Diana Rigg is easily my first true woman crush. I wanted to be Emma Peel when I was four years old. As I say in the bio I use for Costume College and similar places, my first costume was tights and a trench coat as a toddler, when I ran around pretending to be Mrs. Peel. That early role of Diana Rigg’s was the epitome of a kick-ass cool woman, and I wanted to be just like her. Kids today probably know her as the devious and snarky Olenna Tyrell from Game of Thrones, but you can also catch her in the latest episodes of Victoria. And this Shakespearean actress shows no signs of stopping. As Dame Rigg has said: “The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That’s the only way to go. If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic.” Words to live by!
Mrs. Peel in The Avengers, “Escape in Time” (1966)
Sonya Winter in The Assassination Bureau (1969)
Portia in Julius Caesar (1970)
Charlotte Mittelheim in A Little Night Music (1977)
Clytemnestra in Oresteia (1979)
Hedda Gabler in Hedda Gabler (1981)
Christine Vole in Witness for the Prosecution (1982)
Regan in King Lear (1983)
Arlena Marshall in Evil Under the Sun (1982)
Lady Honoria Dedlock in Bleak House (1985)
Lady Harriet Vulcan in A Hazard of Hearts (1987)
Lady Blackwell in Avonlea, “The Disappearance” (1993)
Mrs. Golightly in The Fortunes and Misfortunes of Moll Flanders (1996)
Mrs. Danvers in Rebecca (1997)
Adela Bradley in The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries (1998-2000)
Baroness Lehzen in Victoria & Albert (2001)
Queen Henrietta Maria in The Last King (2003)
Grandmamma in Heidi (2005)
Mother Superior in The Painted Veil (2006)
Mrs. Gillyflower in Doctor Who, “The Crimson Horror” (2013)
Duchess of Buccleuch in Victoria (2017)
What’s your favorite historical costume movie or TV role of Diana Rigg’s?
Ditto. Love her. Wanted to be Emma Peel as well.
Besides Mrs Peel, my favourites are Mrs Bradley, Baroness Lehzen, Duchess of Buccleugh, Lady Deadlock, Sonya Winter and Mrs Danvers. I also love her nun in In This House of Brede. Also Christine Vole.
It’s a shame Broadway roles aren’t included here. I saw her a few months ago in My Fair Lady at Lincoln Center, playing Mrs. Higgins, and she was glorious in all her late Edwardian splendour. And for anyone who hasn’t seen the Mrs. Bradley mysteries, go look for them! Adela Bradley will give Phryne Fisher a run for her money any day of the week.
Hazard of Hearts is on YouTube. It’s a pretty crappy quality video, but I was strangely compelled to watch it all.
It’s also got some of the best one liners ever. The writers clearly were having a huge amount of fun not taking it seriously. “Lord Vulcan is so…unemotional.”
I watched The Avengers with great devotion at age 8. Had no idea what was going on, except for the fact that Mrs. Peel was my idol. And, of course, Mrs. Bradley. When I grow up, I want to be her (except I don’t look at good in helmet cloches).
I’ll be in my bunk….
Yay, you included Mrs Gillyflower! Ioved that episode. (it’s even funnier when you live a couple of miles from Saltaire, which the housing and factory were blatantly based on! The description of Bradford as the Babylon of the North had me hooting) .
Lots of little nods to her Avengers role too iirc.
The Assassination Bureau, Ltd. is watched frequently in our house
Just read the synopsis for Escape in Time. It is time travel, but she’s apparently sent back to the sixteenth century. I see a #SnarkWeek mention on the horizon….
Off the top of my head, there isn’t actual time travel, but a guy has rigged his mansion so through various spinning mirrors / trick corridors / drugs (I can’t remember which trick goes with which weird house episode!) you think you’ve gone back in time to various periods. One’s C16th and one’s C18th. It’s the period when Avengers is very excited to be in colour so everything is incredibly lurid and trippy even before rooms start spinning around.
Not costumey, but she was the first Mrs. James Bond
Isn’t she magnifique!!! But Mrs. Bradley Mysteries wins hands down. I have the whole lot on DVD and love them to bits. such a cool character!
She’s been the best thing in Victoria since the beginning.
She was wonderful in the new “My Fair Lady” at Lincoln Center, and resplendent in Edwardian finery. Much more so than the horrible costumes they put on her in “Victoria.” And if anyone is wondering she has been replaced by Rosemary Harris, I believe, as Mrs. Higgins.
A Hazard of Hearts definitely is a candidate for Snark Week… some very dodgy fabric choices going on! Must have been the first thing I saw her in if I remeber right.
I totally forgot she played Baroness Lehzen! But I LOVE that version of Rebecca. She’s wonderful in it.
Still amazed my parents gave into my Emma Peel love after the S&M outfit in the Avengers. CF: https://mrspeeluncut.wordpress.com/category/the-avengers/
She’s fabulous in everything she’s in but I LOVED her in Evil Under the Sun! She’s so wonderfully b*tchy as Arlena Marshall – it’s one of my favorite movies.
Just love her!!!!
I was terrified of her as a child, because I knew her as Ms Hardbroom in The Worst Witch movie. Since I always think of her as a more mature woman, I only recently realized how much her daughter resembles her (Rachael Stirling, currently in The Bletchley Circle).
PLEASE, please find Hazard of Hearts for Snark Week!!!