Dame DIana Rigg (forever Emma Peel) dies aged 82 RIP
Publicity shots for The Avengers featuring Diana Rigg as Emma Peel The Avengers 1965-68 Emma Peel’s life is in danger as The Avengers try to thwart a plot to destroy Britain’s early warning radar system in episode The Gravediggers, aired 9 October 1965 Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images
The moment Diana Rigg first starred as Emma Peel in the Brit TV series The Avengers in 1995 she became an instant gay icon. She had taken over her role as Steed’s right hand woman from Honor Blackman , and she quickly made the part very much her own. I mean who wouldn’t like all that black leather?
Today it was announced that Dame Diane had passed away at the age of 82. Her long and celebrated career encompassed many of great roles on stage , plus a glittering career on both TV and in Films. Here just a very few of Queerguru’s favorite pics of her : from playing (the only ever) Mrs James Bond, to taking on the role of Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? that Queerguru saw in 1996, and even guest starring on The Muppets as Lady Holliday
On Her Majesty’s Secret Service Rigg’s Contessa (AKA Tracy) captures Bond’s heart, marries him and is then murdered by Spectre’s Ernst Blofeld Photograph: United Artists/Allstar
Who’s Afraid of Virgina Woolf?, 1996 Rigg as Martha with David Suchet as George at the Almeida theatre in London Photograph: Tristram Kenton/The Guardian
Follies, 1987 Julia McKenzie, Lynda Baron and Diana Rigg in the Stephen Sondheim musical at the Shaftesbury theatre in London Photograph: Alastair Muir/REX/Shutterstock
King Lear, 1983 Rigg as Regan with Laurence Olivier as King Lear in an adaptation for television Photograph: ITV/Rex/Shutterstock
The Great Muppet Caper, 1981 Lady Holiday, played by Diana Rigg, gives instructions to her secretary, Miss Piggy, in Jim Henson’s movie Photograph: Hulton Archive/Getty Images
Diana Rigg in the early 1990s Photograph: Terry O’Neill/Getty Images
Dame Diana Rigg 20 July 1938 - 10 September 2020 (aged 82) R.I.P.
