to fans who approached him. He would shun the awards ceremonies in favour of a quiet evening at home playing mahjong. He never made any public acknowledgment of his private life as he felt that to confirm his homosexuality would damage his professional image. Notwithstanding his reluctance to "come out" in this respect, Cargill was happy in his private life and his wit when not in the spotlight reflected that. Once, whilst lunching with Ray Cooney, the theatrical impresario, Cargill observed, when a particularly handsome waiter mistakenly removed his soup spoon, "Aah, look Ray, the dish has run away with the spoon." In the later years of his life, Cargill lived in Henley-on-Thames with his last companion, James Camille Markowski. The love of his life was his Bentley, a black and dark green model of which only six were ever made. Cargill also had a Mini and often told a story about driving through Barnes one day and on seeing one of the other five Bentley Drop-Heads at the traffic lights, waved furiously at the driver, only to realise that he was driving his Mini that day. In the mid-1980s he changed the Bentley for a Rolls-Royce. Cargill's many pets included a monkey, a parrot and a castrated ram. His favourites were Ra, a cross-border collie, and Charles, a cat that lived at Spring Cottage. Death At the time of his death at the age of 77, Cargill was suffering from a brain tumour and was being nursed in a hospice in Richmond on Thames, London. In 1995, the year before he died, Cargill had been struck by a car in Australia; though he was only slightly injured, this accident led to false reports that the cause of his death was a hit-and-run accident. Filmography References Sources External links Patrick Cargill Obituary in The Independent 1918 births 1996 deaths British Indian Army officers Deaths from brain cancer in England English male film actors English male stage actors English male television actors English gay actors People from Bexhill-on-Sea English LGBT actors 20th-century English male actors British male comedy actors 20th-century LGBT people