She was needed: Deceased Artiste Diana Rigg

It’s hard to write about Diana Rigg — Dame Diana Rigg, that is — without gushing. She was that rarest kind of individual — one who is equally loved and obsessed over by male and female fans, a cult figure who was both a sex symbol (of a very new, Sixties kind) and a fine actress.

Her work in movies and TV and on the stage spanned nearly six decades, but it is commonly agreed (except among “Game of Thrones” fans) that her roles from the mid-Sixties to the mid-Seventies made that decade the most exhilarating part of her long, storied career.

Rigg studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and had a five-year stint in the Royal Shakespeare Company. When it came to the mainstream, however, she did get cast in rather silly little items in the early Sixties.

A teleplay featuring the young Diana is available on YouTube. “The Hothouse” (which appeared as part of “Armchair Theater” in 1964) is a coy comedy about the owner of a supermarket chain whose wife (Rigg) is becoming restless. It’s a very standard sitcom set-up and of interest mostly because of Rigg’s outsized personality:

“The Avengers” continues to have a strong cult following because it was so wonderfully assembled (and yes, it’s rather sad that younger folk and dim-witted oldsters hear “Avengers” and only think Marvel movie pap). The casting was, of course, sublime (both the leads and the guest villains). And the scripting was a great balance of tales of mystery and espionage, which also functioned as spoofs of these types of stories.

Nowhere is this better seen than in the fan-favorite episode “The Winged Avenger,” which is a comic book reader’s delight (with no trace of fx and not a single explosion in sight).

Curiously, all the items discussed here can be found in their entirety on YouTube, except for the other massive fan-fave episode, “A Touch of Brimstone.” This was the episode in which the kinky side of the show’s producers (and the British national character) was openly displayed.

Steed and all his partners (Rigg, Thorson, Blackman).

Sure, Honor Blackman’s Cathy Gale character has worn a leather jumpsuit and “kinky boots,” but Emma Peel (whose very name derived from the demographic research phrase “male appeal” — “M. Appeal”) in this episode dressed in dominatrix garb (which Rigg reportedly designed) for the first time in mainstream culture, on ITV in the U.K. and ABC in the U.S.

The episode is solidly entertaining as an “Avengers” intrigue saga, but it truly has become a sort of touchstone for men (and certainly women as well) who like dominant women. 

Unlike the other major artifact of this mindset — Russ Meyer’s Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (1965) — “Brimstone” was produced to have commercials punctuate its kinky thrills. And so, for whatever reason (too adult? Copyright troubles with this ep but not “The Winged Avenger”?), it is not on available on YT, but “fan appreciation” videos devoted to it are up in profusion...

As could be expected, “Avengers” rarities that could previously only be found on bootleg VHS/DVDs from overseas are now readily available. Here is some Pathe News footage of the filming of the finales to the color “Avengers” episodes with Rigg (the bits where Steed and Peel would luxuriate in having defeated the villain, as they drove in an old-fashioned car):

And this oddity, an interview done for German TV that is quite clunky in its interludes for translation. Here we see the charming rapport that Rigg and Macnee had in real life. As I noted in my Deceased Artiste tribute for Macnee, he was much beloved by the women he worked with on the series. Rigg tried to keep a distance from the “Avengers” fan fervor but, when requested, she would indeed show up at events to pay tribute to Macnee:

Although she is the best remembered female Avenger, Rigg did only two seasons of the series. She fought for equal pay (and got it) on the second season, but felt that she had the leave the show or else be typecast. 

In one of those lovely show-business turnarounds that are (as always) dictated by financial remuneration (as the phrase was laid upon Sean Connery, “Never Say Never Again”), two of her three movies following her exit from “The Avengers” found her playing similar roles — as an adventuresome journalist in The Assassination Bureau (1969) and as James Bond’s first-ever movie wife in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (also ’69). In the latter she was the first kick-ass female match for Bond until Michelle Yeoh costarred in Tomorrow Never Dies in 1997.

Diana Rigg and Helen Mirren in
A Midsummer Night's Dream (1968)

But this should not be a tribute simply to Rigg the Entertainer (and sex symbol) rather than a recognition of Rigg the Artist. While she didn’t immediately run back to theater after leaving “The Avengers” and did play spies again, her first film after doffing her “Emma Peelers” (yes, that was the name for her jumpsuit duds on the show) was Peter Hall’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream (1968).

