Patrick Mower (born 12 September 1938), whose original name was Patrick Archibald Shaw, is an English actor well known for his many television and occasional film roles, often as a detective or secret agent.
Mower was born in Oxford to a Welsh father and English mother.
In his 2007 autobiography, Mower states that having 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 IMDb it says "1940"). In addition, several reference books on film and television, including Who's Who On the Screen (1983) and Who's Who on Television (1996), give Mower's town of birth as Pontypridd, South Wales, instead of Oxford. In 2007 Mower took part in the BBC 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 [Pressed Steel Co. Ltd.] 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 DS 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, UFO, Minder, The Sweeney and Bergerac (as Eddie St.Pierre). He was a regular panelist on the murder mystery programme Whodunnit?. He currently stars as Rodney Blackstock in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.