Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born on 20 July 1938 inDoncaster, in theWest Riding of Yorkshire (now inSouth Yorkshire),[1] to Louis and Beryl Hilda Rigg (née Helliwell). She had a brother four years her senior.[citation needed] Her father was born inYorkshire, worked in engineering, and moved to India to work for the railway to take advantage of the career opportunities there.[2] Her mother moved back to England for Rigg's birth. Between the ages of two months and eight years Rigg lived inBikaner, Rajasthan, India,[1] where her father worked his way up to become a railway executive in theBikaner State Railway.[2] She spokeHindi as hersecond language in those years.[3]
She was later sent back to England to attend a boarding school,Fulneck Girls School, in aMoravian settlement nearPudsey.[4] Rigg hated her boarding school, where she felt like a fish out of water, but believed that Yorkshire played a greater part in shaping her character than India did.[5] She trained as an actress at theRoyal Academy of Dramatic Art[6] from 1955 to 1957, where her classmates includedGlenda Jackson andSiân Phillips.[7]
Rigg's career in film, television and the theatre was wide-ranging, including roles in theRoyal Shakespeare Company between 1959 and 1967, including Gwendolen in Jean Anouilh's Becket, Cordelia in King Lear and Adriana in The Comedy of Errors.([8]).[9] Her professional debut was as Natasha Abashwilli in the RADA production ofThe Caucasian Chalk Circle at the York Festival in 1957.[10]
She returned to the stage in theRonald Millar playAbelard and Heloïse in London in 1970 and made herBroadway debut with the play in 1971, in which she appeared nude withKeith Michell. She earned the first of three Tony Award nominations forBest Actress in a Play. She received her second nomination in 1975, forThe Misanthrope. A member of theNational Theatre Company atThe Old Vic from 1972 to 1975, Rigg took leading roles in premiere productions of twoTom Stoppard plays, Dorothy Moore inJumpers (National Theatre, 1972) and Ruth Carson inNight and Day (Phoenix Theatre, 1978).[11][12]
In February 2018, she returned to Broadway in the non-singing role of Mrs Higgins inMy Fair Lady. She commented, "I think it's so special. When I was offered Mrs Higgins, I thought it was just such a lovely idea."[16] She received her fourth Tony nomination for the role.[17]
From 1965 to 1968 Rigg appeared in the British 1960s television seriesThe Avengers (1961–1969) oppositePatrick Macnee asJohn Steed, playing the secret agentEmma Peel in 51 episodes. She replacedElizabeth Shepherd at very short notice when Shepherd was dropped from the role after filming two episodes. Rigg auditioned for the role on a whim, without ever having seen the programme. Although she was hugely successful in the series, she disliked the lack of privacy that it brought and was not comfortable in her position as asex symbol.[18] In an interview withThe Guardian in 2019, Rigg stated that "becoming a sex symbol overnight had shocked (her)".[5] Neither did she like the way that she was treated by production companyABC Weekend TV. For her second series she held out for a pay rise from £150 a week to £450;[19] she said in 2019 – when gender pay inequality was very much in the news – that "not one woman in the industry supported me... Neither did Patrick [Macnee, her co-star]... I was painted as this mercenary creature by the press when all I wanted was equality. It's so depressing that we are still talking about the gender pay gap."[5] She did not stay for a third year. Patrick Macnee noted that Rigg had later told him that she considered Macnee and her driver to be her only friends on the set.[20]
She appeared as Regan, the king's treacherous second daughter, in aGranada Television production ofKing Lear (1983), which starredLaurence Olivier in the title role. As Lady Dedlock she costarred withDenholm Elliott in a television version ofDickens'sBleak House (BBC, 1985). In 1986 she played Miss Hardbroom in aCentral Television adaptation ofThe Worst Witch, starring oppositeTim Curry. The following year, she played theEvil Queen, Snow White's evil stepmother, in the Cannon Movie Tales film adaptation ofSnow White (1987). In 1989, she played Helena Vesey inMother Love for theBBC; her portrayal of an obsessive mother who was prepared to do anything, even murder, to keep control of her son won Rigg the 1990BAFTA for Best Television Actress.[24] In 1995, she appeared in a film adaptation for television based onDanielle Steel'sZoya as Evgenia, the main character's grandmother.[25] She appeared on television as Mrs Danvers inRebecca (1997), winning anEmmy, as well as the PBS productionMoll Flanders, and as the amateur detective Mrs Bradley inThe Mrs Bradley Mysteries. In this BBC series, first aired in 2000, she playedGladys Mitchell's detective, Dame Beatrice Adela Le Strange Bradley, an eccentric old woman who worked forScotland Yard as a pathologist. The series was not a critical success and did not return for a second season.[26]
From 1989 until 2003 she hosted thePBS television seriesMystery!, shown in the United States byPBS broadcasterWGBH, taking over fromVincent Price,[27] her co-star inTheatre of Blood.
