The Avengers International Fan Forum

Frankymole · Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:39 am Post subject:

Perhaps brothers practiced rough and tumble a lot before taking up fighting professionally!

Not to forget the father and son - Larry and Rocky Taylor!

It seems getting knocked about is a family business.
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Last watched: "The Gilded Cage"

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

While I was working on the topic "The Avengers/TNA: List of people dead (1960s-2017, 2019)"...

http://avengersfanforum.s2.bizhat.com/viewtopic.php?t=4130

...I found information on the IMDb that Barbara Sykes, the stage manager of some Avengers episodes from video era, had died on September 12, 2021.

https://www.imdb.com/name/nm8627689/

I flipped through the Facebook page of Crispian Thorne (Barbara's son) and read the following:

https://www.facebook.com/crispian.thorne/posts/10225379700869699

Crispian Thorne.
12 September

Farewell to my Mum.
Barbara Thorne, March 31, 1934 - September 12, 2021.
We are so grateful for everything you were and everything you did, but Dad's been waiting for someone to say "oh shutup Stephen" for too long. We will miss you dreadfully, but we have some of the best memories to keep us going. We love you, thank you.

Barbara Sykes, RADA graduate and wife of actor Stephen Thorne, got a production job with ABC Television since Autumn 1960.

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Denis

Frankymole · Posted: Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:14 am Post subject:

Oh wow Stephen Thorne's wife? I was just reading about his great reading of "The Myth Makers" novelisation. Such a wonderful voice, and the incredible villain the most famous Dr who story of the 1970s. I didn't realise they were married - what an illustrious couple!
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Last watched: "The Gilded Cage"

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

I was surprised too - I went to the main page of Barbara Sykes on the IMDb and took a look at the information for 2021, then I opened the biography section and found out that Barbara was married to Stephen Thorne. For some reason, at this moment I had a premonition that the page was updated by someone from the environment of Barbara.

I specially chose this photo with Barbara from the others on Facebook - it looked a bit like The Avengers. Smile

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Denis

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

Nancy Vichert died Saturday, September 4th.

There were a few years when she typed scripts for The Avengers in London (approx. from 1962 to 1964).

Nancy was a high-school English teacher most of her life, she taught in Hamilton, Dundas, and Scarborough, Canada.

Her father was the novelist and screenwriter James Benson Nablo, whose novel The Long November was published in 1945.

Nancy attended McMaster University from 1952 where she received an Honours English BA. During her McMaster years Nancy was a published poet, sang in the Bach-Elgar choir, and was active in the Board Of Publications, a late-night crew responsible for McMaster's newspaper and yearbook. At the "Board of Pubs" Nancy worked closely with Gordon Vichert, an English Literature scholar. Nancy and Gordon were married and for two years were posted by the British Foreign Service to Nigeria where their daughter, Nicola, was born in 1958. Daughter Rebecca was born in 1962 as Nancy and Gordon were leaving Canada for England. After two years in London, the family returned to Ontario.

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Denis

Frankymole · Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 5:06 am Post subject:

Another Avengers connection with Canada! May she rest in peace.
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Last watched: "The Gilded Cage"

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

Yes, if we take a whole look at the TV adventures of Steed, then perhaps there will be more people associated with Canada than any other country, of course not overtaking the UK. Wink

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Denis

mousemeat · Posted: Wed Nov 17, 2021 7:17 am Post subject:

dissolute · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 11:43 am Post subject:

It's been reported that Douglas Bowbank Robinson, actor and stuntman, died peacefully this morning.
8 February 1930 - 16 December 2021.
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Mrs Peel, you're needed!
http://www.dissolute.com.au/the-avengers-tv-series/
Every episode from 1961 to 1977 plus more trivia than you can shake a brolly at.

Frankymole · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:37 pm Post subject:

IMDB says "When cast in "Diamonds Are Forever" Connery got his salary raised from £2000 to £9000." Now that's the kind of friend to have!

He and his brother are all over the Honor Blackman Self-Defence book. I'll feel extra melancholy when I re-read it.
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Last watched: "The Gilded Cage"

mousemeat · Posted: Thu Dec 16, 2021 1:44 pm Post subject:

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

It's sad to hear about Doug leaving. Crying or Very sad

Just read comments from various stunt performers, buddies, regarding this news on Facebook. He and his brother were quite important persons in the British film and television business of the time, names spoke of quality. Dougie is definitely the most significant figure on this year's list of departed people participating in The Avengers.
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Denis

mousemeat · Posted: Fri Dec 17, 2021 8:06 am Post subject:

denis rigg · A Touch of Brimstone Joined: 06 Sep 2008 Posts: 2591

Jacqueline Davis (TV producer, worked as a production assistant for the Avengers episode Death a La Carte) RIP

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2021/nov/23/jacqueline-davis-obituary

Jacqueline Davis obituary

The television producer Jacqueline Davis, who has died aged 89, is best known for the series Rumpole of the Bailey, which ran from 1978 to 1992. Jacqui “could win the hearts of that most brutal and intractable of bodies – a film unit on location,” said the series creator, and her friend and collaborator, John Mortimer.

