Trivia / The Avengers (1960s)

• Acting for Two: Happened for the various Doppelgänger stories. Likewise Patrick Macnee's stunt double played Emma Peel's husband from afar in her final episode, "The Forget-Me-Knot".
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Ian Hendry suggested the idea of an episode set in a circus, as he began his career in one. The result was "Girl on the Trapeze".
  • Patrick Macnee came up with Steed's umbrella sword. He objected to Steed using a gun all the time, as it reminded him of his military tenure. During the budget-strained first season, Macnee supplemented his on-screen wardrobe with numerous items from his own wardrobe, including the now-iconic bowler and umbrella.
  • Diana Rigg designed the infamous Mistress of Sin outfit for "A Touch of Brimstone" herself.
  • Linda Thorson came up with her own character name: Tara from her favourite film at the time, Gone with the Wind (the name of the estate), and King for "King and country."
• Actor-Shared Background: Patrick Macnee had a lot in common with John Steed. They both went to Eton, only to be expelled, and both served in World War II.
• Alan Smithee:
  • Brian Clemens wrote "Lobster Quadrille" under the name Richard Lucas.
  • "The Frighteners" is credited to Berkeley Mather, which was the pen name of Lieutenant Colonel Jasper Davies, a former intelligence officer in Cyprus, who had served in the Royal Artillery, who wrote thriller novels under the name Berkeley Mather, and is reputed to have met criminals from the London underworld to ensure his thriller characters were true to life.
  • "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Station" gives script credit to "Brian Sheriff," alias Brian Clemens and Roger Marshall (when Marshall left the series due to Creative Differences with Clemens, he rewrote Marshall's script — the pen-name indicates the sheriff doing the marshal's job).
• Banned Episode: "A Touch of Brimstone" was initially "banned" by the ABC network in the US, although it was merely one of five monochrome Emma Peel episodes the network never aired — the broadcast schedule for these episodes only lasted 21 weeks, so five of the set of 26 never made it on; all five later aired in syndicated reruns in the US. Even in the UK, the most censor-troubling scene in "Brimstone", of a man attacking fetish-leather-clad Emma with a whip, was shortened; and various rerun syndications shortened it to varying greater degrees. Not until DVD release was the full-length version of the scene presented.
• Based on a Dream: The premise for season four's "A Sense of History" reportedly came to writer Martin Woodehouse in a dream, where he imagined Diana Rigg in men's clothing as Robin Hood.
• Blooper: Since the first three seasons were shot live on videotape, there was no provision for correcting errors. Frequently, the actors would flub lines, props would not work, a moving camera would run into a prop, hair-pieces would become displaced, boom microphones would wind up in a shot, etc. Only after the series went to film during the Emma Peel era were the bloopers drastically reduced.
• California Doubling: The Scotland-set "Castle De'ath" was actually Allington Castle in Kent, a frequently-used location in British television.
• Cast the Runner-Up:
  • Fenella Fielding made occasional guest appearances after being passed over for Cathy Gale in favour of Honor Blackman.
  • Angela Douglas auditioned for the role of Venus Smith. She made a guest appearance in "Requiem".
• The Cast Showoff: Much like Steed, Patrick Macnee loved horses and did his own riding on occasion.
• Completely Different Title:
  • The first non-English speaking country to buy the series was Italy, where it was called Agent Speciali.
  • In France, the show was titled Chapeau Melon et Bottes de Cuir (Bowler Hat and Leather Boots).
  • The German title translated as "With Umbrella, Charm and Bowler". That hat must REALLY have made an impression.
    • Well, can't deny it's an impressive hat.
  • As noted, American-published comic-book version of the series needed to be retitled John Steed Emma Peel or Steed and Mrs. Peel, because Marvel Comics copyrighted the name of their comics Super Team, The Avengers. Turnabout is fair play, however: The Avengers (the first film based on the Marvel title) had to carry the title Avengers Assemble in the UK because of the TV series.
