George Markstein and the Prisoner, ed. Roger Goodman

George Markstein (1926 — but perhaps 1929 — to 1987) was a journalist and writer, probably best known as script editor of the first 13 episodes of The Prisoner (1967-68). He also appears in the title sequence, as the bald bureaucrat at whom Patrick McGoohan crossly resigns. Ironically, it was Markstein who crossly left the series.

I’ve been interested in Markstein since reading about his falling out with fellow writer David Whitaker when the latter was sent to Moscow in July 1969 on behalf of the Writers’ Guild of Great Britain to protest the treatment of Solzhenitsyn. At the guild’s AGM on 31 May the following year, Markstein made a number of claims about what had happened in Moscow, despite not having been there. On at least one point he had to apologise because the source of his claims, writer Lewis Greifer, was there to rebut them. See pp. 333-334 of my book for more.

Greifer also crops up in this slim volume, available to buy from Portmeirion (where The Prisoner was filmed), which sketches a fascinating portrait of Markstein — or rather, of what we don’t know about him. 

“It escapes me why GM’s birthdate should have come so contentious in website discussions,” says his friend Sidney Allinson in the introduction (p. 4). “In fact, he was born in 1926” — though no source is given for this fact — “which would make him about 21 years of age in 1947, which was when I knew him. We both worked as reporters with The Southport Guardian newspaper [in Merseyside.] At the time, for reasons best known to himself, he presented himself as being an American, complete with an authentic-sounding accent.”

We can understand why, in the years immediately after the Second World War, a German-born young man would want to hide his real accent and identity. In what follows, we learn Markstein also presented himself as Canadian though it’s thought he was actually born in Berlin and moved to England with his Jewish mother before the outbreak of war. 

In her contribution to this book, “A Cooler Shade of George Markstein” (pp. 10-17) Catherine Nemeth Frumerman says mother and son moved to London in 1935 when George was about nine, adding that he was born Gustav Georg to actress Grete Maria Markstein — who in turn claimed to be the daughter of Albert Einstein. The source for this is apparently Michele Zackheim's Einstein's Daughter: The Search for Lieserl, which it says here was published by Riverhead Books in 2000. Frumerman says this information may have come from Markstein’s business partner Jacqui Lyons, who is thanked but not directly quoted by Zackheim.

But Ricky Davy in “So Who Was George Markstein?” (pp. 20-52) says Zackheim’s book was published in 1999 and is more sceptical about what is claimed.

“The book is an account of the life [of] a German woman named Grete Markstein, who believed herself to be the daughter of Einstein. Her son, Gustav Georg Markstein, it is claimed, later became George Markstein (via a name change to Herschdoerfer following Greta’s 1935 marriage). Knowledge in the book of this man ends in 1947 in Cheshire, several years after Grete passed away, and no tangible proof is given that George and Georg are the same person, although the tale does have some plausibility.” (p. 22)

Cheshire borders Merseyside, where Allinson worked with Markstein in 1947. So maybe, maybe, he was the same person as Georg. But was he really Einstein's grandson? In fact, Einstein's daughter Lieserl, is thought to have been born in 1902 but to have died the following year. 

This is just one example of competing claims in the book. Central to this is Markstein’s repeated claim to have conceived The Prisoner, based on his knowledge of the real-life Inverlair Lodge, which was from 1941 No. 6 Special Workshop School of the Special Operations Executive (SOE). In contrast, star Patrick McGoohan claimed to have conceived the initial idea as well as to have dictated much of what made it to the screen. 

“Creator of the Whole Fantasy — A Correspondence Between George Markstein & Roger Goodman” (pp. 54-67) details Markstein’s various claims and reproduces several of his letters (and Christmas cards).  “When The Secret Agent Is Whisked Away” (pp. 78-95) is a transcript of Goodman’s interview with Markstein on 19 April 1980 at the ICA in London following a screening of The Prisoner episode Checkmate. Repeatedly, Markstein speaks of television as a collaborative enterprise with no single author  — while reiterating that The Prisoner was his idea. But note the manner in which he doesn’t answer some questions, leaving us to fill in the blanks.

“Q: Mr Markstein, you said earlier on that you felt that the concept of the Village was not as far-fetched as it may have seemed at the time, certainly not today. Do you have any evidence of that?

George: Yes.

Q: You do?

George: Yes.

Q: You are not going to elaborate?

George: I cannot. I am not prepared to discuss certain things, because I cannot.” (p. 94)

It’s a very odd interview, Markstein railing variously against computers and CCTV, the “era of experts” and the state of television at the time, but denying that television has any power to influence the thinking of the viewer. “Never have we had less freedom,” he declares at one point (p. 86), on the basis that we must empty our pockets before getting on a plane and that the Mall in London is closed to traffic.

“Is it because it is a Sunday and the Queen wants to sleep late? The Queen isn’t even in London, she is in Windsor. That’s why I’m against technology. You might ask what has the Queen and Buckingham Palace got to do with technology, but it all ties in. I am against progress.” (p. 86)

Dave Barrie’s “Who Is Number One?” (pp. 75-77) sifts such evidence but favours McGoohan as “the driving force [behind The Prisoner]from very early on” (p. 77). James Follett’s “There's No Mystery” (p. 97) counters that “Patrick McGoohan was not a story man.” The book ends with a quotation from Joan Drummond McGoohan underlining her late husband's central role — cited here under the title “Who knows?” (p. 98)

To be honest, I think identifying who came up with the initial idea is less interesting a question than how it then developed into what we saw on screen week after week, and why Markstein and McGoohan were both so proprietorial about this particular series. The idea that it’s down to a single person seems oddly reductive, making it somehow less. 

As for Markstein, we are told that he was and remains a “sphinx”. Having read this book, I think he’s less enigma as unreliable source.