FORCE OF NATURE (REMEMBERING DIANA RIGG)

Few actresses in a 007 movie go on to have a career that eclipsed the actor who played James Bond.

However that is what exactly happened with Diana Rigg after her appearance opposite George Lazenby in Peter R Hunt's 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service'.

But it should have come as no surprise as Rigg was a formidable Yorkshire woman, who carved out a distinguished career in theatre, television and film by making some smart choices. 

Born in Doncaster in 1938, her father was a railway engineer and, when Diana was just two months old, uprooted the family to Bikaner in Rajasthan in India to work in the state railway.

The family remained there for eight years and she learned Hindi which be some her second language.

On her return to England for boarding school, Rigg was educated at Fulneck Girls School, in a Moravian settlement close to Pudsey. 

She hated boarding but later admitted those years in Yorkshire had a bigger influence on her than her Indian upbringing.

On leaving school, Right was determined to develop an acting career and secured a coveted place at the Royal Academy for Dramatic Art (RADA) on London.

Among her classmates were Glenda Jackson and Sian Phillips.

Her professional debut came in a 1957 RADA production of Berthold Brecht's 'The Caucasian Chalk Circle' at the York Festival.

Over the next 10 years, Rigg learned her craft in a number of Royal Shakespeare Company productions.

 Her performance as Cordelia in a production of 'King Lear' came in for particular praise.

During this period, she also got involved romantically with the director Philip Saville and would love with him for eight years.

Rigg's insistence in a newspaper interview that she would not marry Saville, who was much older and already married attracted tabloid media interest.

She acquired television acting experience, with appearances in bit parts in Shakespearean productions like 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'' to more meaty roles in one-off dramas for the BBC's 'Festival,' ITV/ABC's 'Armchair Theatre' and an episode of the ITV espionage drama 'The Sentimental Agent'.

However it was in 1965 that Rigg was to be catapulted into the public's consciousness as Emma Peel in the hit ITV spy series 'The Avengers' with Patrick McNee following the departure of Honor Blackman's Cathy Gale.

Originally the role had gone to another actress, Elizabeth Shepherd but when it became clear during filming that she lacked the sensevof humour, she was ditched in favour of Rigg.

With her deadly combo of intelligence, charm, high kicking and glamour, Emma Peel was an immediate hit with audiences as John Steed's sidekick in a series that epitomised Britain's Swinging Sixties cool.

It also brought her international fame, with Rigg earning many male admirers attracted to her husky voice which had been honed by a 20 cigarettes smoking habit from the age of 18 

She would later tell the Guardian newspaper in a 2019 interview that she was shocked by how 'The Avengers' turned her into a sex symbol.

"I didn't know how to handle it and I kept all the unopened fan mail in the boot of my cat because I didn't know how to respond and thought it was rude to throw it away," she confessed.

"Then my mother became my secretary and replied to the really inappropriate ones, saying: 'My daughter's far too old for you. Take a cold shower!'"

Rigg stayed in the role for just two series and successfully fought the producers to triple her pay from £150 a week for the second series after discovering the cameraman was earning more than her.

Despite standing up for equality, her criticism of the producers was painted by some in the media as celebrity ego and greed.

Rigg would later express disappointment that McNee, who she remained friendly with, did not back her in her bid for fair pay.

In a 2019 interview with the BBC, she weighed in behind the Hollywood actress Michelle Williams and those campaigning for the US Paycheck Fairness Act after it emerged the actress received a fraction of what her co-star Mark Whalberg received when scenes from Ridley Scott's 'All The Money In The World' when Kevin Spacey had to be replaced by Christopher Plummer.

"The fight goes on," she declared.

"I wonder if anyone's done a survey as to whether people go to watch a male or a female lead.

"I go to see a female lead as often as a male one, so why there's a disparity in the pay cheque I have no idea.

"Bosses need to be talked about this."

Now a household name, Rigg made her big screen debut came with Peter Hall's 1968 film of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' in which she played Helena alongside Judi Dench, Ian Holm, Helen Mirren, David Warner and Ian Richardson which got a bumpy reception from the critics.

However she also showed a desire to mix the highbrow with more popular entertainment, joining Oliver Reed and Telly Savalas in Basil Dearden's 1969 black comedy adevtire film 'The Assassination Bureau'.