• Creative Differences: Writer Roger Marshall left the series after five seasons, feeling that it strayed too far from its roots.
  Brian Clemens had fixed ideas on the series and only saw [it] how he wanted to do it. After a while, I would say, "I'm just copying down what you want to say; this isn't working", and having Public Eye to fall back on, I left.
• Creator Couple: Patrick Macnee's second wife Catherine Woodville played Dr. David Keel's ill-fated fiance in the first episode "Hot Snow".
• Creator's Favourite Episode:
  • Patrick Macnee cited "Don't Look Behind You", "Death at Bargain Prices" and "Too Many Christmas Trees" among his favourite episodes.
  • Linda Thorson named "Pandora" as her favourite episode. She also loved "Look - (Stop Me if You've Heard This One) - But There Were These Two Fellers..." and "The Interrogators" (the latter for having the opportunity to work with director Charles Crichton and Christopher Lee).
  • Robert Fuest named "Pandora" as his favourite episode of the ones he directed.
  • Diana Rigg's stunt double Cyd Child named "Return of the Cybernauts" as her favourite.
  • Writer Roger Marshall named "Death of a Great Dane" as his favourite contribution to the series.
• The Danza: Mother's mute aid Rhonda was played by Australian actress Rhonda Parker.
• Darkhorse Casting: Linda Thorson had never stepped in front of camera before when she was cast in the final season.
• Dawson Casting: Cathy Gale states in "Warlock" that she was born in 1930. Honor Blackman was born in 1925.
• Deleted Role:
  • Penelope Keith had her part as Nurse Brown in "Something Nasty in the Nursery" cut. Funnily enough, that episode also guest starred her future The Good Life co-star Paul Eddington.
  • David Lodge as Maskell in "Fog".
• Development Hell:
  • In a 1983 interview with Starlog, Michael Sloan (who wrote Return of The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which Patrick Macnee made a cameo in) revealed that he spent years planning a two-hour Made-for-TV Movie called The Avenging Angel that would have served as a Backdoor Pilot that he considered offering to CBS. The proposed storyline would have opened with what appears to be John Steed's funeral, with Cathy Gale, Emma Peel, Tara King and Purdey from ''The New Avengers serving as pallbearers. Ultimately, only Macnee, Honor Blackman and Linda Thorson were interested in appearing and the idea was abandoned.
  • In 1985, Brian Clemens developed an idea with Michael Grade and his wife Sarah Lawson called The Avengers...International!, with Patrick Macnee returning. The series would have seen John Steed team up with Emma Peel's daughter-in-law Samantha (the original name for the character), who also drives a Lotus and has a missing husband named Peter who went missing on an espionage mission in Eastern Europe four years previously and an American operative named Christopher Cambridge, who was there to appeal to American networks. The pilot episode "Reincarnation" (written by Clemens) borrowed elements from the Tara King episode "Split" and expanded on them. An old adversary of Steed's named Lomax (whom he shot and believed killed years earlier) returns with a new appearance and extracts revenge. Utilising an advanced brain transplant technique that has fallen into the wrong hands, Lomax keeps coming back from the dead in a new body, the final one being that of a woman. Cathy Gale and Purdey from The New Avengers would have been mentioned in dialogue. There was also a character named Weir, who believes in reincarnation and states that in a past life he was an elephant, until he was killed by a hunter, after which he came back as a soldier in Wellington's army at Waterloo. Although Clemens was paid for his script, none of the American networks thought his proposal was a viable one.
• Dyeing for Your Art: Linda Thorson was asked to bleach her hair blonde to distinguish Tara King from Emma Peel. The process ruined her hair and she had to wear a wig for several episodes. She was also told to loose weight, so she was given diet pills.
• Executive Meddling: During the sixth season, the network wanted to bring the show "back to realism" and tried to recreate the style of the Cathy Gale episodes. Brian Clemens was initially fired and then brought back to salvage the season.
