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Empire

RAMBLING AND RUMBUSTIOUS DALLAS parody set in the boardroom of a large industrial company run by John Steed.

6 Comments

6 Comments

  1. Glenn Aylett

    December 31, 2022 at 1:33 pm

    The post Avengers career of Patrick Macnee is quite interesting and this was one of his attempts at comedy that sadly didn’t work very well. Also around the same time he appeared in an episode of Magnum PI as an ex British Army officer friend of Higgins and I spotted him in a 1975 episode of Columbo as a Merchant Navy captain.

    • Sidney Balmoral James

      December 31, 2022 at 1:54 pm

      I can recommend Patrick Macnee’s autobiography Blind in One Ear, which is very frank about his struggle with alcoholism post-Avengers, and the frankly rather dismal procession of roles he played.

      • Glenn Aylett

        December 31, 2022 at 4:37 pm

        @ Sidney, he was still mostly known as John Steed and probably typecast in that role. He did make a reasonable amount promoting American Fords, but even there, he was cast as some kind of John Steed English gentleman. Also he was probably narked that while Empire would have kept the money rolling in and he played a ruthless American businessman rather than an English gent, the show rated badly and was axed after one series. Rather a shame as Macnee was a good actor, but viewers must have wondered where his bowler hat was and his cut glass accent.

  2. Richardpd

    December 31, 2022 at 3:01 pm

    Ironically before playing Steed he considered retiring from acting to become a TV producer.

    He was a record company executive in This Is Spinal Tap.

  3. Sidney Balmoral James

    December 31, 2022 at 6:33 pm

    His knighted British record exec (Sir Denis Eton-Hogg) I’ve always presumed was a spoof of Sir Joseph Lockwood, Chair of EMI. Until recently. Shadey, in which he played a businessman with incestuous feelings for daughter Leslie Ash, was a really obscure credit, only to my knowledge shown once by Channel 4. I can’t remember anything about it, other than Anthony Sher had psychic powers which people wanted to harness. It presumably was shown briefly in cinemas, as I remember seeing a poster in London.

  4. Droogie

    December 31, 2022 at 7:45 pm

    Don’t forget him in the video for Don’t Look Back In Anger by Oasis – strolling around a country estate full of dolly birds while he twirls his umbrella Steed-style.

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