The Avengers star Patrick Macnee dies aged 93
London-born actor was best known for his role as dapper John Steed in 1960s ‘spy-fi’ series, but also appeared in Spinal Tap and Bond film A View to a Kill
Patrick Macnee, the actor best known for playing John Steed in the 1960s television series The Avengers, has died at the age of 93.
His family were at his bedside at his home in Rancho Mirage, California, his son Rupert said in a statement published on Thursday on Macnee’s website.
Sir Roger Moore, whose final film as James Bond – 1985’s A View to a Kill – included an appearance by Macnee, paid tribute to his fellow actor:
So very sad to hear Pat MacNee has left us. We were mates from 1950s and I have so many happy memories of working with him. A true gent.
The Avengers ran from 1961 to 1969 in Britain and was shown in the US from 1966.
The “spy-fi” show made the cold war seem somewhat enjoyable and presented espionage as a glam, swinging 60s accessory.
“What sort of fiend are we dealing with?” said the quintessentially English Steed in one episode. “A man who would bite the end off a cigar is capable of anything!”
Macnee nearly lost the role of bowler-hatted Steed because of his aversion to violence. In a 1997 interview he recalled being told by producers that he would have to use a gun on the show.
“I said, ‘No, I don’t. I’ve been in World War II for five years and I’ve seen most of my friends blown to bits and I’m not going to carry a gun.’ They said: ‘What are you going to carry?’ I thought frantically and said: ‘An umbrella.’”
As well as Macnee and Diana Rigg, The Avengers – and its 1970s reboot The New Avengers – also made stars of Honor Blackman, Joanna Lumley, Linda Thorson, Gareth Hunt and Ian Hendry.
The show was noted for a progressive approach to feminism, with the female stars being more than a match for Steed.
Macnee said the show paved the way for women to play leading action roles on television. “It just seemed that a woman would make the ideal foil to my John Steed. And so she did,” he told The Lady magazine last year.
“The wonderful thing was it made women feel they didn’t just belong in an apron in front of a stove cooking for the kids. It made them delight in the awareness that they could get out there and do it all, fight men, take on villains, all the kinds of stuff we showed in The Avengers.”
When asked which of his original co-stars – Blackman as Cathy Gale, Rigg as Emma Peel, or Thorson as Tara King – were most appealing, Macnee replied: “The very first thing you learn if you’re a gentleman is that you never compare one woman to another. That’s the way of all death. You get a big pointed high heel in your groin and you’ll never walk again!”
Macnee was born in London in 1922 and attended Eton College and the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art before serving in the Royal Navy during the second world war.
After the war he won minor stage and film roles but went to Canada and the United States in search of work, only returning to Britain to make The Avengers. He was almost 40 when it first aired.
Macnee received 2.5% of the show’s profits and the show is still broadcast around the world. It was also released as a DVD box set in 2011 to celebrate its 50th anniversary.
He explained its ongoing popularity thus: “It’s a very simple reason: It’s extremely good. I feel very justified and delighted in seeing after all these years that the show works.”
Fans are less inclined to remember a poorly received film adaptation in 1998 that starred Ralph Fiennes and Uma Thurman.
Macnee also made memorable appearances in This is Spinal Tap and The Howling.
He had three wives, with his first marriage being to Barbara Douglas at the age of 19. The couple had two children, Rupert and Jenny.
He left for Canada in search of work when the children were aged just five and three. “I will always feel bad about that,” he said in one interview.
However, Macnee made up for that failing later in life, his son once said. “I was a teenager when he became a TV star in England,” recalled Rupert, a documentary filmmaker. “He was one of those dads you didn’t feel ashamed to introduce to your friends. He was very cool.”
Macnee married actress Kate Woodville in 1965, but they divorced four years later. His final marriage was in 1988 to Baba Majos de Nagyzsenye, who died in 2007.
The actor spent the past four decades living in Palm Springs and Rancho Mirage in Coachella Valley, California.
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