Playing a journalist and women's rights campaigner in the early 1900s, Rigg who gets involved with an organisation that kills for money.

However it struggled to secure a release in America - partly due to its name and the turbulent aftermath of the killing of major figures like Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Rigg followed Honor Blackman's path of graduating from 'The Avengers' to a 007 movie, playing the agent's only wife Countess Tracy Di Vincenzo in 'On Her Majesty's Secret Service' which Telly Savalas as the villainousleadet of SPECTRE, Blofeld.

There were allegations that George Lazenby, who played James Bond, and Rigg didn't get on but this was denied by the director, Peter R Hubt and his stars.

It is believed rumours of a personality clash were ignited by Rigg quipping before one love scene that she was having garlic for lunch before she kissed Lazenby.

Lazenby's stint as Bond came to an abrupt end after his performance faced brickbats on its release from film critics who compared it unfavourably to his predecessor, Sean Connery.

However the film topped the US box office and Rigg's performance in particular came in for praise.

The director Steven Soderbergh would also later champion the film in 2015 as the best of the Bond movies cinematically. 

Rigg returned to the stage in 1970 in Ronald Millar's 'Abelard and Heloise,' picking up the first of four Tony nominations in her career for Best Actress when it transferred to Broadway a year later.

She appeared as Portia in Stuart Burge's critically panned movie of 'Julius Caesar' with Charlton Heston, James Mason, Richard Chamberlain, Robert Vaughn, John Geilgud and Jason Robards - although she received praise for her performance.

In 1972, Rigg would receive a Best Supporting Actress Golden Globe nomination for her performance opposite George C Scott in Arthur Hiller's satire 'The Hospital'.

Playing the daughter of Barnard Hughes' patient who becomes involved with Scott's doctor, the film drew an enthusiastic review from the film critic Roger Ebert and earned its writer Paddy Chayefsky an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay.

In 1973, she wed the Israeli painter Menachem Gueffen but the marriage would last just three years.

There was a memorable turn as the daughter of Vincent Price's vengeful Shakespearean actor in Douglas Hickox's much adored 1973 British horror comedy 'Theatre of Blood' with Jack Hawkins, Harry Andrews, Diana Dors, Milo O'Shea, Michael Hordern, Robert Morley and Arthur Lowe. 

In 1973, she landed her first lead in a US television series with a NBC sitcom 'Diana' in which she played a divorced English fashion designer trying to make a name for herself in New York but the attempt to replicate the success of CBS's 'Mary Tyler Moore Show' didn't persuade audiences and it was axed after one season. 

As a member of the National Theatre company at London's Old Vic, Rigg had the lead female role in Tom Stoppard's play 'Jumpers' and in another premiere production in 1978 of 'Night and Day'.

In 1975, she picked up her second Tony nomination for a production on Broadway of Moliere's 'The Misanthrope'.

She was also nominated that year for an Emmy for Best Lead Actress in a Drama for performance in CBS's TV film of Rumer Godden's novel 'In the House of Brede'.

In a production filmed in England and Ireland, Rigg played a woman who abandons her privileged life to join a cloistered community of Benedictine nuns.

Rigg also memorably appeared as Nell Gwynne in BBC1's 'The Morecambe and Wise Show' 

Her daughter Rachel Stirling was born in 1977 and would go on to forge her own acting career.

That year also saw the release of Harold Prince' big screen version of the hit musical 'A Little Night Music' in which she played a betrayed wife among a cast that included Elizabeth Taylor, Lesley-Anne Down, Len Cariou and Laurence Guittard.

Once again, Rigg earned good reviews for a film which was critically lambasted.

In 1981, she was cast as 'Hedda Gabler' in a well received Yorkshire Television production of Henrik Ibsen's play for ITV. 

That year she also turned up with Miss Piggy as a British fashion designer and victim of a jewel heist in Jim Henson's 'The Great Muppet Caper' with Charles Grodin which was a hit with audiences and critics.

1982 saw her marry the theatre producer Archibald Stirling, a former officer in the Scots Guards.

Rigg also enjoyed success that year, playing the French writer 'Colette" in a West End musical which would tour venues in the US before settling on Broadway for a final run.

