Dame Diana Rigg

With the news of Diana Rigg's death, I've been thinking about why she made such an impression on me. I first became aware of her when I was a 13-year-old boy, living in England and avidly watching The Avengers. Like any normal man I was smitten, stung by Cupid's dart.

Rigg once told an interviewer that the name "Emma Peel" was chosen because the show's producers wanted a female character who had "M-appeal," or male appeal. She certainly had that. It wasn't just her beauty and that posh English accent, which slays me whenever I hear it. Diana Rigg had something more. She radiated intelligence, independence, strength. A woman not to be trifled with.

At first, that was just the Emma Peel character. But as the years went by, I was impressed with her behavior in interviews and her determination to continue her theatrical career. She kept taking on the challenging classic roles. She's shown here with Anthony Hopkins in a 1972 production of Macbeth.

And then there was her reappearance in 1989 as the host of a PBS mystery series. She apparently hadn't felt the need to fight the aging process with plastic surgery. I liked the fact that she wasn't afraid to show the wrinkles. I suppose she just didn't think it was important enough to be bothered by.

When she reappeared on television again in 2013, in A Game of Thrones, the aging process was complete. It's nice to think of her surrounded by admiring actresses on the set, smoking and swearing. 

 Obituaries:

• BBC News
• The New York Times
• The Telegraph