Award-winning British actor Diana Rigg, who starred in the original The Avengers television series and Game of Thrones, has died aged 82, her agent announced on Thursday.
Confirming her death, her agent said that Rigg had died “peacefully” on Thursday morning, adding that she had been “at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time”.
Rigg — who as Emma Peel alongside Patrick Macnee’s John Steed in “The Avengers” became a 1960s icon — won Emmy, Tony and Bafta awards during her lengthy stage and screen career.
Classically trained at Britain’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, she also played James Bond’s wife in the 1969 film starring George Lazenby, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”.
In the later stages of her career, she won legions of younger fans and critical praise for her part as Olenna Tyrell in the hugely popular “Game of Thrones” series.
Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born near Doncaster in 1938. She spent part of her childhood in India, where her father worked as a railway executive.
After attending boarding school in Pudsey, Yorkshire, Rigg trained at Rada alongside Glenda Jackson and Siân Phillips.❐