Hall, who did his best work in the theater (his resume is a frighteningly comprehensive list of the best modern theater and most of the classical repertoire), had already done a version of the show as a teleplay in 1959. The cast is a dream in that instance: Laughton, Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Roy Dotrice, Zoe Caldwell. But two of the younger cast members who were nobodies (except, possibly, for those keeping their eyes on the RSC ensemble) are in both that ‘59 TV version and the ’68 feature film: the recently departed Ian Holm (Deceased Artiste tribute here) and Diana Rigg. (Ian was 28 in ’59; Diana was 21.)

But that version is not available online. What we can see is the 1968 feature, which is decidedly “mod” in its approach, since Hall — who also directed most of these actors onstage and did give the sublime film of Pinter’s The Homecoming (1973) — decided to have the actors play their monologues (and even stray bits of dialogue) straight to the camera. There he seems to be influenced by Godard; in various playful bits of the play’s comic scenes, it seems like he’s also very aware of Richard Lester. (Who wasn’t, at that time?)

Rigg and Mirren

The cast, as with the first production, is sublime, but the crop of performers in the starring parts were relative “youngsters” in general and, almost to a person, went on to have long careers in acting. Rigg, Holm, David Warner (who had already starred in some features), Helen Mirren, Michael Jayston, and Judi Dench (wearing barely anything except green body paint as Titania). Rigg is Helena and delivers her lines with a playful matter-of-factness (since all the characters except the “spirits” are certainly dimwitted pawns).

It’s a fairly good length for an adaptation of the play (just a hair under two hours) and does keep to a laudably ridiculous-but-not-frantic pace throughout.

The most puzzling rarities of all, which found Rigg again playing a super-spy, are a pair of dialogue-less short films that Rigg made in 1969. Made by a German production company in Spain and Germany, they were only available on 8mm (!) for home projectors and were, until the advent of the Net, left out of Rigg’s filmography.

There are several reviews of the shorts online, but only one forum board actually provides any background info on how and why they were made. A poster to an Avengers fan board (whose post was reposted on a classic horror board) noted that the two shorts were intended to be shown at gas stations while “people remained sitting in their cars at the filling station, waiting for their fuel, having their oil or tyre pressure checked etc. So the idea was to ‘entertain’ them by showing short (4-5 min) films — which explains why there is no dialogue.”

According to the poster, this info was imparted in a German TV special about cult series, in a segment devoted to “The Avengers.” Diana was reportedly paid 10,000 DM (“whether for all or one of these films remained unclear”), and the shoot took place in 4-5 days (but, then again, one short was shot in Germany and the other in Spain, so who the hell really knows?).

The poster noted that an actor in the film revealed this info on the TV special — the epilogue being that the company funding this odd enterprise went bankrupt, thus the odd appearance of the films on 8mm. There the films are promoted as “Krimi” (crime thrillers) featuring Rigg as Emma Peel. (The 8mm company apparently didn’t want to use the title “The Avengers” in their cover copy but were okay with saying that she was playing a copyrighted character.)

The first of the two, minikillers (1969), is four-part saga that pits Diana (wandering through a lovely, tourist-laden part of Spain) against a bunch of drug-smuggling crooks who have hidden drugs, explosives, and a blinding acid in baby dolls. The film is enjoyable but obviously lacks the urbane dialogue of “The Avengers.”

minikillers has the dual-strength, straightforward kinkiness that was borrowed from the TV series — wherein Diana is first overcome (usually tied up, like a heroine from the old cliffhangers) and then is able to overpower her captors and/or ambush the crooks in their hideout.

Rigg did her own stunts, in the manner of the color season of “The Avengers” that she was on — judo flips for the villains and punches, chops, and kicks to the camera to simulate actual violence. (The color season is singled out here because one can quite clearly see in the b&w season that she was doubled by a man in a wig.) Still, any film with Rigg as a spy is worth watching....

The second short, “Diadem,” is even less plotted. It plays like a series of spy-movie cliches with the appropriate musical punctuation (made to sound very much like Laurie Johnson’s music for “The Avengers”).

Rigg then played the only prominent female role in a filmed production of Julius Caesar (1970) with an odd assortment of British thesps (John Gielgud, Richard Chamberlain, Christopher Lee), American theater actors (Jason Robards), and American hambones (Robert Vaughn and Charlton Heston in the title role).

The cast of Julius Caesar.

Her next film after that was Paddy Chayefsky’s The Hospital (1971), a VERY dark comedy that is both very much of its time and also a timeless story of chaos in a hospital (in which the valuable and very valid medical phrase “forgotten to death” was coined). Rigg represents vitality and sexuality to the ever-grizzled George C. Scott, who is fighting both administrative apathy and impotence.