In 2013 she appeared in an episode ofDoctor Who in a Victorian era–based storyThe Crimson Horror alongside her daughter,Rachael Stirling,Matt Smith andJenna-Louise Coleman. The episode had been specially written for her and her daughter byMark Gatiss and aired as part ofseries 7.[29] It was not the first time mother and daughter had appeared in the same production – that was in the 2000NBC filmIn the Beginning – but the first time she had worked direct with her daughter and the first time in her career her roots were accessed to find a Doncaster, Yorkshire, accent.[3]
That same year Rigg was cast in a recurring role in thethird season of the HBO seriesGame of Thrones, portrayingLady Olenna Tyrell, a witty and sarcastic political mastermind popularly known as the Queen of Thorns, the paternal grandmother of regular characterMargaery Tyrell.[30] Her performance was well received by critics and audiences alike, and earned her an Emmy nomination forOutstanding Guest Actress in a Drama Series for the65th Primetime Emmy Awards in 2013.[31] She reprised her role inseason four ofGame of Thrones, and in July 2014 received another Guest Actress Emmy nomination.[32][33] In 2015 and 2016, she again reprised the role inseasons five andsix in an expanded role from the books. In 2015 and 2018, she received two additional Guest Actress Emmy nominations. The character was killed off in theseventh season, with Rigg's final performance receiving wide critical acclaim.[34] In April 2019 Rigg said she had never watchedGame of Thrones, before or after her time on the show.[35]
From 2015 to 2017, she appeared in the BBC Four comedy seriesDetectorists in the role of Veronica, the mother of protagonist Andy Stone's wife Becky, played by her own daughterRachael Stirling.[36]
During autumn 2019 Rigg was filming the role of Mrs Pumphrey atBroughton Hall, near Skipton, forAll Creatures Great and Small.[37] Rigg died after the filming of the first season had been completed. Her final performance was in the British psychological horror filmLast Night in Soho, in which she had a major supporting role. The film was in post-production at the time of her death and is dedicated to her memory.[38]
In the 1960s, Rigg lived for eight years with directorPhilip Saville, gaining attention in the tabloid press when she disclaimed interest in marrying the older and already-married Saville, saying that she had no desire "to be respectable".[39] She was married toMenachem Gueffen, an Israeli painter, from 1973 until their divorce in 1976.[40]
Rigg was a patron ofInternational Care & Relief and was for many years the public face of the charity's child-sponsorship scheme. She was alsochancellor of theUniversity of Stirling, a ceremonial rather than executive role,[6] and was succeeded byJames Naughtie when her 10-year term of office ended on 31 July 2008.[43]
Michael Parkinson, who first interviewed Rigg in 1972, described her as the most desirable woman he had ever met and who "radiated a lustrous beauty".[44] A smoker from the age of 18, Rigg was still smoking 20 cigarettes (one pack)[45] a day in 2009.[46] By December 2017 she had stopped smoking after serious illness led to heart surgery, acardiac ablation, two months earlier. She joked later, "My heart had stopped ticking during the procedure, so I was up there and the good Lord must have said, 'Send the old bag down again, I'm not having her yet!'"[47]
In a June 2015 interview with the websiteThe A.V. Club, Rigg talked about her chemistry withPatrick Macnee onThe Avengers despite their 16-year age difference: "I sort of vaguely knew Patrick Macnee, and he looked kindly on me and sort of husbanded me through the first couple of episodes. After that, we became equal, and loved each other professionally and sparked off each other. And we'd then improvise, write our own lines. They trusted us. Particularly our scenes when we were finding a dead body—I mean, another dead body. How do you get round that one? They allowed us to do it." Asked if she had stayed in touch with Macnee (the interview was published two days before Macnee's death and decades after they were reunited on her short-lived American seriesDiana): "You'll always be close to somebody that you worked with very intimately for so long, and you become really fond of each other. But we haven't seen each other for a very, very long time."[48]
Rigg died at her daughter Rachael Stirling's home in London on 10 September 2020, at the age of 82.[51] Rigg's cause of death waslung cancer, with which she had been diagnosed in March that year.[52][53][54][55] In her final weeks, she recorded tapes imploring MPs to legaliseassisted dying.[56]
In 1999, Rigg was appointed as the Cameron Mackintosh Visiting professor of Contemporary Theatre atSt Catherine's College, Oxford; she held the post for one year.[57]
On 25 October 2015, to mark 50 years ofEmma Peel, theBritish Film Institute screened an episode ofThe Avengers; this was followed by an onstage interview with Rigg about her time in the television series.[59]
^"Where is All Creatures Great and Small filmed?l".Radio Times. 27 November 2020. Retrieved26 February 2021.Channel 5 utilised the property for the home of wealthy local resident Mrs Pumphrey (played by Dame Diana Rigg), whose spoilt dog Tricki-Woo demands only the utmost attention from James Herriot.
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