She played the bitchy Agatha Christie character Arlena Stuart Marshall in Guy Hamilton's star studded big screen Hercule Poirot adaptation with Peter Ustinov as the Belgian sleuth, James Mason, Maggie Smith, Colin Blakely, Roddy McDowall and Sylvia Miles.

However the film failed to excite audiences and it underperformed at the box office.

There was another Agatha Christie role that year as Christine Vole in a CBS TV movie remake of 'Witness for the Prosecution' with Ralph Richardson, Deborah Kerr, Beau Bridges and Donald Pleasance.

In 1986, she had an enjoyable turn as Miss Hardbroom in ITV's TV film of Jill Murphy's children's tale 'The Worst Witch' with Fairuza Balk and Tim Curry.

A year later, she relished playing the Evil Queen in Michael Betz's live action version of 'Snow White' for Cannon Films which did well despite being consigned to a straight to video release. 

Rigg made a chilling Regan in Granada Television's excellent 1983 production of 'King Lear' with Laurence Olivier in the title role, Colin Blakely as Kent, Robert Lindsay as Edmund, Dorothy Turin as Goneril, Anna Caldet-Marshall as Cordelia, Leo McKern as Gloucester, David Threlfall as Edgar, Brian Cox as Burgundy and John Hurt as the Fool.

A hit with audiences on both sides of the Atlantic, thus top notch adaptation won International and Primetime Emmys.

In 1985, she was cast as Lady Deadlock in Arthur Hopcraft's popular eight episode adaptation of Charles Dickens' 'Bleak House' with Denholm Elliott, TP McKenna, Suzanne Burden, Peter Vaughn, Anne Reid, Sam Kelly and Graham Crowden.

There was a successful stint in 1987 in a lead role in a West End production of Stephen Sondheim's 'Follies'.

In 1988, she was awarded a Commander of thege British Empire for her services to acting, becoming a Dame six years later.

From 1989 to 2003, she was the host in the United States of PBS's 'Mystery' strand of British crime series, taking over from her 'Theatre of Blood' co-star Vincent Price. 

Her marriage to Stirling ended in 1990 after it emerged he had had an affair with the actress Joely Richardson.

Rigg picked up a Best Actress BAFTA in 1990 for her performance as an obsessive mum in Andrew Davies' four-adaptation for BBC1 of Domini Taylor's 'Mother Love'.

Also starring David McCallum, James Wilby and Fiona Gilles, Rigg dominated the critically acclaimed series.

In 1992, Rigg was to enjoy her greatest theatrical success as 'Medea,' winning a Tony for Best Actress two years later after the Greek tragedy transferred from the Wyndham Theatre to Broadway.

That year also saw her join Angela Lansbury and Omar Sharif in a TV film of Paul Gallico's novel 'Mrs 'Arris Goes to Paris' and in 1993 she made a guest appearance in an episode of the Canadian broadcaster CBC's drama 'Road to Avonlea' alongside Robby Benson.

Rigg earned rave reviews in 1993 for her performance in Elijah Mosinsky's BBC2 'Screen Two' post-World War II comedy 'Gengis Cohn' as a man hungry matron in which Anthony Sher played a Jewish ventriloquist sent to the gas chambers for his anti-Nazi routines and comes back to haunt Robert Lindsay's police commissioner as a ghost in 1958 because of his ardent support for the Nazis.

She turned up in Bruce Beresford's 1994 movie of William Boyd's British colonial tale 'A Good Man In Africa' with Colin Friels, Sean Connery, John Lithgow, Joanne Whalley and Louis Gossett Jr 

Beresford's comedy was pummeled by the critics who found its humour lame and its leads poorly cast and it sunk quickly at the box office.

There was also acclaim in 1995 for a production of Brecht's 'Mother Courage' at the National Theatre and her performance a year later in Edward Albee's 'Whose Afraid of Virginia Woolf?' at the  Almeida Theatre.

Also on 1995, she played Melissa Gilbert's grandmother in a TV movie of Danielle Steel's popular Czarist Russian romance 'Zoya'. 

She captured an Emmy for Best Supporting Actress in a Miniseries or TV Movie in 1997 for her performance as Mrs Danvers in a two-episode adaptation of Daphne du Maurier's 'Rebecca' for ITV with Charles Dance, Emilia Fox, Lucy Cohu, Geraldine James and Faye Dunaway.

