- Have YOU got a story? Email tips@dailymail.co.uk
- See more Daily Mail on Google - save us as a Preferred Source
Dame Diana Rigg's daughter Rachael Stirling has detailed her famous mother's final days after she opted to stop most forms of treatment when her cancer spread.
The James Bond and Game Of Thrones actress died age 82 in 2020 following a short battle with the disease and the story of her life has now been told her only child Rachael in an 'honest, and funny' biography, All About My Mother.
After her condition worsened following her treatment, Diana moved in with Rachael and her husband Guy Garvey, who is the lead singer of Elbow, to be cared for.
In her new book, Rachael talks about how her mother spent her last days, revealing she drank Campari until the end of her life due to her love of a 4pm cocktail hour.
During the period where Diana lived with Rachael full time when she was having chemotherapy, their 'clinkie drinkies were a non-negotiable'.
In an extract published in the Sunday Times magazine, Rachel writes: 'A Campari and soda with a generous squeeze of lime and lots of ice, hence the clink in the drink, following a post-lunch nap. I don’t think we missed a single Campari o’clock all through her cancer.'
Dame Diana Rigg's daughter Rachael Stirling has detailed her famous mother's final days after she opted to stop most forms of treatment when her cancer spread
This continued until the end, when she stopped solid foods and was sustained by yogurt drinks and liquids including the Italian alcoholic apéritif.
As Diana's health declined further she was given doses of morphine to reduce her pain as she reached the end of her life, receiving visits each afternoon from friends and family who wanted to come and say goodbye.
Rachel reveals in her book that Diana grew impatient with how long the death process was taking and after a couple of days of being administered with drugs, she asked Rachel: 'It’s gone on too long. Make today my last day. Push me over the edge.'
Rachel said: 'I had promised to put a pillow over her face if she needed me to but I was unable to do it now. Guy read her Robert Frost. We looked at her lovingly, "It’s no use. I’ve got no words of wisdom to impart," she whispered, and then she slept. Ma woke up in the morning and exclaimed weakly, gladly it seemed, "Oh, another day!".
Confirming at the time of her death, her agent said Diana had died 'peacefully', adding that she had been 'at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time'.
Tributes poured in for the 'flinty, fearless, fabulous force of nature', who made her name in the cult 1961 TV series The Avengers, before going on to star as the cutthroat matriarch Lady Olenna Tyrell in HBO's Game of Thrones, a show she later admitted she had never watched.
Starting out as a classically trained actress in the Royal Shakespeare Company, Dame Diana's engrossing stage performances were said to come from her 'funny and feisty' personality.
Jonathan Kent, who directed Diana in a production of Medea, said that her 'combination of force of personality, beauty, courage and sheer emotional power, made her a great classical actress - one of an astonishing generation of British stage performers'.
The James Bond and Game Of Thrones actress died age 82 in 2020 following a short battle with the disease and the story of her life has now been told her her only child Rachel in an 'honest, and funny' biography, All About My Mother
More recently, Diana appeared as Queen Victoria's Mistress of the Robes - The Duchess of Buccleuch - in ITV's Victoria alongside Jenna Coleman, and as the eccentric Mrs Pumphrey in the adaptation of All Creatures Great and Small - which aired last night on Channel 5.
The star, who won Bafta, Emmy and Tony awards, also earned worldwide acclaim for her turn as a Bond girl Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969, where she became only the second Bond girl to marry 007.
In a heartfelt Instagram tribute, her co star George Lazenby wrote: 'I'm so sad to hear of the death of Diana Rigg. She undoubtedly raised my acting game.
The generous tribute comes despite long-held rumours that the pair feuded on set, including over a fake report Diana deliberately ate garlic before filming their love scenes in order to throw him off.
While Lazenby slapped down the claim a decade after filming, it is believed he might have actually fuelled the rumours in the first place, with Diana condemning stories he had spread about her in the Daily Sketch in 1970.
'I’m tired of reading those paranoid statements to the press wherein you were solely surrounded by hostile people,' she wrote. 'I agree that by the end of the film most of the crew were hostile, but only because of your extreme behaviour.
'No, George, I did not eat garlic on purpose. No, George, I was not, as you said, guzzling champagne in some warm bar when we had the row.'
Last year, Diana, who was made a dame in 1994 for services to drama, revealed that she 'suffered a Me Too moment' early in her career at the hands of a 'powerful' film director.
Speaking on Newsnight last year, the actress said she welcomed the rise of the #MeToo movement following her own experience as a young actress and revealed she felt like a 'lone voice' after she discovered she was being paid less than her male co-stars.
Diana Rigg as the cutthroat matriarch Oleanna Tyrell in HBO's worldwide hit series, Game of Thrones, a show she admitted in 2019 that she had never watched
Rigg became the second Bond girl to marry 007 when she starred in James Bond 's On Her Majesty's Secret Service in 1969
Her former co stars have flooded social media with tributes to the 'Flinty, fearless, fabulous force of nature', who had a 'dazzling wit and inimitable voice'.
