Quick Facts
VirgoBiography
Patrick Mower (born 12 September 1938), whose original name was Patrick Archibald Shaw, is an English actor well known for his various television and occasional film roles, often as a detective or secret agent and more recently as Rodney Blackstock in ITV soap opera Emmerdale, a role he has played since 2000.
Life
Mower was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire to a Welsh father and English mother.
In his 2007 autobiography, Mower states that he believed for years that his year of birth was 1940, but later discovered that his birth was not registered and he was born on 12 September 1938. Several reference books on film and television, including Who's Who On the Screen (1983) and Who's Who on Television (1996), give Mower's town of birth as Pontypridd, South Wales, instead of Oxford. In 2007 Mower took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.
He attended Southfield Grammar School in Oxford, and after first training as an engineering draughtsman at the [Pressed Steel Co. Ltd.] Cowley plant, he graduated from RADA. He first came to prominence as an actor in the spy series Callan in the early 1970s. He went on to appear as DCI Tom Haggerty in Special Branch alongside George Sewell, and Det. Supt. Steve Hackett in the police series Target, and featured in one of the last Carry On films, Carry On England. Many television roles have included guest appearances in Jason King, Space: 1999, UFO, Minder, The Sweeney and Bergerac (as Eddie St Pierre). He was a regular panelist on the murder mystery programme Whodunnit?. He currently stars as Rodney Blackstock in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.
For seven years Mower was the partner of the actress Suzanne Danielle.
He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1976 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews.
Filmography
- The Devil Rides Out (1968)
- The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969)
- Incense for the Damned (1970)
- Cry of the Banshee (1970)
- Percy (1971)
- Black Beauty (1971)
- To Catch a Spy (1971)
- Carry On England (1976)
- One Away (1976)
- The Devil's Advocate (1977)
- Escape from El Diablo (1984)
- Monella (1998)
Television
- Swizzlewick (1964)
- The Avengers (1966)
- Haunted (1966–67)
- UFO (1970)
- Jason King (1972)
- Callan (1972)
- Special Branch (1973–74)
- The Sweeney - two episodes, Golden Fleece and Trojan Bus - (1975)
- Space: 1999 (1976)
- Target (1977–78)
- Marco Polo (1982–83)
- The Dark Side of the Sun (TV serial) (1983)
- Minder (1984)
- Tales Of The Unexpected (1984)
- Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1985)
- Chucklevision (1997)
- Emmerdale – Rodney Blackstock (24 October 2000—)
- Lily Savage's Blankety Blank (2001)