Cryptomundo » Mokele Movie Villain Dies

Mokele Movie Villain Dies

Posted by: Loren Coleman on January 15th, 2009

If you are a movie buff and cryptocinema fan, you may be familiar with the character of the evil “Dr. Eric Kiviat.” As it turns out, “Kiviat” was played by Patrick McGoohan (above) and the famed actor has sadly died. He was 80.

Dr. Eric Kiviat, as you will notice from McGoohan’s bearded presence (above), was in a significant Mokele-mbembe movie. The character even looks remarkably like Dr. Roy Mackal (below), the Mokele-mbembe expedition leader to the Congo.

Mackal

Roy Mackal, in the Congo, in search of Mokele-mbembe.

The movie in which Patrick McGoohan played the villian “Doctor Eric Kiviat” is Baby: Secret of the Lost Legend of 1985. According to the Internet Movie Database, Kiviat “is loosely based off Dr. Roy Mackal (University of Chicago; biologist, engineer, teacher and biochemist) and his voyages to Africa in search of the legendary living dinosaurs of the Congo, Mokele-Mbembe. Mackal’s 1980 Congo trip with fellow cryptozoologist, James Powell, was a featured segment on an episode of ‘Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World’ television series.”

Of course, most of us who know Mackal and his history well, like I do, understand that Mackal is no bad guy. But we also realize that movies are scripted to have good and bad characters. Mackal’s pursuing cryptozoologist was turned into the evil Kiviat for Hollywood’s plot purposes.

[In perhaps an inside joke played out through the name game, if his name was in some scriptwriter's mind back in the 1980s, I must point out that the villain "Kiviat" may partially be modeled on the real-life character of LA producer Robert Kiviat. Kiviat worked in Hollywood on Geraldo Rivera’s TV newsmagazine "Now It Can Be Told," and NBC's "Unsolved Mysteries." Eventually, Kiviat would be the man behind eleven "documentaries," including 20th Century Fox Television's 1995 special, "Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?" about the alleged Roswell UFO autopsy footage. Kiviat is probably one of the only people in reality television programming who has been able to sell a network the original footage of something like this, and then turnaround, come back, and sell them a program on how it was faked. Robert Kiviat was also the driving force behind the Fox special, "The World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed." In that December 28, 1998 special, Kiviat "revealed" the Patterson-Gimlin footage was a "hoax," because a former insurance agent and former basketball player named Jerry Romney was inside the "suit." Romney denied he was in any Bigfoot suit.]

Michael Hoffman also notes, to my attention, that Patrick McGoohan was in the lead role as Dr. Syn - Alias the Scarecrow, with the “Scarecrow” heading an underground movement against the King. Interestingly, two place names of some interest in the film are the “Dover castle” and “Romney Marsh.”

The rest of the world shall be remembering Patrick McGoohan as the British spy in the 1960s TV series “Secret Agent” and the enigmatic “The Prisoner,” (No. 6). (On the “Prisoner” and its weird twists, see Todd Campbell’s posting here.) However, within the world of cryptozoology, he will always be “Dr. Eric Kiviat.”

McGoohan, whose career involved stage, screen and TV, died Tuesday, January 13, 2009, at St. John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, California, after a short illness, said Cleve Landsberg, McGoohan’s son-in-law.

McGoohan, who reportedly turned down an offer to be the big-screen’s original James Bond, appeared in many other films, including The Three Lives of Thomasina, Mary ~ Queen of Scots, Silver Streak, Escape From Alcatraz, Scanners, Ice Station Zebra and famously in Mel Gibson’s Braveheart, in which he played England’s sadistic King Edward I.

In his review of Braveheart in The Times, critic Peter Rainer wrote: “Patrick McGoohan is in possession of perhaps the most villainous enunciation in the history of acting.”

Patrick McGoohan was born to Irish parents in Astoria, Long Island, N.Y., on March 19, 1928. A few months later, his family returned to Ireland, where he grew up on a farm before moving to Sheffield, England, when he was 7.

In 1951, he married actress Joan Drummond, with whom he had three daughters, Catherine, Anne and Frances. In addition to his wife and daughters, McGoohan is survived by five grandchildren and a great-grandson.

Thanks to Red Pill for some hints on this one.

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 15th, 2009 at 9:17 am and is filed under Breaking News, Cinema News, CryptoZoo News, Cryptofiction, Cryptomundo Exclusive, Cryptotourism, Cryptozoologists, Cryptozoology, Living Dinosaurs, Mokele-Mbembe, Movie Monsters, Obituaries. You can follow responses via our RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is not allowed.

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7 Responses to “Mokele Movie Villain Dies”

HulkSmashNow responds: January 15th, 2009 at 11:20 am
I loved “Baby” as a kid. I haven’t seen it in years. McGoohan was also the late father of Kit Walker, the latest Ghost Who Walks, in “The Phantom.”
scottc responds: January 15th, 2009 at 11:24 am
While THE PRISONER will remain his greatest legacy as an actor (I think he was also a producer on the series), I will remember Patrick McGoohan best for his role in DR. SYN, ALIAS THE SCARECROW, a Disney film from 1964. It’s a Zorro-style knock-off, but really terrific. It has only recently been released on DVD. If you haven’t seen it, please check it out. A thrilling family film with a wonderful message for all.
red_pill_junkie responds: January 15th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
Scottc, even Mr. Mcgoohan agreed on an interview that “for most people Mel (Gibson) will always be Mad Max, and I will always be a number”.

And I also loved the movie Baby as a kid. I would love it if the Disney channel would air it one of these days.

Very interesting that part about the Kiviat ‘coincidences’, Loren
DavidFullam responds: January 15th, 2009 at 1:22 pm
Patrick was also the creator of The Prisoner, and writer/director of several episodes. He was the show’s guiding light. I never once thought of Baby when remembering the man. My thoughts drifted to Danger Man/Secret Agent, The Prisoner, Silver Streak and Escape from Alcatraz.
aomalley1 responds: January 15th, 2009 at 3:11 pm
This was a great movie when I was younger. This was definetly one of my favorites. It’s funny though. I never knew it was about the mokele mbembe.
cryptidsrus responds: January 15th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
RIP, Mr. MgGoohan.

I particularly remember him in Braveheart. His Edward I is still one of the greatest movie villains in history (though not factually accurate, of course, as befits Gibson’s long-running anti-British bias).

Nobody mentioned the fact that a lot of folks may remember McGoohan also from his several appearances in many of the “Columbo” TV movies over many decades. He even directed some of them. Him and Falk were memeorable adversaries.
transgenic452 responds: January 15th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
I seem to recall the “Dr. Syn, Alias The Scarecrow” was also a series under just the name “The Scarecrow”…perhaps on “World of Disney” or “The Mickey Mouse Show? I’m certain I remember watching different episodes every week or two when I was a child.

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