Lumley: I was ‘upskirted’ in New Avengers photocall
Actress reveals how she was forced to ‘hoik up’ her dress during 1976 shoot to publicise the series
FOR a generation of television viewers, it was a photograph that encapsulated one of the biggest shows of the age: Joanna Lumley posing against a Rollsroyce with a revolver tucked into her stockings in a photocall for The New Avengers.
But the image, which was released to publicise the actress joining the Seventies series, was actually an example of “upskirting”, Lumley has claimed.
Although the character Purdey was her breakthrough role – and Lumley was able to choose her hairstyle and some of her clothes – she said she faced sexist attitudes while fighting to make the character more progressive.
Lumley, 72, revealed she wanted John Steed’s sidekick in the 1976 series, to portray a more feminist image, and thought she should be in tights and flat shoes instead of stockings and high heels.
Against the wishes of producers and the press, Lumley wore tights to the photocall to announce her part in the show, but was told the event would not get any publicity unless she changed into stockings. She says she was even asked to “hoik up” her skirt to show off her legs.
On yesterday’s Marr Show, Andrew the Absolutely Fabulous star described a scene she thought was indicative of the attitudes toward women at the time. “When we launched it and were about to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, the new Avenger girl will be Joanna Lumley’, it was outside the Dorchester, and we’d got a great big Rolls-royce, they’d got all the accoutrements, an umbrella, they’d got a bowler hat, they’d got all the things that looked a bit Avenger-ish and they said, ‘Joanna, if you could just come up in the Rollsroyce and hoik up your skirt and show us your stockings’, and I said, ‘but I’m wearing tights.’
“There was a dull roar from the press gang and they said, ‘If you’re not wearing stockings we won’t cover the occasion and we won’t take any pictures.”
She claimed she then ran into the Dorchester and “ripped the stockings off ” an “oldish woman” in exchange for £5. But because the lady was shorter than Lumley, the stockings were not long enough – and they were not even a pair. Lumley explained: “So I stood there and they said, ‘Put a gun in your stocking’. I put a gun there. They would only take a picture of me – talk about upskirting – if I had stockings on and a gun in my stocking.” However, she added that she loved playing the role, especially the combat scenes in which she relished being able to practise her kick. The actress played a spy working for British intelligence in the popular series, alongside Patrick Macnee and Gareth Hunt. She put her stamp on the role, choosing the character’s distinctive short hairstyle herself, asking the hairdresser to cut it to look like a “prep schoolboy”.
She told the Cheltenham Literature Festival in 2012: “They said they had never had a heroine on screen with short hair. If they didn’t like it, I’d have to pay for a wig and wear it throughout the show. Luckily, the world loved it and I became the patron saint of hairdressers. suddenly the Purdey haircut became fashionable and hairdressers were thrilled with me.”
Lumley is due to set off on a live tour, It’s All About Me, which begins on Oct 6, during which she will answer questions from the audience.
The penultimate episode of Joanna Lumley’s Silk Road Adventure, which documents her travels along the old trade route that linked China with the West, is devoted to Iran. It airs on Wednesday on ITV at 9pm.
‘There was a dull roar from the press gang and they said if you’re not wearing stockings we won’t cover the occasion and we won’t take any pictures’