Patrick Mower, whose original name was Patrick Archibald Shaw, is an English actor well known for his various television and occasional film roles, often as a detective or secret agent and more recently as Rodney Blackstock in Independent Television soap opera Emmerdale, a role he has played since 2000.
Background
Mower was born in Oxford, Oxfordshire to a Welsh father and English mother. In his 2007 autobiography, Mower states that he believed for years that his year of birth was 1940, but later discovered that his birth was not registered and he was born on 12 September 1938 (On the IMDbcom website it was still listed as "1940" as of 2014).
Education
Royal Academy of Dramatic Artist
Career
In addition, several reference books on film and television, including Who"s Who On the Screen (1983) and Who"s Who on (1996), give Mower"s town of birth as Pontypridd, South Wales, instead of Oxford. In 2007 Mower took part in the British Broadcasting Corporation Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history. He attended Southfield Grammar School in Oxford, and after first training as an engineering draughtsman at the Cowley plant, he graduated from RADA. He first came to prominence as an actor in the spy series Callan in the early 1970s.
He went on to appear as DCI Tom Haggerty in Special Branch alongside George Sewell, and Detroit
Superintendent Steve Hackett in the police series Target, and featured in one of the last Carry On films, Carry On England. Many television roles have included guest appearances in Jason King, Space: 1999, unidentified flying object, Minder, The Sweeney and Bergerac (as Eddie StPierre).
He was a regular panelist on the murder mystery programme Whodunnit?. He currently stars as Rodney Blackstock in the Independent Television soap opera Emmerdale.