Rigg’s flair for deadpan dark comedy is on display in the delightful Theater of Blood (1973), one of those absolutely perfect Vincent Price horror vehicles. Vinnie is outraged actor “Edward Lionheart” who vows revenge on a group of critics, whom he then kills using Shakespearean  murder methods. Diana is his daughter “Edwina” who assumes various disguises (including curly hair and a mustache) to help her father kill those dastardly reviewers.

The film was mounted as a theater piece in 2005, starring the great Jim Broadbent in the Price role, and Rigg’s daughter Rachael Stirling (who is quite talented in her own right, and also looks and sounds incredibly like her mother) in her role.

Here’s the whole film. (It makes great Halloween viewing.)

We’ll end chronologically on a derivative downer, the 1973-’74 sitcom “Diana,” in which Rigg starred as a fashion coordinator for a department store. (From supermarkets in “The Hothouse” to a department store here…) The show was clearly modeled after “The Mary Tyler Moore Show,” and the sample episode found on YT is quite dull.

Interestingly, the scripter chose to reference Mary Tyler Moore directly in the dialogue — talking about her as Laura Petrie on “The Dick Van Dyke Show.” As was the case with the opening scene of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (where Lazenby oddly references Connery), it’s never wise to bring up other people who’ve played a similar role….

Now, to jump the chronology for the closer: There are some gorgeous performances by Rigg on YouTube in classic and modern British fare, but it seems most fitting to close out with her performance in A Little Night Music (1977), in which she has one solo song. 

Rigg in later years.

At first the singing voice sounds dissimilar from her speaking voice, but online sources point to the fact that she (unlike star Liz Taylor) did her own singing. Her musical performance is not especially rousing, but her performance of the song is quite moving.

A properly British secret agent: Deceased Artiste Patrick Macnee

In discussing the career of Patrick Macnee's colleague (and former schoolmate) Christopher Lee, I noted that Lee was best known for playing Dracula but was also cast in a host of roles. Macnee wasn't – his range wasn't as wide as Lee's, but his charm and amiable bearing made him the kind of performer that viewers felt they “knew,” especially those of us who grew up with him on TV five times weekly, in reruns of of one of the best spy series ever.

Macnee was a seasoned stage actor who could also take on character parts, but he will forever be known as John Steed, the utterly unflappable “Avenger” who was always dressed formally and never once descended to the vulgarity common to the more active 007. Steed is now viewed as an icon of the Swingin' Sixties, but he was also a “man out of time,” a figure from Britain's past who just happened to be operating in the moddest of all mod worlds.

As I researched this piece, one thing became clear: Macnee was respected, and in some cases deeply loved, by his costars and crew members. From all accounts, he was as genteel as his signature character (if a bit less well-dressed). He also lived a full life, from his childhood (he was raised by his mother and her female partner) to his participation in WWII (he earned an Atlantic Star for his service in the Royal Navy).

As mentioned above, Macnee attended the Summer Fields prep school along with Christopher Lee; both young men appeared in a school production of Henry IV. The old schoolmates later reunited in public when Lee appeared in two episodes of The Avengers and Macnee played Watson to Lee's Holmes in two adventures based on Conan Doyle. Here's a Vestron Video (ah... VHS) ad for the first of the two movies:

 
Macnee worked steadily through the decades, from the Fifties through the Nineties. Before he donned the bowler hat and took up his ever-ready “brolly,” he appeared in numerous movies (his most prominent role being the young Jacob Marley in the Alastair Sim Scrooge (1951)). he also lived in both the U.S. and Canada, where he had roles on dozens of TV series, including Kraft Theater, Alcoa Theater, General Electric Theater, Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Rawhide, and Twilight Zone.

After The Avengers ended he continued to work regularly in the movies and TV and onstage. His best-remembered supporting roles were in The Howling, the original Battlestar Galactica, the dreadful A View to a Kill (Roger Moore and he had played Holmes and Watson in Sherlock Holmes in New York), and This Is Spinal Tap. He was a game performer, who would be willing to deliver comedy monologues...

...or shill for a number of products. Here he promotes the Swiss Chalet chain of restaurants in Canada.

Macnee was indeed a trooper and, when he finally became a TV star around the world, he was already in his mid-40s (much like Jonathan Frid – minus Frid's evident distaste for the program that made him famous). The Avengers ran for six seasons during the Sixties and one in the Seventies, but it actually amounted to five different series. Every time Macnee's partner changed, the tenor of the show changed as well. This "telescoped" documentary offers a helpful and entertaining guide to the show:

The first “Avengers” were John Steed and Dr. David Keel (Ian Hendry, continuing a role he began in a series called Police Surgeon), a man seeking his fiancee's murderer (the reason the show was called The Avengers). After Hendry left, a second iteration of The Avengers appeared with Steed partnered with Mrs. Cathy Gale (Honor Blackman), who was one of the first women in a crimefighting TV show to participate in the fight scenes.

