By Lisa de los Reyes via The Hollywood Reporter
A veteran of the stage and a sixties icon, she also portrayed the wife of James Bond in ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.’
Diana Rigg, the Emmy- and Tony-winning British actress who vaulted to international fame in the 1960s with her performance as the seductive spy Emma Peel on The Avengers, then gained a new following decades later as the cunning Lady Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones, died Thursday. She was 82.
Rigg was diagnosed with cancer in March, according to her daughter Rachael Stirling, who said she had “spent her last months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession. I will miss her beyond words.”
“It is with tremendous sadness that we announce that Dame Diana Rigg died peacefully early this morning. She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time,” added her agent Simon Beresford. “Dame Diana was an icon of theatre, film, and television. She was the recipient of BAFTA, Emmy, Tony and Evening Standard Awards for her work on stage and screen. Dame Diana was a much loved and admired member of her profession, a force of nature who loved her work and her fellow actors. She will be greatly missed.”
Rigg also played the ill-fated Bond girl Tracy di Vicenzo opposite 007 actor George Lazenby in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).
As the third of four female sidekicks to Patrick Macnee’s dapper John Steed on ITV’s The Avengers, Rigg’s Peel became an icon in England and the U.S. The show centered on the duo — Steed with a bowler hat and umbrella, Peel in cutting-edge mod fashions — working as partners for a secret British intelligence agency in an over-the-top, sometimes surrealist England. Read more from The Hollywood Reporter.
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