MacNee likes being John Steed

Press, 3 December 1982, Page 11

MacNee likes being John Steed

Busy as he is — and he is as busy as an actor can be — Patrick MacNee knows he will always be identified with John Steed, the urbane, derby-wearing. umbrellatwirling half of "The Avengers" And that is just fine with him. "Oh. it's splendid." says MacNee. the Eton-educated son of a racehorse trainer. "With my sort of global -career, as one works here and there it's a passport to identification. "That, of course, is just what an actor wants. The other option is anonymity. And that is what an actor doesn't want." MacNee. 61. is in N.B.C.'s "Gavilan" with Robert Urich. He was an emergency replacement for the late Fernando Lamas, who died after taping a handful of ‘‘Gavilan" episodes. When he got the call. MacNee was home in Palm Springs. California, after finishing "For the Term of His Natural Life." a mini-series shot in Australia with Anthony Perkins. “I always respond when someone says they need me the day after tomorrow." explains MacNee. "It makes the blood pump." After 13 episodes of "Gavilan." MacNee will go to Las Vegas for "The Return of the Man From Uncle." a TV movie based on the popular secret agent series in the 19605. : And then? “Difficult to say." he replies. “I have a very good agent. The man keeps me hopping, which, naturally. I applaud. "When you reach my age. if you can still walk you must keep walking. Who can tell what might happen if you stop?"

Everywhere he walks. MacNee runs into “The Avengers." the ageless Brit-ish-made series still thriving in syndication. and deservedly so. "The Avengers" had a variety of incarnations, though the one easily most popular coupled MacNee with Diana Rigg as the very independent Emma Peel. “The Avengers" began in 1961 as a straightforward spy show. MacNee and lan Hendry were dilettante men-about-town and crime solvers. The next year, the premise was revamped and the showdisplayed the distinctive tone that turned it into a cult favourite as Honor Blackman (Pussy Galore to Sean Connery's James Bond in "Goldfinger") joined MacNee as Catherine Gale. The two were thrust into complicated plots hatched by peculiar villains and took on a tongue-in-cheek style. MacNee and Blackman operated as equals, never losing their British finesse in the worst circumstances. In 1966. Blackman was replaced by the cool, leggy Rigg, who honed Emma Peel as a saucy, flippant woman and developed a sexually ambiguous relationship with Steed, who typically wore a three-piece suit and bowler in contrast to Peel's boots and leather. Rigg said she played it “as though we were lovers once and might be yet again." Emma Peel was a’widow, her husband a test pilot mysteriously lost. Some 45 Steed-Peel episodes were made. In the finale on March 20. 1968, Peel learned her husband had been found alive and decided to rejoin him. Her replacement, Tara

King (Linda Thorson), was a poor substitute who existed only to be rescued. The series lost its unique point of view. In 1978. there was a temporary resurrection with "The New Avengers." Joanna Lumley was MacNee's partner in derring-do. Though they have not worked together in 14 years. MacNee keeps in touch with Rigg, whom he describes as "a beautiful person, physically and spiritually." "Diana has evolved into one of the top actresses in Britain." he says, loyally. "She's just a dear, and wonderfully successful on the stage.” An effort is being made to bring “The Avengers" back yet again, which MacNee would like to see happen. “C.B.S. had a script for us not long ago," he says. "Frankly, it wasn't good enough. Not enough of the old dash." MacNee has no inflated view of his talent and cheerily admits: “I am not the greatest actor ever to appear in moving pictures and I certainly am the worst actor ever to assault Shakespeare, the poor fellow. “I was told early on that I have no poetic imagination whatsoever. I don't think in soliloquy, a skill j’ou must have for the classics." What he can do is "play characters with a sense of irony. I created John Steed out of that sense that the world is a mucked-up business. but one makes the best of it. "That baroque style is one many of us who were in the war’ developed. The other option was to give it all up." MacNee served five years

in the British Navy in World War II on a torpedo boat in the English Channel. He does not confine his work to TV and is active in features. Recent films include two that did not get a general release —'"King Solomon’s Treasure" and “The Sea Wolves" with Gregory Peck. David Niven (to whom MacNee is distantly related) and Roger Moore — and two that were more successful. “The Howling" and “Young Doctors In Love.” Newhouse News Service