“The leather catsuit I wore in The Avengers was a total nightmare, it took a good 45 minutes to get unzipped to go to the loo.”
Birthname:
Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg
Hometown:
Doncaster, England
Assets:
stage presence, plummy voice, long legs
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Vices:
smoking, tart tongue, tiny breasts
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Overview
Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg is an English actress, born July 20, 1938 in Doncaster, Yorkshire. Rigg has had a long and distinguished stage career, but probably remains best known for a television and a movie role in the 1960s. She portrayed judo-chopping adventuress Emma Peel in The Avengers, the first British television show sold to the US market. Two years later, she was the female lead as Tracy Bond, the ever-so-doomed wife of super-spy James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969).
Early Life
Dame Rigg was born to a landed family in Yorkshire. When she was two months old her parents, Louis and Beryl Rigg, took her to Jodhpur, India. Louis Rigg, an engineer, had accepted a position as manager of the state railway. She has a younger brother, Hugh. The outbreak of World War 2 Initially prevented Rigg's parents from returning her to England. As a child, she had an Indian nanny and learned Hindi from the servants. After the war ended, her parents did what was expected of the gentry, and sent Diana back to England for schooling. She was enrolled for three years at Great Missenden school in Buckingham-shire.
"It was a matter of convenience for my parents; they thought they were doing the right thing," Rigg told the Sunday Times, adding she "felt like a fish out of water" at school. That "sense of rejection" stayed with her, and contributed to her lifelong insistence on independence, and perhaps her argumentative streak. n 1947, India re-gained its own independence, and her parents returned to England. For the girl, though, it merely meant a transfer to Fulneck Girls' School in Yorkshire.
"It was tough when my parents came back from abroad and I was pulled into a family unit which, during two very formative years of my life, I had done without," she said.
A rebellious student, Rigg told TV Guide in 1973 that she found her classes at Moravian Fulneck to be "incredibly boring. I took to dreaming. They took to punishing me." She also developed a reputation for outspokenness to a fault. In interviews over the years, though, Rigg has consistently credited one teacher at Fulneck, Sylvia Greenwood, with helping her as "a big, lumpy girl" find an outlet in poetry and on stage. She continued to find the rest of the school constricting, in one sense literally, as the teen-age students were required to wear corsets. She graduated at 17 and immediately became engaged. But Diana quickly changed her mind and auditioned for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in 1955.
Starting a Career
She was accepted, but soon rebelled against RADA's discipline as well. One of her roommates had an affair with the great Paul Robeson, according to Rigg. By her second year, Rigg also was enjoying her her London surroundings. She took on what at times she has described as "a dose of real life," and at other times more directly as "divers lovers." Rigg's antics raised eyebrows at RADA, and she was nearly expelled. But her talent also was evident. In 1957, she made her debut in The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Over the next two years, she continued to work in minor roles and as a stage manager.
But Rigg found her height, tall for the era, and boyish figure limited her opportunities. "I was never small enough or pretty enough" to play the standard ingenue roles, Rigg told the New York Times. To make ends meet, she worked as barmaid in a waterfront bar, where the prostitutes "would kick my legs under the table." She tried modeling, which unlike the stage was ideal for her build, but made clear that she didn't take it seriously. Arriving at photo shoots, "the stuff I wore bore no relation to the fact I was a model," she said. Unable to get an audition at the Royal Shakespeare Company, Rigg played small parts in two repertory theaters in her native Yorkshire. Finally, the RSC gave her an audition in 1959 and she was accepted. Still, her high spirits occasionally annoyed more established players. "Think of something sad," Leslie Caron snapped at her. "Think of being fired." Instead, Rigg gradually worked her way into significant roles, culminating in Cordelia to Paul Scofield's King Lear in Peter Brook's well-received production.
