Diana Rigg, the Quintessential Mrs. Emma Peel

Diana Rigg is not your run-of-the-mill actress. She is one classy Dame. Literally, as well as figuratively.

She spent the first seven years of her life in India where her father was a railway executive and she still speaks fluent Hindi.

At seven, Rigg was sent to boarding school, which she hated. Always a free spirit, Rigg often refused to eat the porridge set before her at breakfast, insisting upon sitting in front of it for days before finally tossing at against the wall.

One good thing came of board school: Rigg's elocution teacher, Sylvia Greenwood, encouraged the young Rigg's talents. Greenwood persuaded Rigg's parents to allow her to audition for the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) at the age of sixteen.

Rigg was accepted into RADA but it wasn't easy going. She threw her energies into a social life rather than academics. She still managed to muster through the school and appeared in a production at RADA for final-year students.

From RADA, Rigg did some modeling gigs until she could make her professional stage debut in "The Passing of the Third Floor Back" in 1958. She joined the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre Company, which later became the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) and had small roles and understudied for the next few years.

Then it was on to the part of Helena in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" and "King Lear." But it was during her performance as Anita Fender in "The Hothouse" - a play for television - that got Rigg noticed and into the role she is best known for - that of sexy spy Emma Peel in television's "The Avengers."

Playing the part of Emma Peel wasn't as glamorous and thrilling as it might have appeared. Peel discovered early on that her salary was less than that of a cameraman. As is also the case when success becomes apparent, there was a decided lack of privacy in doing a television series.

Rigg held out for a raise in pay for the second season, but decided not to continue on to the third. Writes her co-star Patrick Macnee in "The Avengers and Me" (TV Books 1998), "Sometime later, she said to me, 'Pat. If only you had been stronger with me, more forceful, and said, "No! You've got to stay!"... we would have gone on and done another two years together... and it would have been great'!"[1]

Rigg ended up doing a total of 51 episodes of "The Avengers" before continuing on to another of her well-known roles: that of Tracy Di Vicenzo in the James Bond film, "On Her Majesty's Secret Service." Her character was the only Bond girl to actually marry James Bond.

In the early seventies, Rigg tried her hand at her own television series titled, appropriately, "Diana." Her character, Diana Smythe, was a fashion illustrator. One episode of the series teamed Rigg with her ex-Avenger co-star Patrick Macnee with Macnee as an old flame. Although the producers for "Diana" were the same as for the highly successful "Mary Tyler Moore Show," Rigg's series was cancelled after fourteen episodes.

In 1977, at the age of 39, Rigg gave birth to her only daughter, Rachel, with then-partner Archie Stirling. Rigg continued acting in theater off and on while raising her daughter. But her primary focus was spending time with Rachel.

"I'm not prepared to hazard the relationship I have with my daughter," Rigg said in an interview for an article. [1]

Rigg has continued performing, both in movies and theater. She was inspired to compile a collection of bad theatrical reviews after receiving a particularly scathing review of one of her own performances. She published this as "No Stone Unturned" published in 1991 by Silman-James Press.

Rigg has won a Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in "Medea" in 1993 and an Emmy Award for her portrayal as Mrs. Danvers in "Rebecca."

In 1988, Rigg was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) and a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (DBE) in 1994 for her contributions to theater.

As recently as 2009, Rigg was still performing onstage when she appeared in Noel Coward's Hay Fever at the Chichester Festival Theatre.

Rigg has confessed to smoking too much, drinking and trying drugs.

"In my late 20s, early 30s, working in America I tried cocaine and amyl nitrate," Riggs said. "I can't take pot, I just go to sleep. Obviously I don't touch them now. Many years ago when I was working on Broadway I used to go to a drug rehabilitation centre on Sundays. I didn't lecture them against the perils of drug-taking, I gave them drama therapy. "[2]

She took antidepressants after the birth of her daughter left her with what she terms the "baby blues."[2]

She also had cosmetic surgery for her eyes at the age of 44, but it is the only cosmetic surgery she claims to have had.

But, even at the age of 72, Rigg remains the creator of one of the most memorable, and certainly what is considered one of the sexiest, characters to ever grace the television screen with her portrayal of Mrs. Emma Peel.

Sources:

1] Dianna Rigg website
[2] The Observer
Notable Names Database