By Nicholas Stix
The Avengers TV Intro: Season 5 (1966)
Diana Rigg just died, at the age of 82.
When I was a kid, The Avengers (1961-1969) was a cleverly-scripted, British crime show in which the detectives, John Steed (Patrick Macnee, 1922-2015) and Mrs. Emma Peel (Diana Rigg, 1937-2020), were some sort of British counter-intelligence agents, whose corpulent White man boss was referred to by the code name, “Mother” (or was that on Patrick McGoohan’s Secret Agent/Trouble Man? I just confirmed that “Mother,” who was played by Patrick Newell, was the boss on The Avengers).
(It’s almost 50 years since I watched these shows!)
Everyone remembers Rigg from her three seasons on The Avengers, and while they mention shows she worked on in her dotage, they remember her solely because of The Avengers, and every job she got after it was because of it. (Rigg was preceded on the show by Honor Blackman, and succeeded by Linda Thorson. There are 35 episodes, for which I cannot account for a regular female sidekick to Macnee. It seems he had alternating male and female sidekicks at different times, prior to Blackman, and that he started out as the sidekick to original star, Ian Hendry.) People have also emphasized that Rigg had Shakespearean training, as if that had contributed to her success.
Rigg was very hot on the show, which lived off of the sublimated sexual tension between Steed and Mrs. Peel.
In 1973, Rigg got her own office sitcom, Diana, which I watched religiously, but which was a rip-off of The Mary Tyler Moore Show, and which was cancelled after only 15 episodes, according to IMDB.com (which is not always accurate in such matters).
I am only displaying photos of Rigg from The Avengers, because she aged poorly.
3 comments:
I got into "The Avengers" about 4 years ago when they appeared on COZI-TV.Watched the early(more serious) episodes with Blackman right through to the bad ones with Thorson.
In between,was Diana Rigg--perfect casting,creative scripts,witty banter.Patrick MacNee never had a better role than John Steed(he appeared in "The New Avengers" redux for a short time in the mid 70s--not the same).
Damndest thing,but totally true about her looks--it was like she cut a deal with the devil or something--to be beautiful until age 45 and then poof--gone.
But she "had it" for awhile--and used "it" to carve out a fine career on stage--where she said she was happiest as an actress.
But what made US happiest was Diana Rigg as Emma Peel.
-GRA
One other note,as I remember it,"Mother" only appeared on the final season of the show(1969).
--GRA
On Thursday Night, September 24, TCM has a "Doctors' Night." At 9:30 pm ET, Phil Karlson's The Young Doctors (1961) starring Fredric March and Ben Gazzara as two pathologists, old and young, clash over how the job should be done at their big-city hospital.
At 11:30 pm ET, TCM shows The Hospital (1971), scripted by Paddy Chayefsky, starring George C. Scott and Diana Rigg. The Hospital has been called a Black Comedy.
A suicidal much honored doctor (Scott) takes up with a rebellious young woman (Rigg). Meanwhile doctors are dropping dead in the hospital and other strange things happen. Idiot protestors are causing trouble. Sound Familiar? Meanwhile a mad patient runs amok.
Paddy Chayefsky was a left winger of a sort but didn't like everything the left did. He hated the left's anti-semitism. The protestors don't look good.
Both movies are favorites of mine.
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