Diana Rigg dies: The Avengers and Game of Thrones star was 82

Variety

The Tony- and Emmy-winning actress "died peacefully early this morning. She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time," her agent told BBC News. Rigg made a splash on the 1960s British spy drama The Avengers, playing intelligence agent Emma Peel, a role that earned her two Emmy nominations. She became known to new generations of viewers playing Lady Olenna Tyrell on Game of Thrones, earning four Emmy nominations for guest actress in a drama series. Rigg won her only Emmy, for outstanding supporting actress, for the 1997 Masterpiece Theater presentation of Rebecca. In recent years, Rigg starred on ITV's Victoria as the Duchess of Buccleuch. In an interview last year with The Guardian, Rigg said "it wasn’t my decision to have Lady Olenna killed off in Game of Thrones. I’d love to have stayed on. Thank God I didn’t die on a toilet like Charles Dance’s character." But Rigg she was grateful that her more recent success on Game of Thrones was unlike her experience with The Avengers. “It was very, very intrusive in those days, because I was instantly recognizable,” Rigg told Variety last year. “I found it very discomforting, I really did. I was grateful to be a success, but there was a price to pay. I lived my life in London, very low key. Didn’t go to premieres and didn’t strut the red carpet ever. … It’s just boring, having to scrub up" In an interview with EW during the last season of Game of Thrones in 2019, Rigg said "I loved the complexity of Olenna. She was a political woman, and she played the game brilliantly. Anything and everything executed ruthlessly for the survival of her family, which is historical in a way, like the Borgias and various other famous families." Rigg added of her newfound fame among younger viewers: “That’s the nature of my profession. The young, I don’t expect them to know about my past, but if, through Game of Thrones, they discover me, that’s good.”