Although the show received good notices, Rigg was modest about her "very limited" performance as a calm, dry-eyed Cordelia. A review in Plays and Players ignored her completely. Whether from good-natured joshing or theatrical rivalries, Scofield and Rigg came away telling stories about their co-stars. Scofield's daily whey milkshakes left him flatulent, said Rigg, making it hard to play dead as he trumpeted away. Asked what advice he would give other actors playing Lear, Scofield lamented the difficulty of lugging the 135-pound Rigg around the stage, and said, "The most important thing is to get a light Cordelia." But the show was a hit, and the cast took to the road for a tour of Europe and the United States. Notables came to chat up the players, sometimes with odd effects. In the UK, Lord Mountbatten came backstage to complain about how one cast member wore spurs. Rigg's fashion sense was thoroughly modern. With little need for a bra, Rigg seldom wore one unless required for a role or photo shoot, a choice praised in the USSR by Anastas Mikoyan. (A wardrobe card from this period, which appears to refer to Rigg, lists centimeter measurements of 84.5-65-93 and 174 height. That translates into a 33-inch bust, 25½ waist, 36½ hips and 5-foot-8½ height.) In less cosmopolitan New York, though, restaurants barred Rigg for wearing pants instead of proper skirts or dresses. The director found other reasons for dissatisfaction in America, complaining about the acoustics at Lincoln Center.
Although she was now well established at RSC, Rigg elected not to return when her contract was up. In public, the reason was travel. But she had also become deeply involved with the director Philip Saville, although he was married with two children. The couple was almost obsessively secretive about their affair. When he moved in with Rigg, Saville did so by buying the unit next to hers and knocking down interior walls. Late in 1964, Diana took a step in another direction, making her television debut in an episode of the anthology series ``Armchair Theater.
The biographical sketch released at the time by the Associated British Corp. presciently predicted the willowy actress "could have a very bright future indeed." But that praise came with qualifications, for the press release went on to note that "Diana Rigg is not a conventional beauty, and she is unusually tall." Even her apparent comedic talents carried the warning that "leading ladies with a gift for clowning do not always find their paths as smooth as those who talents fit a more conventional mould. Still, it concluded, "there is beginning to be a premium on girls who can look glamorous and toss off a witty line."
The Avengers
At the same time, the British ABC struck a vein of good and bad luck with its hit show on the ITV network, The Avengers. The show, developed from a routine police procedural, had launched itself into the newly popular realm of secret agents. Successful enough in Britain, where it generally flirted with the top 10, the show also had been sold to compatible television outlets around the world. Now, a technical upgrade would allow it to be broadcast in the US. Behind the scenes, they were negotiating with the chronically low-rated American Broadcasting Company. As part of the package, Associated British Corp. agreed to put some of the proceeds into a further upgrade. The next season would switch from tape to film, albeit black-and-white. IF ABC (US) picked up the option, the season after that would be done in colour.
Conceived as a vehicle for Ian Hendry, The Avengers did not miss a beat when he left during a strike-induced production stoppage. Cast as a mysterious and occasionally menacing agent of an unidentified ministry, Patrick Macnee turned John Steed into a smooth mix of guile and style. The show tried several partners for him, and struck gold with buxom blonde Honor Blackman as Cathy Gale. Playing a strong, capable woman, Blackman learned judo for part to give her live-on-tape fight scenes wore heft. When cloth outfits tended to split, she began wearing leather. It was the early Sixties. Kinkiness was king and Cathy Gale was its prophet. And then she was gone, off to that bigger spy franchise, James Bond, to play the extravagantly named P*ssy Galore.
When Blackman decided to depart, the show had a cushion, because its 1963-64 season on ITV did not conclude until the end of March. With Blackman on board, Macnee wrote in The Avengers and Me the production team could have begun work immediately on the next batch of episodes. Without her, UK ABC pursued well-known actresses; they had other commitments. The producers auditioned scores of others. Finally, the powers that be settled on Elizabeth Shepherd, a glamorous blonde with a thrilling figure in the Blackman mold.
