# Patrick Macnee, The Avengers 'John Steed', RIP **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [June 25, 2015, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466 "2015-06-25T19:51:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/61 "2015-06-28T20:45:38Z")
I must admit, I’ve always felt sorry for Linda Thorson (Tara King). She was actually quite a babe; she just suffered in comparison to Diana Rigg (Emma Peel), whom no one could really replace. It didn’t help much that the writing on the series descended into pure camp at the same time she became Steed’s partner. ☹ ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 10:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/62 "2015-06-28T22:19:32Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I must admit, I’ve always felt sorry for Linda Thorson (Tara King). She was actually quite a babe; she just suffered in comparison to Diana Rigg (Emma Peel), whom no one could really replace. She was only 20 when she started, so she had no gravitas, no acting experience, and no believability as a partner for a man twice her age. She was a victim of the teeny-bopper mentality that the old men in charge of things thought would save them from their cultural obsolescence. It couldn’t possibly work, and it didn’t. ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 28, 2015, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/63 "2015-06-28T22:35:57Z")
I liked the early B&W eps with no or a variety of cohorts. I mean, I like them, too, along with most of the others. ---
**Author:** ![aldiboronti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@aldiboronti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aldiboronti)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/64 "2015-06-29T00:49:42Z")
I loved Mrs Peel but let’s not forget Steed’s first partner, the delectable Cathy Gale played by Honor Blackman, who went on to play Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. I actually first watched the show in its incarnation as _Police Surgeon_ in 1961. Ian Hendry played the title role and Steed was introduced as the shadowy secret agent who helped him solve his fiancee’s murder and smash the drug ring behind it. It was a pretty nondescript show and no one (certainly not me) would have foreseen the huge hit it became when the format and title were changed for the second series and McNee became the star. Writer Brian Clemens had much to do with the show’s success too. He wrote some great stories both for this and other thriller shows from the 60s onwards. And RIP, Patrick, you’ll live long in cultural memory. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 5:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/65 "2015-06-29T05:40:52Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > She was only 20 when she started, so she had no gravitas, no acting experience, and no believability as a partner for a man twice her age. She was a victim of the teeny-bopper mentality that the old men in charge of things thought would save them from their cultural obsolescence. It couldn’t possibly work, and it didn’t. IIRC, she was also one of the producers’ girlfriend. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool without first learning how to swim. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/66 "2015-06-29T07:53:46Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > [Look - (Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One) But There Were These Two Fellers…](http://m.imdb.com/title/tt0516859/?ref_=nm_flmg_act_133) I was reading the Trivia section at this link, and they mentioned the scene with the gag writer being almost identical to the one in the Pythons’ “Funniest Joke in the World” sketch. The gag writer was Bernard Cribbins, who later played Mr Hutchinson in “The Hotel Inspectors” episode of Cleese’s _ **Fawlty Towers** _! ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/67 "2015-06-29T08:29:39Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I was reading the Trivia section at this link, and they mentioned the scene with the gag writer being almost identical to the one in the Pythons’ “Funniest Joke in the World” sketch. > > The gag writer was Bernard Cribbins, who later played Mr Hutchinson in “The Hotel Inspectors” episode of Cleese’s _ **Fawlty Towers** _! From the “obscure but interesting celebrity trivia” thread: > [@Obscure but interesting celebrity trivia.](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/obscure-but-interesting-celebrity-trivia/721392/115): > > Happened to see an old episode of _The Avengers_ last night that included a pre-Python role from John Cleese. Also in that episode, although he had no scenes with Cleese, was an actor named Bernard Cribbins. Seven years later, Cribbins appeared in an episode of _Fawlty Towers_. