alcohol and later getting support from Alcoholics Anonymous. He later moved to Thailand, where he wed Anong in 2016. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Britain and became a taxi driver. He came back shortly to acting in 2019 as a tough guy named Frank Bridges in the TV series Conditions, not yet broadcast.

Illness Battle

Doctors found with COPD in 2018 and, in 2021, cancer in his lungs and a liver tumor. Although he was given the all-clear in 2022 post-treatment, the illness came back shortly afterwards.

Personal Life

During 1981, Murray married Shelley Wilkinson; they later divorced. He is survived by Anong, daughter Josie, Josie, and three sons with his first wife, Lee, Ricky and Robert, plus siblings and male siblings.