Rigg was born in the South Yorkshire town of Doncaster to Louis Rigg and Beryl Helliwell; her father was a railway engineer who had been born in Yorkshire. She lived in India between the ages of two months and eight years and then was sent to a boarding school, the Moravian school in Fulneck, near Pudsey. Rigg spent many years of her childhood in Bikaner, India, where her father was employed as Read more...

Rigg is particularly known for her role in the British 1960s television series The Avengers, where she played the sexy secret agent Emma Peel for 51 episodes between 1965-68. Her career in film, television and the theatre has been wide-ranging, including roles in the Royal Shakespeare Company between 1959 and 1964. Her professional debut was in The Caucasian Chalk Circle in 1955, aged 17.

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She lived with Philip Saville for some time. A marriage to Menachem Gueffen, an Israeli painter, lasted from 1973 to 1976; she was later married to Archibald Stirling, a theatrical producer and former officer in the Scots Guards, from 1982 to 1990. The marriage broke up when Stirling had an affair with the actress Joely Richardson. By Stirling she has a daughter, the actress Rachael Stirling, who Read more...