Introducing Shepherd to the press in October 1964, producer Julian Wintle said, "She has terrific personality and good looks - all the ingredients for the series." Macnee accurately described her as "very beautiful." By December, though, after filming the better part of two episodes, they decided they had made a mistake. Various unconvincing explanations were put forth. Macnee claimed that Shepherd "flapped her arms" while running and so was not suited for an action show. A good point, until one watches stunt people taking the place of Macnee and his co-stars whenever their characters are called upon to run. It is true that while suitably curvaceous, Shepherd was several inches shorter and so less imposing than the 5'7" Blackman. "They said they welcomed my ideas for Emma _ those were fatal words," Shepherd later told the Toronto Star, claiming her suggestions irked producers and writers. Whatever the explanation, a leading lady was missing, the clock was ticking and the potential American customers were waiting.
The studio held another audition with scores of young actresses. Among them Diana Rigg who came "for a giggle." She still had not earned much, but had enjoyed her brief television experience. Surrounded by scores of other young actresses, all dressed in black for the audition, Rigg encountered one of the producers. True to form, she said she was probably wasting her time. He agreed. In fact, it wasn't until they had run through all the auditions, gone back to look at the tapes again and come to end of the day that the increasingly worried executives watched Rigg's again. This time, they decided she displayed an "animal quality," in Wintle's words. The next day, ABC offered Rigg the role, for as little money as they could conceive would work. They guessed right; she accepted.
For Rigg, it was like being dropped into a whirlwind. ABC immediately announced her as the new "girl." Behind schedule, the production team immediately tried to recoup. While some scenes shot without Shepherd could be salvaged, those with her had to be re-done with Rigg, as did related aspects of the production such as wardrobe. Although upgraded, some of the equipment was still less than top quality. Stringent union rules made it difficult to make up for lost time. Even the costumes proved a challenge for Diana. While Blackman had made leather gear part of the show's kinky appeal, Rigg dismissed that as "Honor's thing." Perhaps she would have been more accepting if the producers didn't insist that she slide into UK size 4 pants (US size 2), skintight on her 37-inch hips. At the same time, they were concerned about the bait-and-switch effect on their American customer after having sold a show with a buxom blonde but replaced her with a flat-chested redhead. They put Rigg into heavily padded bras in an effort to fill out her tops, and applied layers of makeup to hide her freckles. "I wasn’t all teeth and tits. It took hours and hours to make me look acceptably attractive," Rigg later told Active Life. "They constantly dab at you, which I hate. I envied those guys who walked in, had powder put on their noses and left." The challenging wardrobe added to the length of her day, and the young actress had a cot brought in so she could catch naps, while limiting herself to a piece of fruit for lunch.
But if Diana had a fan, it was the show's fashion designer, John Bates, aka Jean Varon. After she was announced as the new girl, Bates gallantly described his ideal female as slender, with long legs, perfectly square shoulders and very small breasts: Diana Rigg exactly. Still, the wardrobe department initially put Rigg into some matronly outfits when not in leather. Accurately assessing her own strengths, Rigg argued with the all-male brain trust to switch to mini-skirts to show off her legs, and colorful garb to take advantage of Swinging England's fashion scene.
"The designer and the other men were horrified," Rigg recalled later. "They pulled their hair ... said you can't do that, it's impossible ... I argued that one must look forward and not back and by wearing these brief skirts, one was looking forward. In fact, one was creating fashion very avant-garde, rather than remaining at the tail end of last year's styles. And it turned out that I couldn't have been more right."
The immediate response was a sort of compromise. Instead of leather, the scripts found reasons to put Diana in body stockings or male garb. Capitalizing on her build, they turned Rigg into a memorably boyish Oliver Twist and a bare-legged Robin Hood. Somewhat more revealing, another episode found Diana Rigg in a thin mesh over a tiny bikini, with feathers added to round up her bust and provide marginally more cover, perhaps with American censors in mind.
