🔗 Share this article

Patrick Murray, who has passed away at 68, became well-known for his portrayal as Mickey Pearce, the trilby-wearing chancer who enters a short-lived partnership with his old schoolfriend Rodney Trotter in the beloved TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Early Introduction

He was introduced in the show's third season in an episode from 1983 titled Healthy Competition, where Rodney's desire to escape serving as a lookout for Del Boy was immediately foiled when Mickey cheated him. The Trotter brothers joined forces again, and Mickey remained a recurring character all the way to the final festive episode in 2003.

Development of Mickey

Mickey Pearce was alluded to several times since the series started in 1981, such as in plots where Mickey stole Rodney's girlfriend, but hadn't been portrayed originally. As the writer wanted to expand the secondary roles, Ray Butt remembered Murray's performance in a TV commercial, trying to flirt with two women, and recommended him for the part. He auditioned on a Friday and began work within three days.

The character was envisioned as a less savvy Del Boy, less shrewd but, similar to Del, often seeing his entrepreneurial antics go wrong. “Mickey will try anything, but he’s not very trustworthy,” Murray remarked. “He’s always stitching Rodney up, and Del often threatens to hit him for it.” Mickey frequently teases Rodney about his romantic failures while exaggerating his dating successes and hopping from job to job.

On-Set Incidents

One 1989 storyline was hastily altered due to a mishap in which he tripped over his pet at home and broke a glass pane, injuring a tendon in his right arm and losing five pints of blood. As his arm was in a plaster cast, the creator rewrote the next episode to include Mickey being roughed up by area criminals.

Later Career and Life

The sitcom’s final episode was screened in 1991, but Murray joined the actors who returned for Christmas specials for another 12 years – and stayed in favor at fan events.

He was born in Greenwich, south London, his mother Juana, a dancer, and his father Patrick, a transport official. He attended St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. Aged 15, he spotted an advert for a talent agency in the Daily Mirror and within a week landed a role in a stage play. He soon began television roles, beginning in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play adapted from a novel about campus protests. It was quickly followed, he starred in the youthful adventure show The Terracotta Horse, shot in Spain and Morocco.

He also had roles a brief play Hanging Around (1978), focusing on troubled teens, and the movie The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), with Glenda Jackson as an idealistic teacher, ahead of his breakthrough arrived.

For Scum, a play about the oppressive reform school environment, he portrayed Dougan, a good-natured inmate whose skill with numbers allowed him to be trusted to deal with cash secretly introduced by visitors, which he collected on his tea trolley round. He successfully to lower the “daddy’s” percentage when the character Carlin assumed that role.

This play, produced for a TV series in 1977, was prohibited by the BBC for its graphic violence, but it finally aired in 1991. Meanwhile, Alan Clarke remade it as a feature film in 1979, with Murray as one of six from the original cast playing their characters again.

He later took small parts in the films Quadrophenia (1979) and Breaking Glass (1980), and took the role of a bellboy in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).

Success on the show brought him multiple guest spots in the 80s and 90s in programs such as Dempsey and Makepeace, Lovejoy, The Return of Shelley and The Upper Hand. He also took two roles in The Bill.

However, his life spiralled downhill after he became a Kent pub manager in 1998, overindulging in alcohol and later getting support from Alcoholics Anonymous. He went to Thailand, where he tied the knot with Anong in 2016. Shortly afterwards, he returned to Britain and worked as a cab driver. He came back shortly to acting in 2019 as a tough guy playing Frank Bridges in the show Conditions, yet to air.

Health Struggles

He received a diagnosis with the lung disease COPD in 2018 and, a few years after, pulmonary cancer and a liver tumor. Although he was given the all-clear in 2022 post-treatment, the cancer returned not long after.

Family and Relationships

Back in 1981, Murray married Shelley Wilkinson; the marriage ended in divorce. His survivors include Anong, daughter Josie, Josie, and the three sons of his first marriage, Lee, Ricky and Robert, along with siblings and male siblings.