• Fake Brit: Linda Thorson (Tara King) is actually Canadian.
• Fan Community Nickname: Fans of John Steed sometimes call themselves "Steedophiles".
• Flip-Flop of God: Regarding the question of whether Steed and Peel had a sexual relationship at any time, Patrick Macnee thought they went to bed on a very regular basis, Diana Rigg thought they were engaged in a very enjoyable extended flirtation that ultimately went nowhere and Brian Clemens said he wrote them with the idea they had an affair before Emma's first appearance in the series.
• Follow the Leader:
  • The Wild Wild West was an Americans Are Cowboys response to both this show and the James Bond films.
  • Honey West was an unsuccessful attempt to replicate the formula with US cities as background, lasting only one season. ABC reportedly decided it would be cheaper to import The Avengers. Nonetheless, Anne Francis received nominations for a Golden Globe Award and a Best Actress Emmy Award for her performance. Funnily enough, Honor Blackman was originally offered the lead role.
• Friendship on the Set: Patrick Macnee became friends with all his co-stars. Diana Rigg claimed that Macnee and her chauffeur were her only friends on set.
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Some of Steed and Peel's clever banter was written by Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg, who virtually invented their characters themselves, since the producers were—almost literally—making things up as they went along. Indeed, one of Macnee's favourite recollections is of an early script that said, "Steed stands there." But the director demanded he do something more than that.
• Hostility on the Set:
  • Patrick Macnee and Honor Blackman had a disagreement, at about the time she left the series. According to the book written by Macnee about the series, he became verbally abusive toward Blackman while drunk. The reason for their argument was due to disagreeing over the organizing of security staff for a party which the studio was hosting.
  • While she got on well with Macnee, Diana Rigg evidently didn't have a very enjoyable time on the show, which likely led to her leaving after only two seasons. One of her complaints was the pay disparity between her and Macnee (she was initially getting paid less than the show's cameraman); she has commented that her demanding more equality resulted her being slagged in the press at the time.
• Irony as She Is Cast: Ingrid Hafner, who played Dr. David Keel's nurse Carol White during the first season, confessed to having a pet hate of illnesses.
• Late Export for You: The Cathy Gale episodes were not seen in the U.S. until 1991 when A&E ran them on cable, and so very few Americans are familiar with them.
• Looping Lines:
  • When the series switched from videotape to film in season 4, and Emma Peel became Steed's new partner in crime, the show's shooting became more flexible: For on-location scenes outdoors, they would be shot mute, with the dialogue being rerecorded by the original actors in post-production (as was the norm for British television at the time).
  • In season five's "Dead Man's Treasure", Pauline Collins redubbed the small amount of dialogue originally delivered by Penny Bird in the minor role of ousted rally participant Miss Peabody.
• Missing Episode: Only three complete episodes from the first season survive. Of the first episode, "Hot Snow", only the first act remains.
• Money, Dear Boy: Diana Rigg discovered that she was being paid less than the cameraman, and demanded a raise that would give her a closer amount as Patrick Macnee. As the show was popular in the US, she was granted this.
• No Export for You: The American broadcasts of the first Emma Peel season featured a unique opening sequence (called the "chessboard opening") to explain the concept of the show to US viewers. Notable for providing a bit of leather catsuited Ms. Fanservice of Mrs. Peel, British fans clamored to see the opening for years, but never got a chance to see it until it was included on a DVD release relatively recently. American fans, meanwhile, were disappointed when the 1990s DVD release of the series omitted the opening because it originated from the UK masters.
• No Stunt Double:
  • Linda Thorson was keen to do as many of her own stunts as possible.
  • Steven Berkoff did some of his own stunts during the train fight in "The Gravediggers" jumping on and off the train.
• On-Set Injury: "Mandrake" featured Honor Blackman have a fight scene with wrestler Jackie Pallo. In one take, she accidentally knocked him out for four minutes (she forgot to feint first, then kick, and simply kicked him in the head, knocking him onto the concrete floor of the studio). The incident garnered plenty of publicity in the British press. Blackman was in tears when it happened and sat by him until he recovered.