The programme starred Leo McKern as the ageing barrister Horace Rumpole, alongside Peggy Thorpe-Bates, Peter Bowles and Patricia Hodge. Rumpole was an everyman’s hero, defending criminals from all walks of life. His exploits were so popular that his stories were told in other media, including the books in which Mortimer novelised Rumpole’s trials until 2006. There are Rumpole societies all over the world; Jacqui once travelled to San Francisco to speak to one.

Jacqui had been introduced to Mortimer by Verity Lambert, head of drama at Thames Television. The pair instantly hit it off, their creative connection apparent from the start. The success of Rumpole led them to form a production company, New Penny Productions, in 1989. Their output was prolific, and included the TV drama Paradise Postponed (1986), which explored why the Rev Simeon Simcox left the millions of his brewery estate to the opportunist Thatcherite politician Leslie Titmuss (David Threlfall). In the 1991 sequel, Titmuss Regained, the loathsome Titmuss was forced to choose whether to sacrifice his political beliefs to save the village. Under the Hammer (1994) followed, in which Richard Wilson portrayed a preposterous auctioneer who would go to great lengths to authenticate a different auctioned item in each episode. Jacqui remained director of New Penny until her retirement in 1995.

She was a skilful producer, and led each step of the production process with easygoing verve. She was not just good at her job, though. She was warm and kind, and brought to Rumpole a friendly good-humour that was reflected in the tone of the show. Like Rumpole, Jacqui championed the underdog, and treated all cast and crew members equally.

As manager of drama at Thames Television from 1968 she oversaw the first broadcast of plays in the afternoon. In 1970 she was made associate producer on Man at the Top, starring Kenneth Haigh, and the following year took the same role on Armchair Theatre. Shortly thereafter, she became a producer.

She made more than 100 episodes each of the popular daytime dramas Harriet’s Back in Town (1972-73) and Rooms (1974-77). She went on to produce drama series such as Zodiac (1974), Killers (1976) and Armchair Thriller (1978-81). Her later successes included Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less (1990), a TV film adaptation of Jeffrey Archer’s 1976 novel of the same name. David Nobbs’s screenplay of Love on a Branch Line by John Hadfield, which starred Michael Maloney as the civil servant Jasper Pye, was Jacqui’s last work to be broadcast, in 1994.

Born in Finsbury Park, north London, Jacqui was found abandoned in a guesthouse in Clapham, south-west London, at six weeks old, and was adopted by the owner, Muriel Purdy. She was evacuated to Surrey during the second world war, and returned four years later to Palmers Green, north London, where her family were now living. She attended Winchmore secondary school, which she did not enjoy, and aged 14 left for technical college. She thought she would learn drawing and dress designing. Instead she was forced to take shorthand, typing, mathematics and bookkeeping; all “horrible subjects” as far as she was concerned.

Jacqui’s accidental enrolment in secretarial school would, however, stand her in good stead. She married her childhood sweetheart, Guy Davis, who worked for ICI, in 1951. Five years later Guy’s work took them to New York. Jacqui easily found a job with CBS, one of the biggest commercial television stations. She was production secretary on The Seven Lively Arts (1957), an 11-episode anthology series that aired on Sunday afternoons, hosted by John Crosby and executive produced by John Houseman. After three years she returned to Palmers Green and became a researcher on Kenneth Clark’s first art history programmes.

In the early 60s, Jacqui decided to take a break from television to pursue her early dream of designing clothes. The Jacqui Davis Boutique opened its doors in Crouch End, where she designed and sold women’s clothing and cufflinks. Jacqui enjoyed being a business owner and designer but, having been surrounded by people all day long in television, did not enjoy spending so much time on her own. Following the breakdown of her marriage in 1967, she returned to television as a production assistant for ABC and then Thames Television.

In the summer of 1963 Jacqui bought an empty greengrocer’s shop in south-west London. Over the course of a year, she renovated the building into the house she would live in for the rest of her life.

Jacqui is survived by a brother, Angus, and a sister, Pamela.

Una Jacqueline Muriel Davis, television producer, born 10 July 1932; died 28 September 2021
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Denis

Frankymole · Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 8:16 am Post subject:

I love Rumpole, and Rooms was a smash hit when Talking Pictures TV repeated it recently (several times, by popular demand).

Verity Lambert worked with the best.

I tried to find the Titmuss series on DVD but couldn't. They seem to have been forgotten which is a shame as they were very popular in their day and David Threlfall is a brilliant actor.
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Last watched: "The Gilded Cage"

mousemeat · Posted: Wed Dec 22, 2021 11:41 am Post subject: