Legendary actress Diana Rigg made impassioned plea to legalise assisted dying shortly before her ‘truly awful’ 2020 death from cancer

By James On Dec 10, 2023

James Bond actress and Game of Thrones star Dame Diana Rigg made an impassioned plea for the legalization of assisted dying, shortly before her “truly terrible” death from cancer in 2020.

Now, three years later, her actress daughter, Rachael Stirling, has released a statement that Rigg recorded in her final weeks, calling for individuals to be given “real agency over their bodies at the end of their lives.”

It is currently illegal in Britain to assist in the death of someone and MPs have consistently voted against any change in the law, but assisted death is currently the subject of an inquiry by the Parliamentary Committee on Health and Social Care.

In the recording, which was recorded today The observerRigg said of her death from cancer, “They don't talk about how horrible, how truly horrible the details of this condition are, and the shame associated with it.”

She added that it was time for more debate and for the law to change to help people who want a choice in the matter.

James Bond actress and Game of Thrones star Dame Diana Rigg has made an impassioned plea for the legalization of assisted dying, shortly before her 'truly terrible' death from cancer in 2020

The Avengers star recorded a statement in her final weeks calling for individuals to be given 'real agency over their bodies at the end of their lives'

“This means that people will have real control over their own bodies at the end of their lives,” she added.

Rigg also revealed details of how she was given just six months to live and lost control of her bowels – something she describes as 'dehumanizing'.

She also talked about how palliative care nurses will recognize that some individuals in her situation will starve themselves towards the end.

“It's not that they want to die that way. This is how they take control,” she explains.

Rigg, pictured with co-star Patrick McNee in The Avengers, said in the recording that it was time for a change in the law to help people who want a choice about assisted dying.

Dame Diana Rigg pictured with her then 17-year-old daughter, actress Rachael Stirling

Rigg starred opposite George Lazenby in the James Bond film On Her Majesty's Secret Service

Rigg's daughter had promised to make her mother's comments public to further the debate on assisted death.

The late Avengers star is the latest of a number of high-profile personalities to support a change in the law, including Great British Bake Off right Dame Prue Leith.

Leith, 83, has spoken publicly about her experience of witnessing the “horrific” death of her brother David more than a decade ago.

The Yorkshire girl who went on to become a silver screen star and James Bond's first wife

Dame Diana rose to fame as Emma Peel in the 1960s TV series The Avengers and then as a Bond girl.

But she also played many Shakespearean roles and enjoyed a long career, most recently appearing as the powerful matriarch Olenna Tyrell in Game Of Thrones.

Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg was born in Doncaster on July 20, 1938.

She trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and joined the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1959.

The actress quickly made a name for herself there with important roles in productions of The Taming Of The Shrew, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth and King Lear.

She then found huge success in her role as Emma Peel, the Secret Service agent in The Avengers, starring Patrick Macnee.

But Dame Diana was unhappy about the invasion of privacy that came with being on TV, and she was also critical of the way she was treated by TV bosses.

She also discovered that she was paid less than a cameraman.

“It was very pushy at the time because I was instantly recognizable,” the actress later told Variety.

“I was grateful to be a success, but I had to pay a price for that.”

In 1969 she played Bond girl Tracy in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, opposite Bond actor George Lazenby, with whom she had a difficult relationship.

In the 1970s she joined the National Theater where she played major roles in Tom Stoppard's Jumpers, The Misanthrope, Pygmalion, Antony And Cleopatra and Stephen Sondheim's Follies.

In a nude scene she played in Abelard And Heloise, she was described by one critic as 'built like a brick mausoleum with insufficient flying buttresses'.

As a result, she produced a book of the worst theater reviews ever, entitled No Turn Unstoned. It was a bestseller.

She said that even though her brother had bone cancer, he “ended up dying of pneumonia because the only way he could kill himself was to stop taking the antibiotics they were giving him because he kept getting pneumonia.”

She added: 'That meant he died a very terrible death because dying of pneumonia is like drowning. That was horrible.'

Leith, patron of campaign group Dignity in Dying, recalled how her brother was given morphine every four hours but the pain relief only lasted three hours.

As a result, she said, he “screamed, screamed in absolute agony for hours every day.”

Watching him suffer made her wonder why those who die are unable to die on their own terms, she said. Mr Leith died in 2012, aged 74.

Rigg died after a brief battle with cancer in 2020 at the age of 82.

Best known for her roles in The Avengers, Game Of Thrones and On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the veteran star of stage and film was hailed as an icon of theatre, film and television.

Stirling paid tribute to Rigg, saying: “My beloved mother died peacefully in her sleep early this morning, at home, surrounded by family.

'She died of cancer, upon diagnosis in March, and spent her final months joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession.

“I will miss her more than words.”

Dame Diana was best known for her role as Emma Peel in the TV series The Avengers and more recently for her role as Olenna Tyrell in Game of Thrones, for which she was nominated for a series of Emmys.

She also played Countess Teresa di Vicenzo, the only woman to ever marry James Bond, opposite George Lazenby in his only appearance as 007 in On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

Dame Diana also had roles in ITV's Victoria and Channel 5's All Creatures Great And Small, and won an Emmy for playing Mrs Danvers in Rebecca in 1997.

She won a Bafta in 1990 for her role in Mother Love.

Dame Diana was also an acclaimed theater actress, earning the first of three Tony nominations for her role in the Ronald Millar play Abelard and Heloise.

The actress was made a Dame in 1994 for her achievements in the field of drama.

Playwright Sir David Hare said: 'Diana Rigg made a dizzying change of direction in middle age as a great classical actor.

'When Emma Peel played Euripides' Medea, Albee's Martha and Brecht's Mother Courage, she swept everything before her.'

Fellow playwright Sir Tom Stoppard said: 'For half her life Diana was the most beautiful woman in the room, but she was what used to be called a trooper.

'She went to work with her sleeves rolled up and a smile for everyone.

'Her talent was luminous.'

Rigg, who died in 2020, spent her final months “joyfully reflecting on her extraordinary life, full of love, laughter and a deep pride in her profession,” her family said.

In one of Rigg's last roles, the iconic actress played Mrs. Pumphrey in All Creatures Great and Small

Diana Rigg as the murderous matriarch Oleanna Tyrell in HBO's global hit series Game of Thrones, a show she admitted in 2019 that she had never seen

Theater director Jonathan Kent said: 'Diana Rigg's combination of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power made her a great classical actress – one of an astonishing generation of British stage performers.

'I was fortunate to direct her in a series of great classical roles – Medea, Phedre – in Ted Hughes' version written especially for her – Mother Courage and Dryden's Cleopatra.

'Her dazzling humor and that inimitable voice made her an unforgettable leading actor in British theatre.'