RIP Patrick Macnee

We've lost another one of the legends of genre, one of the masterful actors of our time. Today, at the age of 93, we have lost Patrick Macnee.

Most of the time when folks read or hear me talking about the Avengers, it's the Marvel superhero comic, but Patrick Macnee was part of another Avengers team, the cool Avengers. In the 1960s spy series "The Avengers," Patrick Macnee played the quite dangerous gentleman in the bowler hat and the quick dry wit, and the always sexy female companion. Whether it was Honor Blackman, Julie Stevens, Linda Thorson, Joanna Lumley, or the dazzling mod minx Diana Rigg who accompanied him, John Steed was the epitome of quirky cool. "The Avengers" was smart fun television, the likes of which has rarely been seen since.

The series was by far his only claim to fame however. Macnee was an actor for decades, one of his first roles was in the Alistair Sim (the best) version of A Christmas Carol as young Marley. He's been in James Bond projects, played Sherlock Holmes, been in dozens of TV shows, and most memorably he was the demonic savior Count Iblis in the original "Battlestar Galactica." Macnee was also in This Is Spinal Tap, and he was even an invisible agent in the much-maligned theatrical version of The Avengers.

Macnee was a star of stage and screen, both silver and small, even appearing in music videos by the Pretenders and Oasis. We've lost a legend, and he will be missed.