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Patrick Noel Murray, who died aged 68, rose to prominence for his role as the character Mickey Pearce, the trilby-wearing chancer who briefly partners with his old schoolfriend Rodney Trotter in the classic television comedy Only Fools and Horses.

Initial Appearance

He was introduced in season three in a 1983 episode called Healthy Competition, during which Rodney's goal to move beyond serving as a lookout for Del Boy was immediately foiled when Mickey cheated him. The Trotter brothers came back together, and Mickey continued as a regular presence throughout the programme's final Christmas special in 2003.

Character Background

The character was alluded to repeatedly following the program's launch in 1981, including in stories where Mickey stole Rodney's girlfriend, but hadn't been portrayed originally. Once the show's creator sought to enlarge the secondary roles, Ray Butt remembered Murray's performance in a TV commercial, trying to flirt with two women, and proposed him for the part. Murray was auditioned on a Friday and began work a few days after.

Mickey was conceived as “Del Boy lite”, more naive but, similar to Del, often seeing his business ventures fail. Mickey dabbles in everything, but he’s not very trustworthy,” Murray remarked. He constantly deceives Rodney, and Del is always threatening to clump him for it.” This character persistently ridicules Rodney about his lack of girlfriends while exaggerating his own romantic “conquests” and flitting between jobs.

Behind the Scenes

One 1989 storyline was hastily altered after an accident in which he tripped over his pet at home and smashed into a window, cutting a tendon in his right arm and losing a significant amount of blood. With the actor’s arm in a plaster cast, John Sullivan adjusted the following episode to explain Mickey being roughed up by neighborhood thugs.

Post-Fame Journey

The show's conclusion aired in 1991, but Murray joined the performers who participated in festive specials for another 12 years – and remained popular at fan events.

He was born in Greenwich, south London, his mother Juana, a dancer, and his father Patrick, a London Transport inspector. He attended St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. Aged 15, he spotted an advert for a theatrical agency in the Daily Mirror and shortly after was given a part in a stage play. He soon began television roles, starting in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play inspired by a novel about campus protests. Shortly after, he had a leading role in the children’s adventure serial The Terracotta Horse, shot in Spain and Morocco.

He appeared in a brief play Hanging Around (1978), focusing on troubled teens, and the film The Class of Miss MacMichael (1978), with Glenda Jackson as a passionate instructor, prior to his major role arrived.

In Scum, a story centered on the brutal borstal system, he played Dougan, a kind-hearted prisoner whose mathematical ability meant he was trusted to manage funds smuggled in by visitors, that he gathered on his tea trolley round. He successfully to lower the “daddy’s” percentage when Carlin (Ray Winstone) took over that position.

The production, made for Play for Today in 1977, was banned by the BBC for the extent of its violence, but it finally aired in 1991. In the meantime, the director remade it as a feature film in 1979, with Murray among six from the initial cast playing their characters again.

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

His popularity from the sitcom earned him a string of guest appearances in the 80s and 90s in TV shows such as Dempsey and Makepeace, Lovejoy, The Return of Shelley and The Upper Hand. He also took two parts in The Bill.

Yet his personal life declined after he took over a pub in Kent in 1998, overindulging in alcohol and finally seeking assistance from AA. He relocated to Thailand, where he married his second wife in 2016. Soon after, he returned to Britain and became a taxi driver. He briefly returned to acting in 2019 as a cockney gangster playing Frank Bridges in the program Conditions, not yet broadcast.

Health Struggles

Doctors found with the lung disease COPD in 2018 and, three years later, pulmonary cancer and a liver tumor. Although he was given the all-clear in 2022 post-treatment, the illness came back not long after.

Family and Relationships

During 1981, he got married to Shelley Wilkinson; the marriage ended in divorce. He is survived by Anong, their daughter, Josie, and his three boys with his first wife, Lee, Ricky and Robert, as well as three sisters and two brothers.