The Naked Truth of Dame Diana Rigg: A Book Excerpt for ONE TOUGH DAME by Herbie J Pilato
It All Began with "The Avengers" (But Not THAT ONE)
[Note: Unless otherwise indicated, this article features edited excerpted material from the book, One Tough Dame: The Life and Career of Diana Rigg, which is available in hardcover, audio CD, audiobook, and Kindle.]
It All Began with “The Avengers” (and Not ‘THAT’ One)
Acclaimed actress Dame Diana Rigg initially found fame in the 1960s playing super spy Mrs. Emma Peel on the action-adventures series, The Avengers. She later appeared on the big screen in classics such as On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, and The Hospital, only to return to the small screen with iconic performances on shows like the original All Creatures Great and Small and Game of Thrones.
Rigg’s final screen appearance was in the 2021 film, Last Night in Soho, which she filmed in early 2020. She died from cancer the following fall.
However, on the stage, Rigg, a classically trained actress, felt most comfortable. Except one time.
A Closer Look
A Tony Award-winning performance once proved controversial for Dame Diana Rigg. It was during her infamous nude sequence in the 1971 play Abelard and Heloise that she was attacked by one theatre critic who complained about the size of her chest.
The performance marked her Broadway debut, for which Rigg earned the first of three Tony nominations. But American theatre critic John Simon unfairly described her feminine physique, which she exposed in a nude scene with Keith Michell.
Michell appeared in the buff from one side of the stage, and Diana from the other. In brief, Simon said she was “built like a brick basilica [mausoleum] with insufficient flying buttresses.” And while Diana once noted how there is a general tendency to overlook how several individuals are indirectly affected by thoughtless and cruel journalism,” her direct response to Simon was marked with triumphant calm: “He should have seen me after the menopause. There was no shortfall then!”
She Was a Straight Shooter in Real Life
Though, too, in her BBC TV interview with Michael Parkinson, Dame Diana Rigg did acknowledge some discomfort with being naked on stage. “I come from Yorkshire. Nobody takes their clothes off in Yorkshire…except on a Friday night.”
Rigg was told the questionable scenes were necessary for the play, for the characters to discover their sensuality. While she had to convince herself to bear it all, the actress failed to see the point of addressing the issue in public, mostly because newspapers at the time had a limited amount of space to cover stories.
While performing Abelard in the city of Newcastle, England, Rigg was amused by a telegram she received from a male postal clerk, who wondered why she even bothered to do the scene. It was indeed Diana’s love for words that inspired her to have the last laugh on John Simon’s review.
Sweet Literary Revenge
Proving her wit to be mightier than any sword, Diana Diana Rigg published her worst reviews in the book, No Turn Unstoned: The Worst Ever Theatrical Reviews in History. With an acerbic tone, and her tongue-in-cheek and in-check, the slim but fiery tome, which she wrote in about one year, became the ideal representation of Rigg’s ever-burgeoning life and career.
Although a talented actress and attractive woman, Diana Rigg disparaged her chest in interviews. Her triumph here was diverting attention from John Simon's harsh review of her performance to a complaint about his needless agreement with her assessment of her physique. Simon frequently made smarmy personal remarks about actors, so this was a deserved comeuppance.
Some other reviewers felt this mediocre play traded on (their) advance publicity for what turned out to be a very dark nude scene _ "sepulchral," The Guardian would admit after the tickets had been sold. But most were too polite to take this out on the cast.
Simon did praise Rigg's book and gave her some better reviews in other roles. In keeping with your book's title, though, Diana spent the rest of her life calling him "ugly" and "stupid."
This parallels her lifelong vendetta against George Lazenby after their falling out whilst filming On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Rigg's ire, once roused, was not reserved for critics. Oddly, Diana took that Bond role "to sex up my image," though many fans preferred her Avengers outfits.
She quickly left The Avengers, never forgiving the producers for her low initial salary, not much more than she was making in the theatre. To her credit, though, she did return to shoot a farewell episode for the character.
As I'm sure you know, Diana Rigg was not an acrobat, dancer or martial artist. Billy Westley Jr. and Cyd Child (Chris Gallie) handled the bulk of the Emma Peel stunts, with Diana doing inserts for those scenes. Honor Blackman was The Avengers actress with judo skills, and Joanna Lumley was known for her high kicks and some dance background.
Rigg only ended up on The Avengers because she already had an established career post-RADA & RSC (Olivier called her tits Rigg because she would would arrive for rehearsal braless, she also displayed them to fine advantage in OHMSS), she auditioned for show she'd never seen to, as she put it, "put bums in seats" when she returned to her 1st love. She got the last laugh on Simon by editing "No Turn Unstoned".