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 3:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/68 "2015-06-29T15:36:38Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > From the “obscure but interesting celebrity trivia” thread: Great minds really DO think alike! 😃 It must be twenty years since I last saw that episode, but when I read the description of that scene I had an immediate flashback to it, and I mean \*every \*detail. Then it slowly dawned on me … was that … could it be … naaaaaaaah, I must be imagining things … WHOA! It \*is \*him! I was _right_! Hot diggety damn, Admiral! 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 4:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/69 "2015-06-29T16:05:22Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Great minds really DO think alike! 😃 > > It must be twenty years since I last saw that episode, but when I read the description of that scene I had an immediate flashback to it, and I mean \*every \*detail. Then it slowly dawned on me … was that … could it be … naaaaaaaah, I must be imagining things … WHOA! It \*is \*him! I was _right_! > > Hot diggety damn, Admiral! 🆒 Start watching _The Avengers_ again; it’s full of moments like that. I’ve seen Margo Leadbetter (Penelope Keith on _Good Neighbors_) and Cuthbert Rumbold (Nicholas Smith on _Are You Being Served_). No doubt a careful watching would yield more. Bernard Cribbins I recognized because I’ve recognized him before. Was watching _Casino Royale_ (the 1967 one) some time ago, saw the cab driver and thought “I’ve seen that guy in something else…” ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/70 "2015-06-29T16:25:42Z")
> [@Robot\_Arm](#): > > Start watching _The Avengers_ again; it’s full of moments like that. I’ve seen Margo Leadbetter (Penelope Keith on _Good Neighbors_) and Cuthbert Rumbold (Nicholas Smith on _Are You Being Served_). No doubt a careful watching would yield more. I think almost everybody who worked in British TV and cinema at one time or another did _ **The Avengers** _. I watched most of the post-CG episodes in the '60s, all of them in the '80s, and then most of them again in the '90s. I’ve only seen a few with Mrs Gale, on-line. The same for the first season with Ian Hendry (hardly any of those survive). I spotted Penelope Keith right away; she was one of the blushing brides in the episode about the marriage agency. She was on-screen for all of about five seconds. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/71 "2015-06-29T16:53:47Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > IIRC, she was also one of the producers’ girlfriend. Nothing like being thrown into the deep end of the swimming pool without first learning how to swim. :smack: If true, this wouldn’t be the first time or the first millionth time in show biz. But I’ve read everything about the \*Avengers \*and I don’t remember this. Dave Rogers writes in _The Complete Avengers_: > [@](#): > > Oddly enough, renowned film director John Huston was partly responsible for Linda getting the tole. Having seen the young actress at RADA (the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts), he had promised her a lead part in his next film, _Sinful Davey_. When circumstances forced Huston to change his mind, the director sent Linda to see Robert Leonard, the casting director at ABC, who told her that they were casting the female lead in _The Avengers_, (a programme which, due to the fact that Linda didn’t have a television set at the time, she’d heard about but never seen!). Linda told me, “I was one of 200 girls, which became 100, then 50, then 25 and eventually 8. Three of us, Tracy Reed, Mary Peach and myself were given screen tests and the tapes were sent to Don Boyle, then head of the ABC network in America. He liked what he saw and I was sent to Henlow Grange to lose weight.” [She was 5’9" and 147lb at the start, one of the reasons she didn’t do action scenes, according to her.] The other two were 5 and 13 years older, with lots more screen experience, so they might have been better fits. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/72 "2015-06-29T17:09:27Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > I spotted Penelope Keith right away; she was one of the blushing brides in the episode about the marriage agency. She was on-screen for all of about five seconds. IMDb shows her in three episodes, one in which she appears uncredited (the one you saw), one in which she’s credited but doesn’t appear, and the one I saw. It’s a Tara[sup]\*[/sup] episode; she and Steed are following a briefcase that’s being passed from one person to another, with the goal of finding it’s final recipient. Keith is quite recognizable, has dialog and everything. I didn’t say “ra-boom-de-ay”. ---