In 1998, Rigg served as the Chancellor of the University of Stirling in Scotland - a role she performed for 10 years until she was succeeded by the broadcaster James Naughtie. 

She also landed her own primetime period detective show for BBC1 'The Mrs Bradley Mysteries' which ran for just one series with Neil Dudgeon playing her chauffeur and guest appearances by John Alderton, Lynda Barron, Peter Davison, Roy Barraclough, David Tennant, Phyllida Law,  Jason O'Mara and Eddie Marsan in various episodes.

There was another big screen outing in Michael Winner's box office turkey 'Parting Shots' - a comedy starring the singer Chris Rea as an assassin with cancer, Rigg as his estranged wife and a cast handpicked by the director that included Bob Hoskins, Joanna Lumley, John Cheese, Oliver Reed, Felicity Kendall, Ben Kingsley and Gareth Hunt.

Winner's last movie, whicj has been described as the worst British comedy since 'Carry on Emanuelle,' was also regarded as a candidate for the worst British movie ever made and nosedived at the box office.

Rigg joined other actresses who portrayed John Steed's sidekicks in 'The Avengers,' - Honor Blackman, Linda Thorson and Joanna Lumley - for a special BAFTA award in 2000 recognising her work.

That year Rigg got the chance to act in a NBC TV miniseries featuring her daughter Rachael Stirling, 'In the Beginning' - a two part Biblical miniseries starring Martin Landau, Jacqueline Bisset, Christopher Lee, Geraldine Chaplin, Alan Bates, David Warner, David Threlfall, Archie Panjabi, Frank Finlay and Amanda Donnohoe.

Playing older and younger versions of Rebecca, wife of Isaac and mother of Jacob and Esau, they did not get to act alongside each other.

Her performance in 2001 as a German Baroness Lehzen in BBC1's miniseries 'Victoria and Albert' with Victoria Hamilton, Jonathan Firth, Peter Ustinov, David Suchet and Nigel Hawthorne landed her another Emmy nomination.

Rigg was the victim of an apparent suicide in a 2003 episode of the BBC's anthology series 'Murder on Mind'.

Joe Wright also directed her in the BBC1 four-part miniseries 'Charles II: The Power and The Passion' in which she depicted Queen Henrietta Maria with Rufus Sewell, Rupert Graves, Helen McCrory, Martin Freeman, Ian McDiarmid, Anne-Marie Duff, Charlie Creed-Miles, David Bradley and Shirley Henderson.

Paul Marcus directed her in a 2005 live action movie of 'Heidi' in which she played the grandmother to Irish child actress Sarah Bolger's heroine and the wife to Max Von Sydow.

The family film, featuring Geraldine Chaplin and Pauline McLynn among the cast, had a low key release.

In 2006, Rigg was tormented by Daniel Radcliffe in a hilarious episode of Ricky Gervais' BBC2 sitcom 'Extras,' having a condom thrown by him at her head.

Rigg played a nun in John Curran's 2006 movie of W Somerset Maugham's 'The Painted Veil' which starred Edward Norton, Naomi Watts, Toby Jones and Liev Schreiber.

Curran's handsomely shot film had a limited release but enjoyed mostly positive reviews.

2007 saw Rigg take on the role of Huma Rojo in the London Old Vic's stage adaptation of Pedro Almodovar's 'All About My Mother'.

In 2008, Rigg performed Anton Chekhov's The Cherry Orchard' at the Chichester Festival Theatre, coming back a year later to perform Noel Coward's 'Hay Fever'.

She teamed up with Rupert Everett and Kara Tointon in a production of George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' at the Garrick Theatre in London, 37 years after playing Eliza Doolittle in a production of the play at the Albert Theatre.

Rigg joined the third season of the biggest drama on television, HBO's 'Game of Thrones' in 2013 as the cunning Lady Oleana Tyrell - otherwise known as the Queen of Thorns.

Mark Gatiss specifically wrote an episode of 'Doctor Who' for her in 2013 with Matt Smith as the Doctor and Jenna Coleman as his assistant, Clara Oswald.

She played an evil Victorian chemist and engineer planning to wipe out the rest of the world and got to act opposite her daughter Rachael Stirling for the first time onscreen. 

With its nods to 'The Avengers', the episode mostly received enthusiastic reviews with Rigg coming in for particular praise for her villainous turn.

