With his trademark bowler hat, Patrick Macnee turned The Avengers’ John Steed into a 60s icon. Now 87 and a widower, London-born Patrick has two children and lives in Southern California

WHATEVER HAPPENED TO...

THE AVENGERS’ PATRICK MACNEE

AFTER THE AVENGERS,

I GUEST STARRED IN THE VIRGINIAN,

COLUMBO, DIAGNOSIS

MURDER AND MURDER, SHE

WROTE

in 1969. It was so successful because it was different. Seven years later I reluctantly made The New Avengers.

After The Avengers I guest starred in The Virginian and umpteen films and series including Columbo, Diagnosis Murder and Murder, She Wrote, with my old drama school pal, Angela Lansbury.

My two children, Rupert and Jenny, have been staying since my third wife, Baba, died last year. I bought a house near Palm Springs in 1973. Jenny, who has bad asthma, came to stay and felt so much better. So I said, “That’s it.”

I enjoy being with my family, chatting and walking with my dogs on the beach. I love sitting in my garden which has the most beautiful view of snow-capped winter mountains as a backdrop.

Now I do voice-overs and audio books including The Bible and Peter Mayle’s books. People know my voice; it’s as recognisable as Steed’s bowler hat, which you’d never find me wearing. I hate hats!

Tony Padman For details see www.patrickmacnee.com.

I was at school with Christopher Lee who still calls me Smee, from the Peter Pan play we did as seven-year-olds. It was performing at school

and encouragement from a wonderful teacher that drove me into acting.

As I was making my West End debut in Little Women in 1941, my mother wrote to me: “Patrick, stop being a Little Woman. Sign up and defend our country.” So I joined the navy. My boat got sunk; fortunately on the night it happened I was ashore with the flu.

More theatre followed and films such as The Life And Death Of Colonel Blimp and A Christmas Carol. I moved to Toronto in 1952 after David Greene, a TV director and drama school pal, offered me a series and I was so poor I lived at the YMCA.

I went to America in the late 50s and did a lot of TV work including Les Girls with Leslie Phillips and Alfred Hitchcock Presents, then in 1960 I returned and Sydney Newman, a Canadian producer, gave me The Avengers’ John Steed role.

I was partnered with Ian Hendry and

the plot was that his fiancée, played by my second wife, Katherine Woodville, had been killed and we were “avenging” her death and trying to find the killer.

I wore ordinary clothes to play Steed, a shadowy character from the Secret Service, but one day the producer said, “Your character isn’t working; can’t you think up something more interesting?”

I was so angry I turned up in an outrageous suit, bowler hat and umbrella, turning Steed into an over-the-top, genteel, Englishman with a voice I inherited from my mother, who had a wonderful speaking voice.

It worked. We filmed with

Diana [Rigg], in black and white for a season, then to colour in 1965 and finished with Linda [Thorson]

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Patrick now does

voice-overs and audio

books

Patrick with Diana Rigg in The

Avengers in 1968