Mrs. Gale wore leather outfits, was Steed's intellectual equal, knew how to judo flip her attackers, and wore “Kinky Boots”.... (this song is insanely catchy, and has no trace of Harvey Fierstein or Cyndi Lauper about it)

The Blackman-Macnee iteration of the show looks claustrophobic to modern audiences (and even fans of the later Avengers) as it was very stagebound. It was immensely popular in the U.K., though, and made its two leads into stars. Scope out the rather dazzling roster of presenters and guests they were among in this clip from the Variety Club Awards.

The two Steed and Peel seasons were the show's undisputed high point, and are in fact the most repeated episodes in the series. Diana Rigg's Mrs Peel was a refined, elegant Amazon who possessed a great physical prowess – spawning the later National Lampoon contest in which hapless males vied to be kick in the balls by her – with seductive beauty and a propensity for getting into kinky situations and outfits.

Steed and Peel faced an array of unusual villains, as the show included fantasy elements for the first time, and a glorious pop art aesthetic. One of the aspects that didn't bother diehard fans but seemed to become an “issue” for certain slower American viewers was the fact that the show never explained who the leads worked for (where were they getting their assignments?).

In the later seasons this was fully clarified, via a portly old gent codenamed “Mother” – their very own “M” – who briefed the Avengers on their assignments, but during the color Peel season all that was necessary was for Steed to inform Peel that “we're needed.”

Full episodes of The Avengers are available on disc and in various locations online. Perhaps the best introduction to the series (b&w Peel season) “A Touch of Brimstone” and (color Peel season) “The Winged Avenger.” The show caught on instantly in the U.S. and was also a big success in France and Germany. To promote the series in Germany, Macnee and Rigg did this good-natured but rather slow interview, in which the host translates everything they say (his question to Rigg about whether working on the show is considered serious acting by her peers is actually a pretty good one).

The most interesting rare footage from the Steed-Peel years to be found is a photo shoot in which Rigg was paired with various Olympic athletes and Macnee was teamed with Twiggy for a mega-mod pic or two.

 
Macnee and Rigg worked together one more time after she left the series – he appeared on her short-lived American sitcom Diana as her ex-lover. The odd thing in the clip linked to in the last sentence is that the audience sounds weren't "sweetened," so you can hear someone coughing when there's no laughter.

Rigg followed Honor Blackman and Ian Hendry in leaving the show to “pursue a movie career.” (In the years to come she established herself as a very serious performer, but right after The Avengers she was prominently seen in... spy movies). Linda Thorson came on board as Tara King, the first single female Avenger and thus (finally!) a love interest for Steed.

Thorson was endearing as Tara, but had very tight boots to fill as the successor to Rigg. Macnee and Thorson did the requisite amount of publicity, a necessary evil given the that the show was still running around the world. The couple did commercials as their characters, even until the mid-1970s, but their most bizarre appearance has to be this guest stint on a German variety show.

Here they speak limited German, participate in not one but two terrible sketches, and peform a song and dance with the host. Thorson got the raw end of the deal, as she is wearing a blackface mask (!) as this clip begins....

In 1976 Macnee starred in The New Avengers which teamed Steed with a younger duo (Gareth Hunt, Joanna Lumley) who could more realistically perform the fight sequences. The show might've been a fair spy show on its own but, when compared to the original Avengers, it was pretty tepid.

The series debuted in the U.S. in 1978, and Macnee once again made the rounds, appearing on things like The Mike Douglas Show to talk about men's fashion (at least that's all there is in this short clip).

The two most touching Macnee clips involve tributes paid to him by his former costars. The only time he was seen with the full contingent of female Avengers was at a reunion held to promote the 50th anniversary of the show (seen briefly in the documentary embedded above).

All of the actresses (and the other two male Avengers) took the time to participate in a This Is Your Life episode dedicated to Macnee. One gets the sense that Macnee was much admired by his costars, most especially Rigg.

The last, and best, clip to feature a round-up of the series regulars, is a segment from the 2000 BAFTA awards in which the “Avengers girls” were presented with an honorary award. Macnee introduces the segment with his customary style and charm. Blackman and Lumley were able to attend in-person, and Thorson and Rigg sent taped messages. Again, Rigg zeroes in immediately on working with Macnee as being the best part of the series for her.

Farewell to a gentleman's gentleman who was admired by the ladies as well.