If the actress gradually began winning the fashion arguments, much of her progress came after the new batch of episodes began airing in the UK in the fall of 1965. Even before the critics, viewers applauded Rigg's wonderful chemistry with Macnee. Almost instantly, her breezy style and Patrick's increasingly polished performance established a Thin Man dynamic, with cool repartee mixing with light-hearted adventure. Moreover, Diana looked smashing in a catsuit. While Rigg lacked muscles and Blackman's martial arts skill, most television fights at that time were stagey at best. Occasionally, it was obvious that stuntmen were doubling Rigg in fight scenes. But even though her own moves were stylized, Rigg participated in enough inserts and cutaways to create a presence. In fact, she did more physical work than Macnee, who sat out most of the rough stuff. And Diana's modeling stint paid off. She moved well enough, and looked athletic enough, to present a portrait of grace. Initially, many reviewers were tepid, pointing out the new character was clearly based on Cathy Gale, but lacking what one called Blackman's tigerish beauty. The studio chose to emphasize the difference from Blackman's sometimes hard edge, referring to their new girl in another press release as "younger, gayer and more feminine" than Blackman's Gale.
Writing in Punch in January 1965, critic R.G. Price had some nice things to say about the show's new season, but questioned its trend toward comedy. "[H]aving decided to cash in on the cult and laugh at itself even more wildly than the Bond films, it is in danger of losing its stance," he wrote, adding "ramshackle" plotting was undermining the show's surface panache.
On Feb. 24, 1966, The Stage and Television Today said, "Patrick Macnee's Steed is by now unimprovable," but "opinions about Diana Rigg's performance are divided." Still, the reviewer argued "she has made a definable character of Emma Peel, something without much help from the scriptwriters. And whatever her costumes - last week she was a strikingly clad Queen of Sin - she has looked constantly fetching."
As these mixed notices were appearing, audiences were embracing The Avengers more than ever before. At a time when toothpick thin models were becoming celebrities in Britain, some cited Rigg's non-curvaceous but healthy build as a better alternative. Tired of seeing over-endowed heroines, many woman and a few men welcomed a more athletic-looking alternative. "Diana Rigg is a goddess to flat-chested women everywhere," is how one website would later put it. And while she was not as physically formidable as Blackman, Rigg adopted her description of Cathy Gale. Like her predecessor, Rigg called Mrs. Peel a "good girl who fights back." Even more than today, popular entertainment of the time often presented a stereotype of feeble heroines, stupidly putting themselves into danger and unable to escape, tripping and falling and needing to be rescued. While somewhat lacking in Steed's cynical professional smarts, Emma Peel had a higher IQ, a wide range of scientific and artistic interests, a fearless cool and the ability to rescue herself _ and Steed.
"We were androgynous," Macnee would say in an AOL chat for the A&E network, which later released Avengers DVDs and tapes in the U.S. Unlike most actors, he was unafraid to share the heroism with his female partner.
"Mrs Peel was the femme fatale as pure calculator: the epitome of the rational brain working efficiently under pressure," Maria Alvarez would write in The New Statesman in 1998. "She overturned the stereotype of the dizzy, dependent, hysterical, simpering girlie, while Steed was sub fly feminised by his Regency dandy persona. Aggression was something she ritualised in her job."
Punch was commenting above on Too Many Christmas Trees, which included a joking reference to Cathy Gale but launched Emma Peel and her show on its surge toward the top of the ratings. The "Stage and Television" reference was to A Touch of Brimstone, which would become the show's high water mark in UK ratings. With an inventive script reworking British history, sinister but suave villains, and a classically cool performance by Macnee, the episode has all the ingredients for success. And then it has Diana Rigg in a self-designed costume. Diana wasn't kidding when she talked about fashion-forward. From the snake or her arm to her bejeweled eyes to black silk panties and spiked boots, Diana made quite an appearance as the Queen of Sin. The top was a black bustier, anachronistically reshaped from a flat front to gently but tightly curving, allowing Rigg to pad and push up her chest enough to create the illusion of breasts. The dominatrix effect worked almost too well. In the puritanical US, television executives would refuse to air the episode during the show's 1960s run, despite its high ratings in the UK. But they would show it during their own industry get-togethers. In later years, Rigg's outfit became the signature image of the series.
