New Biography Shows Diana Rigg To Be Much More Than Her Character on ‘The Avengers,’ Emma Peel

New Yorkers who have occasion to visit the Lower East Side — on the way to the Tenement Museum, perhaps, or Essex Street Market — may have noticed a towering mural on the corner of Allen and Broome streets. The painting is a silhouette of a sleek woman with high-heeled boots, a windblown coiffure, and what appears to be a gun. Just adjacent to the painting is the Emma Peel Room, an imbibery that a stray millennial tells me is “aight” in terms of atmosphere and libations.The owners of EPR are clearly familiar with Diana Rigg, who played the stylish, stunning, and high-kicking secret agent in “The Avengers,” the 1960s British television series. (They couldn’t have Uma Thurman in mind from the 1998 remake, could they?) But how many of their youngish customers know of the bar’s namesake, let alone Rigg, the dame commander of the Order of the British Empire who originated the role? If they recall the actress’s name at all it’s likely from HBO’s “Game of Thrones,” in which Rigg played Olenna Tyrell.From all reports, Rigg did outstanding work on “Thrones” — having little patience for the egregious or the execrable, I took a pass on the much-ballyhooed fantasy series — and she ended her days with a pivotal role in Edgar Wright’s “Last Night in Soho” (2021). Still, I prefer to remember the elder Rigg for a stellar cameo appearance in Ricky Gervais’s British sitcom, “Extras.” Although she had been bestowed with a fancy title, the actress was still game for anything.In an episode from the show’s second season, Daniel Radcliffe plays a haplessly randy version of his 17-year-old self. While lunching in the studio commissary with struggling actor Andy Millman (Mr. Gervais), Mr. Radcliffe shows off his one-and-only condom — which he summarily sends flying over to the next table. The item in question lands directly on the head of Dame Diana. Ever unflappable, Rigg gives Mr. Radcliffe a lesson in grammar, etiquette, branding, and vocabulary in a matter of seconds — all the while with a straggly prophylactic perched on her silvery bangs. Rarely has a lunch of tomato soup and a bowl of fruit been as hilarious. Rigg’s comedic chops were formidable — but, then, anyone who had even tangentially followed her career knew as much.Rigg is the subject of a new biography by Herbie J. Pilato, “One Tough Dame; The Life and Career of Diana Rigg,” from the University Press of Mississippi/Jackson. He’s performed similar duties for Mary Tyler Moore, Elizabeth Montgomery, and “Glamour Gidgets and the Girl Next Door.” Mr. Pilato was shaped by “the social circuitry” of television programs from the 1960s and ’70s. His enthusiasm for the stuff is palpable; as a result, his prose tends less toward the critical than the chatty. “One Tough Dame” is a light read.Via University Press of MississippiWhy Rigg? Mr. Pilato writes that she “rarely played by the rules”: Rigg’s “tough exterior armored the softer side of a complex but dynamic and engaging personality that kept those about her at bay and on their toes.” The child of a Yorkshire railway engineer and a tailor’s daughter, Rigg spent her earliest years in India as a “permanent resident” of an “other part of the British Empire.” After attending boarding school in England, Rigg studied at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and later signed on for a five-year stint at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company at Stratford-Upon-Avon.All of which was overshadowed by Rigg being cast as the brainy, brawny, and bodacious Emma Peel on “The Avengers.” As an embodiment of Swinging Sixties irreverence, she proved an adept foil to Patrick McNee’s foppish John Steed. Given her charm, carriage, and form-fitting wardrobe, Rigg achieved popular success as a sex symbol and feminist icon — the former of which gave her headaches, the latter of which she claimed. She quit the show after two seasons. “The Avengers” petered out after her departure.The difficulties Rigg experienced wriggling out from under the shadow of “The Avengers” are reflected in the Peel-based structure of Mr. Pilato’s book, to wit: “Before,” “During,” “After,” and “Forever After.” The author skitters over the logistics of Rigg’s career and life, quoting sources liberally and often getting side-tracked by this-or-that tidbit of showbiz minutiae. As it is, Rigg emerges only fitfully from the pages of “One Tough Dame,” which, given the premium she placed on privacy, isn’t altogether inappropriate. A more scholarly biography awaits; Mr. Pilato’s will do in a pinch.

New Biography Shows Diana Rigg To Be Much More Than Her Character on ‘The Avengers,’ Emma Peel

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