• The Other Marty: Elizabeth Shepherd◊ was originally cast as Emma Peel◊. She filmed "The Town of No Return" and parts of "The Murder Market" before it was decided that she didn't suit the character.
• Out of Order: The season two episode "Warlock" was planned to be Cathy's premiere, but the producers had to re-write her introduction to Steed when the broadcast order was jumbled and ten other episodes ran first.
• Popularity Redo: When the show's market expanded to the US (it was previously an exclusively British show), many UK-only-era episodes were redone.
• Real Life Writes the Hairstyle: In some episodes of Season 6, Tara King's hair is very short. This is because when Linda Thorson joined the show, they wanted her to bleach her hair blonde. The dye ruined her hair, so in some episodes she was wearing a wig. The short hair was Linda's growing back.
• Recast as a Regular: Patrick Newell made two guest appearances in "The Town of No Return" and "Something Nasty in the Nursery" having a regular role as "Mother" in the final season.
• Recycled Script: Several scripts from the Cathy Gale period were remade as Emma Peel stories after the series took off in America.
  • "The Correct Way to Kill" is "The Charmers" with a few minor adjustments. Both involve Steed teaming up with another agent as part of an exchange programme to find out who's killing random agents.
  • "Don't Look Behind You" sees Cathy locked in a creepy house with a villain. The idea was reused for Emma in "The Joker," while "The House That Jack Built" has a very similar premise.
  • "The £50,000 Breakfast" is a remake of "Death of a Great Dane". Both involve a dead man with £50,000 worth of diamonds in his stomach who was the employee of a financial empire. Steed investigates the company while Cathy/Emma snoops around a pet cemetary. Most of the dialogue is intact.
  • "The Superlative Seven" was a remake of "Dressed to Kill". Both involve Steed being invited to a fancy dress party (held on a train in the former and on a flight to an island in the latter) with six other people being invited by a different host, with Cathy/Emma arriving later.
  • The penultimate episode "Takeover" features criminals seizing a strategically-located property in order to launch an attack on nearby dignitaries, an idea that Brian Clemens had previously used in The Baron episode "The Maze". Terry Nation, who wrote the episode, was script editor on that series.
  • The final episode "Bizarre" has a plot involving supposedly dead men who are actually still alive, an idea Clemens had previously used in the Adam Adamant Lives! episode "The Terribly Happy Embalmers" and the Cathy Gale episode "The Undertakers". Furthermore, the opening scene of a young woman wandering aimlessly in her nightgown after falling from a speeding train was taken from his Danger Man episode "The Girl in Pink Pyjamas".
• Sequel in Another Medium: In 1971, the series was adapted into a stage play by Brian Clemens and Terence Feely and directed by Leslie Phillips. Patrick Macnee was asked to play John Steed again, but declined, as he didn't think that the series was suited to theatre, so Simon Oates took the role. Sue Lloyd played new partner Hannah Wild, Kate O'Mara played villainess Madame Gerda and John F. Landry replaced Patrick Newell as Mother.
• Shrug of God: Steed and Mrs Peel — are they or aren't they? Since they would never have been permitted to address the question explicitly on-screen, it was deliberately left ambiguous. An interviewer once asked Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, and the series' head writer what was really going on with Steed and Mrs Peel, and got three different and mutually-exclusive answers. General consensus in later years was that they had a casual sexual relationship but "didn't dwell on it".
• Similarly Named Works: Thanks to the popularity of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, most people will be more likely to refer to that universe's Super Team and their movies and/or to the comic books that inspired it when talking about "The Avengers".
• Spared by the Cut: There were a number of options for Cathy Gale's exit, including having her Killed Off for Real.
• Star-Making Role: Most notably for Diana Rigg.
• Stunt Double: Cyd Child douled for both Diana Rigg and Linda Thorson.