Behind the scenes, however, everything was not well. Shortly after Too Many Christmas Trees aired, Rigg discovered that at £90 a week, she was being paid less than a cameraman. She was outraged. True to form, the actress did not keep silent. True to form, she also found a way to cost herself sympathy, blurting out that she was "paid less than a coal miner," at a time when miners in her native Yorkshire faced the loss of their jobs. The powers-that-be at ABC UK recognized that in their cheapness, they had miscalculated. Diana had won over the British television audience, and the show was finally about to make its American debut. The prospective revenue made it the most lucrative foreign deal anywhere in television. This was not a time when they could afford trouble with their female lead.
Meanwhile, the intensely private actress was not enjoying her new-found celebrity. Although she had acted in front of audiences for years, now she was being recognized in public. Rigg was not amused. "I'm sorry, but it's illegal to sign autographs in the street," she snapped at one fan. "I don't understand the autograph syndrome," she told the American "TV Guide," which also noted a "rumor" that she needed a few drinks to relax for publicity photos. Still, her cooperation in the shoot paid off. Despite some doubts about how her show would fare in America, the magazine quickly adopted Diana Rigg as one of its favorites. TV Guide would regularly promote her career, and its editors eventually chose Rigg, along with George Clooney, as their "sexiest" ever television stars.
That March, a few weeks before what was then the end of the official American television season, The Avengers made its Stateside debut. It replaced Ben Casey, an initially successful show that had sunk near the bottom of the ratings on low-rated ABC US. Some who tuned in were frankly puzzled. Right from the op-art opening, the show announced it was like nothing else on American television. A corpse lies on a black-and-white checkerboard, a knife sticking from a black-and-white bulls-eye on his back. A man in a stylish suit and a woman in a black leather catsuit stroll out, take a bottle of champagne from the victim. Meanwhile, a clipped British voice announces, "Extraordinary crimes against the people, and the state, have to be avenged by agents extraordinary..." The voiceover eventually gives way to a tapping bongo as the agents open the bottle, pour themselves some, clink glasses _ and the stirring theme launches. Introducing new clothes, novel camera angles, quirky plots and jazzy music, it's no wonder that some viewers felt disoriented. But many got it, especially the young and hip.
And especially women. If some in the UK considered Emma Peel as a sort of Cathy Gale Lite, she was a revelation in the conservative US. Primed for change by cultural movements, particularly women's liberation, many American viewers were ready for someone to serve as their on-screen avatar. "At last we can have one hour of excellent television,"one woman fan wrote, according to Jeffrey Miller in his book on the US impact of British shows.
Perhaps playing to such new fans, Diana insisted "I never think of myself as sexy. I identify with the new woman in our society who is evolving. Emma is totally equal to Steed. The fighting is the most obvious quality. I always win my fights, and, personally, I enjoy it - the idea of taking on six men when you know you're going to win."
Never mind that back in the UK, Rigg was consistently deriding "that feminist thing" as "boring." "I'm not at all militant," she assured interviewers. Or that Diana took a perverse glee in describing her lack of skill in martial arts, and lack of interest in learning. At a time when the studio was promoting her fighting prowess, she was telling the media it was all make-believe, a credit to stunt people. "I only have to touch them with my finger and they throw themselves across the room," Rigg said.
The show was a modest ratings success in the US as a summer replacement. Much of the acclaim went to Diana Rigg, who was nominated for an Emmy. She lost to a more conventional femme fatale, curvaceous blonde Barbara Bain. As part of the ensemble of the more conventional, and more American, spy show, Mission Impossible Bain would win three straight Emmys.
