Celebrating Diana Rigg

Veteran movie, stage, and television actress, Diana Rigg, passed away on September 10 at the age of 82. The Emmy and Tony award winning British actress is best known for her performance as Emma Peel in The Avengers in the 1960s and recently as Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones.

She began her acting career on the stage with the Royal Shakespeare Company and continued acting in plays throughout her life in London and on Broadway. Diana won the 1994 Tony Award for Best Actress for her performance in Medea.

In 1990 she won a British Academy Film Award (Bafta) for the role of an obsessive mother in the BBC television drama, Mother Love. She won an Emmy for portraying Mrs Danvers in Rebecca (1997) and starred as the amateur detective Mrs. Bradley in the PBS series, The Mrs. Bradley Mysteries.

On the big screen she starred in the James Bond movie, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, opposite George Lazenby and became the only Bond girl to get the secret agent to the altar, although the marriage was abruptly cut short when her character was shot dead soon after the wedding. Others movies she acted in were Theater of Blood, The Assassination Bureau, and The Painted Veil.

Diana was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1994 by Queen Elizabeth II for her long contributions to theater and film.

Watch a few of Diana Rigg's movies or television programs or read a biography about her on Hoopla.