• Troubled Production: The sixth season. After Diana Rigg announced she was leaving, searches were held to find a replacement actress - including toying with the idea of a number of guest actresses. Patrick Macnee was apparently not aware this was going on at first. Linda Thorson was chosen as she was dating producer John Bryce - who was brought in to replace Brian Clemens and Albert Fennell. This change was because the studio wished to bring the show "back to realism" and Bryce had produced the Cathy Gale episodes. He also had to hurriedly shoot seven episodes to ship off to America with the last of the Emma Peel episodes. He only completed three before he was replaced by Clemens and Fennell again. Rigg also had to be brought back to hurriedly shoot a new introduction episode for Tara King. What's more is that the network in America aired the show up against Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In, one of the most popular shows in the country at the time. Due to declining ratings it was almost immediately cancelled.
• Uncredited Role:
  • Julian Holloway as a crowdmember in "Tunnel of Fear".
  • Penelope Keith as a bride in "The Murder Market".
  • Richard Marner as a man on a TV screen in "The Thirteenth Hole".
• Wag the Director:
  • Diana Rigg found Emma Peel's initial Spy Catsuits too uncomfortable, resulting in the softer wear in the fifth season.
  • After going through the motions for the first few episodes, Ian Hendry realized the potential for career development and began fleshing out his character in earnest. It is said he would sometimes throw out whole scripts and force writers into eleventh-hour rewrites.
  • Macnee and Rigg came up with a lot of their own dialogue, thinking the original scripts were substandard.
• What Could Have Been:
  • A film version of the series was in its initial planning stages by late 1963 after series three was completed. An early story proposal paired Steed and Gale with a male and female duo of American agents, to make the movie appeal to the American market. Before the project could gain momentum, Honor Blackman was cast in Goldfinger, requiring her to leave the series.
  • One American producer suggested adapting the series into a Broadway musical.
  • Cathy Gale's replacement was originally going to be called Samantha, or Mantha for short. Nobody liked that name, so she became 'Manda Peel' because the character needed to have "man appeal". They shortened it to M Appeal, and went with Emma Peel instead. Eleanor Bron was the first choice, but she turned it down. As noted above Elizabeth Shepherd was initially cast, but ultimately replaced with Diana Rigg.
  • During Season Five, it was initially planned that Steed would relocate to the Hertfordshire countryside and live in a traditional oak-beamed cottage.
  • It was reported that Blackman was asked to come back for guest appearances, but declined, as she wanted to look forward, not backwards.
  • After Diana Rigg left the series, the producers toyed with the idea of having guest actresses be Steed's sidekick. A number of screen tests were done in secret.
  • The Tara King episode "Split!" was a leftover script from the Emma Peel era that got changed when Rigg left.
  • "Look - (Stop Me if You've Heard This One) - But There Were These Two Fellers..." was originally written for season five, but was rejected for being too silly. Writer Dennis Spooner later felt that it was fine for Tara to fail to save a man's life, but not for the more experienced Emma.
  • Maggie Smith was considered for Emma Peel.
  • Shirley Eaton tested for Venus Smith and later Emma Peel.
  • Kenneth Williams was reportedly offered a guest role in "Room Without a View".
• Word of God:
  • Brian Clemens noted in an interview the sexual chemistry that particularly existed between Steed and Peel, and the common question of "Will they ever go to bed together?" Clemens' attitude toward the characters was that they already had done, and this was the next day. Patrick Macnee and Diana Rigg confirmed later, in interviews, that they had decided their characters had a casual sexual relationship, "but just didn't dwell on it."
  • According to Sydney Newman, Cathy Gale not only lost her husband in the Mau Mau Uprising, but also her children.
• You Look Familiar: A number of guest actors (usually villains) came back to play different roles in the series. Among the most well known, Christopher Lee, Michael Gough, John Hollis and Julian Glover. Hollis and Glover really took the cake, with four characters each.

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