Meanwhile, the UK/US partnership had its rough patches. In Britain, the run concluded with a light-hearted episode that found Emma Peel going under not much cover in a harem. Diana's outfit, an unpadded, tiny bustier and gauzy, low-riding Turkish trousers over tinier panties, was minimal. The unflattering exposure "hardly embellished her non-bosomy physique," in the polite phrasing of Femme Fatales magazine. Still, it praised her "all natural and titillating" sensuousness as she danced and fought in the brief costume. What alarmed American censors, though, was Diana's exposed navel, a body part barred from US airwaves. Responding to their complaints during filming, wardrobe inserted a costume jewel. But as Diana did a dance of the veils, it kept popping out. Finally, she had to glue it in. She was not amused, and even less so when ABC (US) declined to air the episode.
Facing what was then a large financial commitment, ABC (US) showed why it was the third-place network. Its execs dithered over whether to renew the show, before finally deciding to bring it back in January as a mid-season replacement. The break had allowed the producers to make nice with Rigg, relaxing the shooting schedule enough that she could resume theatrical work in Stratford. The critic Stanley Wells praised her as "charming" in Twelhth Night but faulted the production as "light-weight."
Meanwhile, Bates had given further thought to Emma's costumes and reworked her fighting kit into a new line of non-leather, jersey catsuits, "emmapeelers." They fit Rigg better and were suited to her lean frame. For the purposes of American censors, they were less revealing than some of her previous costumes. And they provided the production company with another marketing tie-in. Of course, Diana Rigg was not the first female celebrity with an "athletic build." She harkened back to Spencer Tracy's line about her hero, Katharine Hepburn, "there's not a lot of meat on her bones, but it's all cherce." There had been few Hepburn-types since, but an even taller redhead Vanessa Redgrave was the new leading light of British stage and movies. Other actresses with relatively modest curves, like Candice Bergen, Faye Dunaway and Katharine Ross, starred in leading American movies. Erstwhile first lady Jackie Kennedy Onassis had reintroduced the type. And even "The Avengers" sought to capitalize on rail-thin Twiggy, as Macnee posed with the Carnaby Street sensation. Although some 20 pounds heavier, Rigg presented almost the same profile as that other Hepburn, Audrey, whose square shoulders and long legs also supplemented minimal curves.
"Iconic figures of this era, like Twiggy and "The Avengers"' Emma Peel, presented daring, edgy female images whose fashion choices represented strength and confidence rather than modesty and obedience," Molly Faulkner-Bond would write in Sirens Magazine. "The futuristic designs of mod clothing were all about looking forward, rejecting past rules and roles, and generally asserting a new kind of aesthetic for young women in particular."
So there was fashion as well as entertainment buzz behind the show when it came back with colour episodes. In the UK, "The Avengers" resumed its place near the top of the ratings, although with numbers just slightly below its peak. There was some grousing that the show was being "Americanised," but the extra income showed in better production values. Diana appreciated the light comic tone of many episodes, saying the writers had moved past the Blackman era. But many of the directors who had set the style for the black-and-white episodes now found themselves pushed to the rear of the queue.
Quotes
"Doing Jumpers wasn't so hard, actually, I started on a bed nude and very quickly put a sort of dressing gown on. It was Abelard and Heloise that, was the hardest, because I had to walk out from the wings and do an entire love scene nude. It wasn't easy. God, not with my background! And, it never, ever got easier."
- March 1976: Cosmopolitan
"Feminism is boring."
"American men make lousy lovers." _ August 1973: Oui
"I have no physical prowess really, though." [Rigg's fight scenes] "were all based on stuntmen who would launch themselves through the air."
-Photoplay, July 1972
"The sex act is the funniest thing on the face of the earth."
"My tits aren't big enough."
"Hollywood is not cosmopolitan. People here are so square."
Stuff she’s done, ie: movies, tv, albums:
The Avengers, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Evil Under The Sun, The Great Muppet Caper, Mother Love, Mystery!, Extras, Bond Girls Are Forever
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