**Author:** ![Robot\_Arm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/robot_arm/32/18280_2.png) [@Robot\_Arm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Robot_Arm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/73 "2015-06-29T17:16:44Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > The other two were 5 and 13 years older, with lots more screen experience, so they might have been better fits. Tracy Reed was in _Dr. Strangelove_ and _A Shot in the Dark_ (both 1964), might have been an interesting choice. It’s hard to say quite why Thorson didn’t work on the show. I’ve seen a few of her episodes recently, and there’s nothing blatantly wrong with them. And Thorson has had a pretty steady career since then. Maybe Diana Rigg was just so iconic as Emma Peel that no one could have followed her. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 5:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/74 "2015-06-29T17:47:37Z")
Something I haven’t seen noted here yet. Years ago, I saw Macnee being interviewed on TV, and he said that his mother was a lesbian, and that she and her lover tried hard to raise Patrick as a girl, dressing him in girls’ clothing for much of his childhood. He said it was rather amazing that he’d grown up to be as conventionally “normal” as he was. Was he putting the interviewer on, or was that true? ---
**Author:** ![Kenm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/bc79bd/32.png) [@Kenm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kenm)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/75 "2015-06-29T18:04:45Z")
Macnee’s mother being a lesbian is mentioned [\*\*in his Wikipedia entry \*\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Macnee). But there’s not much more info. > [@](#): > > Macnee’s parents divorced after his mother began to identify as a lesbian. His father later moved to India, and his mother began to live with her wealthy partner, Evelyn Spottswood, whose money came from the Dewar’s whisky business.[5] Macnee referred to her in his autobiography as “Uncle Evelyn”, and she helped pay for his schooling. ---
**Author:** ![Exapno\_Mapcase](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/exapno_mapcase/32/1051_2.png) [@Exapno\_Mapcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Exapno_Mapcase)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/76 "2015-06-29T18:07:10Z")
His autobiography says that they wanted to dress him in girl’s clothing, but they compromised by his wearing a kilt. I don’t know if we have independent confirmation of it, though. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 6:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/77 "2015-06-29T18:19:06Z")
> [@Kenm](#): > > Macnee’s mother being a lesbian is mentioned [\*\*in his Wikipedia entry \*\*](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Macnee). But there’s not much more info. There’s a bit more info in the Telegraph obituary link I posted earlier in the thread. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/78 "2015-06-29T20:49:57Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > If true, this wouldn’t be the first time or the first millionth time in show biz. But I’ve read everything about the \*Avengers \*and I don’t remember this. I read it somewhere on-line, and not too long ago. Since I can’t offer a specific cite, however, I shall in this case defer to your obvious expertise. 🙂 I always liked Penelope Keith. She looked really sexy in jodphurs! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 8:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/79 "2015-06-29T20:58:17Z")
> [@Exapno\_Mapcase](#): > > She was a victim of the teeny-bopper mentality that the old men in charge of things thought would save them from their cultural obsolescence. Actually, I think it was more an effort to appeal to the “youth” segment of the audience. This was rife in the '60s, especially after _ **The Monkees** _ became a big hit. It wasn’t just females that were affected, either. Chekov was added to the cast of _ **Star Trek** _ in 1967 for precisely the same reason. (He was also originally planned to be British, not Russian.) ---
**Author:** ![AncientHumanoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ancienthumanoid/32/278_2.png) [@AncientHumanoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AncientHumanoid)\ **Post date:** [June 29, 2015, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466/80 "2015-06-29T21:54:31Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Something I haven’t seen noted here yet. > > Years ago, I saw Macnee being interviewed on TV, and he said that his mother was a lesbian, and that she and her lover tried hard to raise Patrick as a girl, **dressing him in girls’ clothing for much of his childhood.** He said it was rather amazing that he’d grown up to be as conventionally “normal” as he was. > > Was he putting the interviewer on, or was that true? I had heard this, too. Never found any corroboration, tho. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/patrick-macnee-the-avengers-john-steed-rip/723466.md?page=5)