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Patrick Noel Murray, who has passed away at 68, rose to prominence for his performance as Mickey Pearce in Only Fools and Horses, the opportunist in a trilby who enters a short-lived partnership with his childhood friend Rodney Trotter in the beloved TV sitcom Only Fools and Horses.

Initial Appearance

He first appeared in season three in the 1983 installment titled Healthy Competition, where Rodney's desire to advance from his role as a lookout for his older brother was quickly dashed when Mickey ripped him off. The Trotter brothers came back together, and Mickey continued as a fixture all the way to the programme's final Christmas special in 2003.

Origin of the Role

Mickey Pearce was referenced on multiple occasions since the series started in 1981, like in episodes where Mickey stole Rodney's girlfriend, but did not initially appear. When the creator decided to broaden the supporting cast, Ray Butt remembered Murray's role in a Pizza Hut ad, where he unsuccessfully chatted up two women, and recommended him for the part. He auditioned on a Friday and began work just three days later.

Mickey was conceived as “Del Boy lite”, more naive but, like Del, usually having his entrepreneurial antics go wrong. “Mickey will try anything, but you can't depend on him,” Murray remarked. “He’s always stitching Rodney up, and Del is always threatening to clump him for it.” Mickey frequently teases Rodney about his romantic failures while lying about his own romantic “conquests” and flitting between jobs.

On-Set Incidents

An episode from 1989 was hastily altered after an accident in which he tripped over his pet at home and crashed through a glass window, cutting a tendon in his right arm and losing five pints of blood. With Murray's arm in a plaster cast, John Sullivan modified the upcoming installment to explain Mickey getting beaten up by local gangsters.

Later Career and Life

The last regular episode was broadcast in 1991, but Murray was among the actors who returned for Christmas specials for a dozen more years – and continued to be loved at gatherings for enthusiasts.

Murray was born in Greenwich, south London, to Juana, a dancer, and his father Patrick, a public transport inspector. He went to St Thomas the Apostle college in Nunhead. Aged 15, he spotted an advert for a talent agency in the Daily Mirror and shortly after was given a part in a stage play. He soon began roles on TV, beginning in 1973, aged 16, in Places Where They Sing, a BBC play inspired by a novel about student unrest. It was quickly followed, he had a leading role in the children’s adventure serial The Terracotta Horse, produced in those countries.

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

In the drama Scum, a play about the oppressive reform school environment, he played Dougan, a kind-hearted prisoner whose head for figures meant he was trusted to handle money discreetly brought in by visitors, which he collected on his rounds with a trolley. He successfully to negotiate down the “daddy’s” percentage when Carlin (Ray Winstone) assumed that role.

This play, created for television in 1977, the BBC banned it for its graphic violence, yet it was later shown in 1991. In the meantime, the filmmaker turned it into a movie in 1979, with Murray part of a group from the initial cast playing their characters again.

Subsequently, he played minor roles in the movies Quadrophenia (1979) and Breaking Glass (1980), and took the role of a bellboy in Curse of the Pink Panther (1983).

Success on the show 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 also took two parts in The Bill.

Yet his personal life declined after he took over a pub in Kent in 1998, struggling with drink and later getting support from AA. He went to Thailand, where he tied the knot with Anong in 2016. Shortly afterwards, he moved back to Britain and worked as a cab driver. He came back shortly to acting in 2019 as a cockney gangster playing Frank Bridges in the TV series Conditions, yet to air.

Illness Battle

He was diagnosed with COPD in 2018 and, three years later, cancer in his lungs and a tumour on his liver. Despite being cleared in 2022 following surgery and chemotherapy, the cancer returned not long after.

Private Affairs

During 1981, he got married to Shelley Wilkinson; they later divorced. He leaves behind Anong, daughter Josie, Josie, and his three boys from his first marriage, Lee, Ricky and Robert, plus three sisters and male siblings.