🔗 Share this article

Patrick Noel Murray, who has passed away at 68, became well-known for his performance as the character Mickey Pearce, the spiv with a trilby hat who briefly partners with his childhood friend Rodney Trotter in the beloved TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Early Introduction

He debuted in the show's third season in a 1983 episode called Healthy Competition, where Rodney's ambition to move beyond serving as a lookout for his older brother was instantly thwarted when Mickey ripped him off. The brothers joined forces again, and Mickey remained a recurring character all the way to the final festive episode in 2003.

Origin of the Role

Mickey Pearce was alluded to several times following the program's launch in 1981, like in episodes where he snatched Rodney's girlfriend, but did not initially appear. When the creator wanted to expand the secondary roles, the show's producer remembered Murray's role in a Pizza Hut ad, in which he failed to pick up two women, and suggested him for the part. He auditioned on a Friday and commenced his role a few days after.

The character was envisioned as a less savvy Del Boy, less shrewd but, similar to Del, usually having his money-making schemes fail. Mickey dabbles in everything, but he’s not very trustworthy,” Murray once explained. He constantly deceives Rodney, and Del often threatens to hit him for it.” This character persistently ridicules Rodney about his lack of girlfriends while fabricating his dating successes and changing occupations often.

On-Set Incidents

One 1989 storyline had to be rapidly revamped due to a mishap in which the actor stumbled over his dog at home and crashed through a glass window, injuring a tendon in his right arm and losing a significant amount of blood. As his arm was in a plaster cast, the writer rewrote the next episode to explain Mickey being roughed up by neighborhood thugs.

Later Career and Life

The show's conclusion aired in 1991, but Murray joined the performers who came back for holiday episodes for a dozen more years – and continued to be loved at fan conventions.

Patrick Murray entered the world in south London's Greenwich, to Juana, a dancer, and his father Patrick, a public transport inspector. He went to St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. When he was 15, he saw an advertisement for an acting agency in the Daily Mirror and in just a week had been cast in a stage play. He promptly secured TV parts, debuting in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play adapted from a novel about campus protests. This was soon followed, he had a leading role in the youthful adventure show The Terracotta Horse, filmed in Spain and Morocco.

He appeared in a short TV play Hanging Around (1978), about disaffected youths, and the movie The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), featuring Glenda Jackson as an idealistic teacher, before his big break arrived.

In the drama Scum, a story centered on the brutal borstal system, he was cast as Dougan, a good-natured inmate whose mathematical ability allowed him to be trusted to deal with cash discreetly brought in by visitors, that he gathered on his trolley route. He even managed to reduce the “daddy’s” percentage when Ray Winstone's Carlin became the leader.

The drama, created for television in 1977, was prohibited by the BBC for its graphic violence, but it finally aired in 1991. In the interim, the filmmaker remade it as a feature film in 1979, with Murray as one of six from the original cast returning to their parts.

He then had small parts in the movies Quadrophenia (1979) and Breaking Glass (1980), and appeared as a bellboy in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).

Success on the show led to a string of guest appearances in that era in TV shows such as Dempsey and Makepeace, Lovejoy, The Return of Shelley and The Upper Hand. He appeared in two characters in The Bill.

But his life declined after he became a Kent pub manager in 1998, drinking too much and finally seeking assistance from a support group. He later moved to Thailand, where he tied the knot with Anong in 2016. Soon after, he came back to the UK and became a taxi driver. He briefly returned to acting in 2019 as a cockney gangster Frank Bridges in the show Conditions, not yet broadcast.

Illness Battle

Doctors found with the lung disease COPD in 2018 and, three years later, pulmonary cancer and a growth on his liver. Despite being cleared in 2022 post-treatment, the illness came back shortly afterwards.

Family and Relationships

During 1981, he got married to Shelley Wilkinson; they later divorced. He is survived by Anong, his daughter, Josie, and his three boys of his first marriage, Lee, Ricky and Robert, plus three sisters and brothers.