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February 19, 2026

Paddy Morgan, last of the hell-raisers

Dr Andrew Cousins

The first new Carnal Cinema column & cartoon in 20 years…

Oliver Reed, Richard Harris and Peter O’Toole were a breed of actor apart. Prodigiously talented on screen and with extremely tempestuous personal lives off screen. Booze, women and plenty of bust ups featured regularly. It was for that reason they acquired the nickname “the hell-raisers”. But there was one of their number who is less well celebrated, Paddy Morgan. Paddy might not have been a household name today, but his performances in movies such as “Where Stunt Doubles Dare”, “Touch of the Gorgon” and “Swords, Sandals and Slaves” made him much in demand in the sixties and seventies.

Paddy died in 2006 when his third liver finally decided it could cope no longer and literally exploded inside Paddy’s abdomen. Fortunately, Dr Andrew Cousins had just completed an interview with Paddy weeks before his untimely death. Never published until now, Dr Cousins meets the last of the hell-raisers…

AC: Paddy Morgan, you rarely grant interviews these days. Thank you for agreeing to talk to me. 
PM: I don’t do them because they get me into trouble. 

AC: You are known for saying controversial things, that’s true… 
PM: I have two problems with interviews. One, I’m usually drunk and when I’m drunk I have no filter. I say the first thing that comes into my head. 

AC: What’s the second problem? 
PM: The journalists will insist on writing down every word I say and publishing it. It causes me no end of problems. Not that I can usually remember what I said because I’m usually half drunk. I may have mentioned that. I can’t remember. 

Continues at https://carnalcine.ma/interviews/paddy-morgan-last-of-the-hell-raisers


Image of Dr Andrew Cousins

Dr Andrew Cousins

Dr Andrew Cousins was created in 2000 to interview the (imagined) great and good of cinema. Eric DuBois began to illustrate the cartoons in 2006 – and they’ve now got a limited-run book out, published by Netribution with Glasgow University’s Stirling Maxwell Centre. Buy it at CarnalCine.ma

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