I think today should be...

Dame Helen Mirren (born 26th July 1945)

...a "Say Something Hat" day. Don't you?

Mollie Sugden (20th July 1922 – 1st July 2009)

Theda Bara (29th July 1885 – 7th April 1955)

Estelle Getty (25th July 1923 - 22nd July 2008)

Vivian Vance (26th July 1909 – 17th August 1979

Sally Ann Howes, aka "Truly Scrumptious" (born 20th July 1930)

Dame Diana Rigg (20th July 1938 – 10th September 2020)

Gloria DeHaven (23rd July 1925 – 30th July 2016)

Lynda Carter (who was 70 on 24th July 1951)

Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Onassis (28th July 1929 – 19th May 1994)

Watch for baggy knees; there is nothing worse

"In those days, trousers were appallingly cut for women so I used to go to a gentlemen's tailor to have them made. Nowadays you can look at some quite highly priced clothes and be astonished at how badly they are finished. But then, people don't look for that any more, it's only old bags like me that do. When I need to look smart, I go for Armani because he's just absolutely brilliant at tailoring. I always dress for myself, not men or other women."

"If a man holds a door open for me or pulls back a chair so that this old bag can sit down, I'm delighted. Women who moan and carp about that sort of thing are stupid."

"The leather catsuit I wore in The Avengers was a total nightmare; it took a good 45 minutes to get unzipped to go to the loo. It was like struggling in and out of a wet-suit. Once I got into the jersey catsuits, they were very easy to wear but you had to watch for baggy knees; there is nothing worse."

"I got a lot of very odd fan mail while I was in that show, but my mum used to enjoy replying to it. Some of the men who wrote to me must have been a bit startled because she would offer really motherly advice. I would get a letter from a teenage boy, say, who was overexcited and my mother would write back saying: 'My daughter is far too old for you and what you really need is a good run around the block.'."

"Yes I have a dark side, doesn’t everyone? I’ve played a lot of evil, ball-breaking women. And, if you’re honest, you’ll just drag up from the depths all the times you’ve hated or felt passionately about something and play it."

"The older you get, I have to say, the funnier you find life. That's the only way to go. If you get serious about yourself as you get old, you are pathetic."

The Avengers, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Mother Love, Evil Under The Sun, Theatre of Blood, Mrs Bradley Mysteries, Pygmalion - we loved her in all of them.

RIP, Dame Enid Diana Elizabeth Rigg, DBE (20th July 1938 – 10th September 2020)

The world is a far more dreary place without her.

[More Diana Rigg here]

A tinge of disgrace

"I hope there's a tinge of disgrace about me. Hopefully, there's one good scandal left in me yet."

Dame Diana Rigg, born 20 July 1938.

Diana Rigg: her story