Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg (July 20, 1938 – September 10, 2020) was an English actress of stage and screen. Her roles include Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers (1965–1968); Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, wife of James Bond, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969); Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones (2013–2017); and the title role in Medea in the West End in 1993 followed by Broadway a year later.

Rigg’s career in film, television and the theatre was wide-ranging, including roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1959 and 1967, including Gwendolen in Jean Anouilh’s Becket, Cordelia in King Lear and Adriana in The Comedy of Errors. Her professional debut was as Natasha Abashwilli in the RADA production of The Caucasian Chalk Circle at the York Festival in 1957.

From 1965 to 1968 Rigg appeared in the British 1960s television series The Avengers (1961–69) opposite Patrick Macnee as John Steed, playing the secret agent Emma Peel in 51 episodes. She replaced Elizabeth Shepherd at very short notice when Shepherd was dropped from the role after filming two episodes. Rigg auditioned for the role on a whim, without ever having seen the program. Although she was hugely successful in the series, she disliked the lack of privacy that it brought and was not comfortable in her position as a 𝓈ℯ𝓍 symbol.

For her second series she held out for a pay rise from £150 a week to £450; she said in 2019 – when gender pay inequality was very much in the news – that “not one woman in the industry supported me… Neither did Patrick [Macnee, her co-star]… I was painted as this mercenary creature by the press when all I wanted was equality. It’s so depressing that we are still talking about the gender pay gap.” She did not stay for a third year. Patrick Macnee noted that Rigg had later told him that she considered Macnee and her driver to be her only friends on the set.

On the big screen she became a Bond girl in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), playing Tracy Bond, James Bond’s only wife, opposite George Lazenby. She said she took the role with the hope that she would become better known in the United States.