'The death of Contessa Teresa di Vincenzo Draco created a memorable cinema moment over 50 years ago. As my new bride, Tracy Bond, I wept for her loss. Now, upon hearing of Dame Diana's death, I weep again.'
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 at Stratford-upon-Avon in 1959.
She has been remembered as an actress who 'swept all before her'.
Bond producers Michael G Wilson and Barbara Broccoli remembered Dame Diana for playing the only woman to have married 007.
They said: 'We are very sad to hear of the passing of Dame Diana Rigg, the legendary stage and screen actress who was much beloved by Bond fans for her memorable performance as Tracy di Vicenzo in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, the only woman to have married James Bond.
'Our love and thoughts are with her family and friends at this sad time.'
Game Of Thrones also paid tribute to on the show's official Twitter account after her death.
After eight years living with married director Philip Saville, Dame Diana wed the Israeli painter Menachem Gueffen in 1973, but the couple divorced in 1976
It said: 'Be a dragon. The realm will always remember Diana Rigg.'
The actress's agent Simon Beresford said: 'It is with tremendous sadness that we announce that Dame Diana Rigg died peacefully early this morning.
'She was at home with her family who have asked for privacy at this difficult time. Dame Diana was an icon of theatre, film, and television.
'She was the recipient of Bafta, Emmy, Tony and Evening Standard Awards for her work on stage and screen.
'Dame Diana was a much loved and admired member of her profession, a force of nature who loved her work and her fellow actors. She will be greatly missed.'
Dame Diana was married to the Israeli painter Menachem Gueffen from 1973 to 1976, and was later married to Archibald Stirling, a theatrical producer and former officer in the Scots Guards.
She had a daughter by Stirling, the actress Rachael Stirling, who shot to fame in Tipping the Velvet.
Diana and Mr Stirling divorced in 1990 after his affair with actress Joely Richardson.
She also played the Duchess of Buccleuch in ITV royal drama Victoria, the young queen's mistress of the robes, who is 'renowned for speaking her mind'.
In 2015, Dame Diana told Radio Times: 'A black Bond would be lovely. I wouldn't like to see a female Bond, because we wouldn't want to lose the Bond girls. But we could have a lesbian Bond, why not?'
In 2015, George Lazenby addressed the rumour that Diana, 'would eat garlic before their love scenes', after she wrote an open letter to the Daily Sketch in 1970 about working with him.
He said in an interview with the Daily Mail: 'Not true. We were in the canteen once before a love scene and she stood up and said out loud, 'I've ordered something with garlic in it - I hope you have too!' just as a joke, but it got made into something bigger.'
Writing on Instagram today, Lazenby wrote: 'I'm so sad to hear of the death of Diana Rigg. She undoubtedly raised my acting game when we made On Her Majesty's Secret Service together in 1968-9.
'I remember the press conference at the Dorchester in London, knowing she was going to play my wife. We had fun together on the set of the movie in Switzerland and Portugal.
'Her depth of experience really helped me. We were good friends on set.
'I was sorry to have lost my wife in the film at the end. The death of Contessa Teresa di Vincenzo Draco created a memorable cinema moment over 50 years ago. As my new bride, Tracy Bond, I wept for her loss. Now, upon hearing of Dame Diana's death, I weep again. My deepest condolences for her family. Love George xx'
Speaking to the BBC in 2019, Dame Diana said: 'I had one experience, which I'm not about to talk about but when I was very young, with a director who was very powerful.
'I simply, hardly acknowledged it was happening. I think scorn is quite a powerful tool. I would urge women to use scorn whenever possible, because it sort of scorches the gentleman.'
'I'm all for the women who speak out, and I'm very glad that they now have a platform to speak out.'
During her time on the Avengers – when she played Emma Peel from 1965 to 1968 – the star was stunned to discover that she was being paid significantly less than her male co-stars, and threatened to quit unless producers gave her a pay rise.
Bosses on the show obliged, thanks to the show's incredible following in America.
She added: 'I was a lone voice in the wilderness, nobody backed me up. Pat Macnee kept his head well below the parapet when I stepped forward and said ''I think it's quite wrong that I'm being paid less than the cameraman.''
'Of course then I was painted as this sort of mercenary woman, and hard headed and money grabbing and all the rest of it. But it struck me as being unfair so I spoke out.
'I've always thought that equal pay gets you a long way to being treated equally by a man.' #
The Macmillan Cancer Support charity also thanked Dame Diana Rigg for her support.
A statement said: 'We are so sad to hear of the death of Dame Diana Rigg. We want to thank her for her years of enduring support for Macmillan Cancer Support and pass on our condolences to her daughter Rachael and all the family.'