The Hellcats

(Ross Hagen’s Girl [rather sloppily] knocks down a baddie who’s chasing her)
Tom: Ah, Diana Rigg taught her that! Thank you, Emma Peel.

Ah! Ah ha! Ah hahahaha! I knew it, I knew there had to be an “Avengers” reference somewhere within this blasted series! And not only that, but they mention Diana Rigg too! Yay! Um…anyway… since I’ve already explained the show in the Master Ninja II section, I’ll take this time to write about Diana Rigg. Diana Rigg is an incredibly accomplished stage and film actress—she was educated at RADA, and then went on to tour with the RSC (which only pays $185 dollars a week, I learned yesterday; so if you have dreams of becoming a Shakespearean actor, perhaps you should also have dreams of getting a second job). She auditioned for the hit series “The Avengers” on a whim, incidentally; she landed the role and spent two seasons playing Emma Peel to Patrick Macnee’s John Steed. Within her two years on “The Avengers”, the show was picked up for American television and quickly became an international hit. She gradually got tired of the show’s long hours (paired with the fact that she was paid close to nothing compared to everyone else, including the cameraman) and left the series. She starred in several great films (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Hospital being just two of them), but is known today as being one of Britain’s greatest stage actresses. She’s well known for her roles in Abelard and Heloise, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, King Lear (with Laurence Olivier, who was married to…yeah…), and most notably (in my opinion) Medea, which I consider to be one of those ridiculously challenging roles for anyone, like Lady Macbeth, and for which she won a Tony. Nowadays she’s known as Dame Diana Rigg (having been knighted in 1994).


(the dealer in the undershirt sneers at Ross Hagen’s Girl)
Tom: Stella!

Marlon Brando in Streetcar Named Desire. With—that’s right—Vivien Leigh. This film garnered several Academy Awards, including one for Vivien Leigh in the Best Actress category, and Kim Hunter in the Best Supporting Actress category. Marlon Brando lost to Humphrey Bogart in The African Queen. A lot of people bemoan that fact, tearing at their clothes, gnashing their teeth, and slashing their cheeks with their long, overgrown fingernail, and yelling, “But how?! How could the Greatest Actor that Ever Was lose for such a pivotal role?” Well, you know, it happens. As great as Brando was in Streetcar, Bogart was just as good in The African Queen (although it was, admittedly, an easier role [one supposes]), and damn it if the guy wasn’t due for an Oscar. So stop yer moanin’—Brando would win twice afterwards, for On the Waterfront (in my opinion, his best film) and for The Godfather.