Part of old England died today when Patrick Macnee passed away. Macnee represented the classic aristocratic man, one who served his country in the Second World War, and later gave us performances that were always engaging, even if some of the productions themselves were or not.
Born in 1922 to parents who were fixtures of English high society, he enjoyed privilege as he came from aristocratic lineage, and was Eton-educated.
At the age of 20, he joined the Royal Navy during World War II, and went from an enlisted man to a sub-lieutenant within a year, patrolling the coast of the northern UK.
In the early 1950s, Macnee went to Canada, then the US, and appeared in various stage productions, eventually making his way into film. By the 1960s, he was well-known enough to be cast in The Avengers, not the Marvel comics, but rather a spy series with heavily mod stylings. It was an onscreen romp through a fantastical world of spies situated somewhere between the hallucinogenic Prisoner series and James Bond. While the original series paired Macnee’s character of Steed with a few different female leads, it was Diana Rigg who most people remember.
Later in the 1970s, when the show was resurrected, Macnee rejoined the series, but this time opposite Jennifer Lumley, who is now mostly remembered as the blonde 1960s-addled friend on Ab-Fab.
No matter whom he appeared with, Macnee was always the uber gentleman spy. Not a ladies man like Bond, trying to bed anything that moved, but rather a man’s man, who would do whatever was necessary to save anyone who needed saving.
He has been in many movies and TV shows, even appearing in one of the pivotal story lines in the original Battlestar Galactica. In doing so, he became the Sir Alec Guiness of the show for the time he was on, adding a level of acting that no one else was able to meet.
It is said that no matter what he was in, people on-set were drawn to him, that he made friends easily, and kept those friendships. In life, and on the screen, he gave us a hero to look up to, and a role model to be like. He will be missed, and the likes of him may not be seen for a long time.