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Patrick Murray, who has passed away at 68, rose to prominence for his role as Mickey Pearce in Only Fools and Horses, the opportunist in a trilby who enters a short-lived partnership with his former schoolmate Rodney Trotter in the iconic British sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Early Introduction

He debuted in season three in a 1983 episode titled Healthy Competition, where Rodney's ambition to advance from his role as a lookout for Del Boy was quickly dashed when Mickey deceived him. Del and Rodney joined forces again, and Mickey remained a recurring character until the programme's final Christmas special in 2003.

Character Background

Mickey Pearce was referenced several times after the show began in 1981, such as in plots where Mickey stole Rodney's girlfriend, but wasn't seen on screen at first. When the creator decided to broaden the supporting cast, the show's producer remembered Murray's role in a Pizza Hut ad, in which he failed to pick up two women, and proposed him for the part. Murray was auditioned on a Friday and started filming just three days later.

Mickey was conceived as a lighter version of Del Boy, more naive but, like Del, frequently experiencing his entrepreneurial antics fail. Mickey dabbles in everything, but you can't depend on him,” Murray remarked. He's forever tricking Rodney, and Del often threatens to hit him for it.” Mickey consistently mocks Rodney about his romantic failures while fabricating his dating successes and flitting between jobs.

Production Stories

An episode from 1989 was hastily altered after an accident in which the actor stumbled over his dog at home and broke a glass pane, injuring a tendon in his right arm and suffering major blood loss. With the actor’s arm in a plaster cast, the writer modified the upcoming installment to explain Mickey getting beaten up by area criminals.

Later Career and Life

The sitcom’s final episode was screened in 1991, but Murray was among the cast members who came back for holiday episodes for another 12 years – and continued to be loved at gatherings for enthusiasts.

Murray was born in south London's Greenwich, to Juana, a dancer, and his father Patrick, a London Transport inspector. He went to St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. At 15 years old, he saw an advertisement for a talent agency in the Daily Mirror and in just a week had been cast in a stage play. He soon began roles on TV, debuting in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play inspired by a novel about campus protests. It was quickly followed, he appeared prominently in the kids' adventure series The Terracotta Horse, filmed 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 a dedicated educator, ahead of his breakthrough arrived.

In the drama Scum, a story centered on the harsh youth detention system, he played Dougan, a kind-hearted prisoner whose head for figures meant he was trusted to handle money smuggled in by visitors, that he gathered on his rounds with a trolley. He successfully to lower the “daddy’s” percentage when Ray Winstone's Carlin took over that position.

The production, created for television in 1977, was prohibited by the BBC for its brutal content, although it was eventually broadcast in 1991. In the meantime, the director turned it into a movie in 1979, with Murray as one of six from the initial cast reprising their roles.

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

His popularity from the sitcom earned him numerous TV roles in the 1980s and 90s in TV shows such as Dempsey and Makepeace, Lovejoy, The Return of Shelley and The Upper Hand. He played two parts in The Bill.

However, his life took a downturn after he managed a pub in Kent in 1998, overindulging in alcohol and eventually finding help from a support group. He later moved to Thailand, where he tied the knot with Anong in 2016. Not long after, he came back to the UK and worked as a cab driver. He briefly returned to acting in 2019 as a tough guy named Frank Bridges in the show Conditions, not yet broadcast.

Medical Challenges

Doctors found with the lung disease COPD in 2018 and, three years later, cancer in his lungs and a liver tumor. Despite being cleared in 2022 following surgery and chemotherapy, it recurred soon after.

Family and Relationships

In 1981, Murray married Shelley Wilkinson; the union dissolved. He is survived by Anong, their daughter, Josie, and the three sons with his first wife, Lee, Ricky and Robert, along with siblings and two brothers.