She would appear again as Rachael Stirling's mother in six episodes of the acclaimed BBC4 sitcom 'The Detectorists' with Toby Jones and Mackenzie Crook.

In Sky 1 and NBC's 2015 sitcom 'You, Me and the Apocalypse,' she played the mother of Rob Lowe's chain smoking, sweary Catholic priest among a cast that included Matthew Baynton, Joel Fry and Megan Mullally.

While it was a critical hit, the 10 episode sitcom was not renewed for a second series.

In 2017, Rigg played the Duchess of Beucleuch in the second series of ITV's primetime costume drama series 'Victoria' with Jenna Coleman as the young Monarch, Tom Hughes, Peter Bowles, Nigel Lindsay and Peter Firth.

In 2019, she told the BBC that just like 'The Avengers' her agent was contacted to see if she would take on the role.

"I wasn't watching 'Game of Thrones' and had absolutely no idea of its influence in the world," she admitted.

"It was a job. They sent me the script and I thought: 'I can do this'.

"Interestingly enough, they tested me very early on. 

"One of my earliest scenes was incredibly difficult, listing all the things my marching army would need. It went on forever, talking about the sheep and the cows and the soldiers. 

"I read that and thought: 'These guys are testing an old actress to see if she can get it into her head'.

"I thought: 'I am going to do it in one take' and I did."

An immediate success with audiences and TV critics, her character remained until the seventh season and her performance initially earned her a hat trick of Emmy nominations in 2013, 2014 and 2015.

Rigg would be nominated again in 2018 for the role.

Reflecting on her time in the show, she told the BBC she loved playing bad characters like Oleana and she was especially proud of her character's graceful exit from the series.

2018 also saw Rigg return to Broadway for a final time in the role of Mrs Higgins in  'My Fair Lady,'' the musical of Shaw's 'Pygmalion," and landed her fourth Tony Award nomination for her performance.

Rigg maintained a habit of going through a 20 pack every day from 1956 to 2009.

However in 2017, her previous habit meant she had to undergo cardiac surgery and she would later joke that while her heart stopped during the procedure, God took a look at her and declared: "Send the old bag down (to Earth) again, I'm not having her yet!'

That year she became a grandmother when her daughter Rachel and her husband, the Elbow lead singer Guy Garvey had a baby boy Jack.

Andy Serkis also included her in his feature directorial debut 'Breathe', an acclaimed biographical drama about the disability advocate Robin Cavendish who was paralysed from the neck down by polio at the age of 28.

Starring Andrew Garfield, Claire Foy, Hugh Bonneville and Tom Hollander, Rigg appeared as Lady Neville in the film which drew a limited arthouse following.

In 2019, Rigg received a lifetime achievement award at Cannes for her work on television.

She also narrated a BBC1 animated version of Julia Donaldson's popular children's book 'The Snail and the Whale' with Sally Hawkins and Rob Brydon among the voice cast which aired in a prime schedule spot on Christmas Day.

Rigg also filmed roles in Channel 5's revival of James Herriot's Yorkshire vet series 'All Creatures Great and Small' with Nicholas Ralph and Samuel West in which she played Mrs Pumphrey, the owner of Ticki Woo (which aired days before her death) and as Mother Dorothea in a BBC1 miniseries adaptation of 'The Black Narcissus' with Gemma Arterton, Aisling Franciosi, Gina McKee, Alessandro Nivola and Jim Broadbent which will be broadcast soon. 

Her final screen appearance will be in Edgar Wright's 1960s set psychological horror 'Last Night in Soho' which will be released next year with Anna Taylor-Joy, Thomasin Harcourt McKenzie, Matt Smith, Rita Tushingham and Terence Stamp which will be released next year.

As news broke of her death, the 'Baby Driver' director claimed her performance in the film "exceeded all my highest expectations - blazingly talented fire and funny."

However it was the theatre director Jonathan Kent, who extracted arguably her best stage performance in 'Medea', who summed her up best.

He observed Rigg's "combination of force of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power made her a great classical actress - one of an astonishing generation of British stage performers."

That ability to dominate in classical theatre roles and more mainstream TV and movie fare will ensure Rigg will never be forgotten.

(Diana Rigg passed away at the age of 82 on September 10, 2020)