RIP Patrick Macnee

[Ecstatic]

Longtime star of The Avengers and The New Avengers, whose career spanned 1948-2003, passed away of natural causes at his home in Rancho Mirage, California at 93 today.

[Plaything]

RIP Avenger.

[fred41]

Man...I absolutely loved that show...RIP Mr. Steed...Patrick Macnee

[Steve-Oh]

I had no idea he was alive!
Loved Mr. Steed & Mrs. Peel.
R.I.P. sir.

[pantybulge69]

rest in peace, Pat.

[Stavros]

It may hard to believe now, but The Avengers -along with Patrick McGoohan's Danger Man, the precursor to The Prisoner- became cutting edge television, particularly when Honor Blackman was replaced by Diana Rigg as Emma Peel. The influence of Brian Clemens meant that the Emma Peel series' presented a mysterious Britain in which people disappeared and shadowy forces of the government, the law and crime were involved, but also featured a female character who was not there for decoration but was a fighting force as well. There was one famous episode -A Touch of Brimstone- which generated such 'outrage' among retired Colonels and Mrs Whitehouse it was censored in the UK and proved too much for the US audiences who never saw it at all at the time as it was pulled from the schedules. Seen now it is so tame the costume and the whipping could be shown before the 9pm watershed, or that may be evidence of how far our morals have slipped....Macnee suffered from devoting almost all his work to television in the US so that for most of us in the UK he was rarely seen on the tv after the end of The Avengers. You can read about the Brimstone episode here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Touch_of_Brimstone
or watch the episode (I assume, uncut) here: