Patrick Macnee

Childhood heroes come in all shapes and sizes but mine wore a bowler hat, drove a Bentley and was always the perfect English gentleman. Admittedly my attention to The Avengers may have been drawn by his delightful female co-stars. I came in around the Tara King era but I soon caught the decidedly superior Diana Rigg episodes. But for a while I wanted to be John Steed working for whatever secret government organisation he actually represented and living in a London mews apartment. Despite a long career on stage, film and the box, Patrick Macnee will be forever associated with The Avengers, or Chapeau Melon et Bottes du Cuir as it's known over here in France. Here he is in 1985, shortly after the release of A View to a Kill, talking to film critic Marjorie Bilbow. In this edited version he's typically charming and self deprecating. I was "successful in the sixties but have gone down ever since." This interview comes from an edition of BBC Radio 2's long running cinema series Start Sound Extra. It was broadcast on Thursday 20 June 1985. Patrick Macnee 1922-2015