The Avengers International Fan Forum

Frankymole wrote:Thanks! I lifted it from here: http://www.wrekers.nl/Season7.htm

wow...nice.....lol..

Looks like Joanna David and Edward Fox decided to get married some 30 years after Emilia was born. Goodness knows why (pension/insurance? Late-onset romanticism?), but it's a nice touch! As a Jeremy Brett fan, I'm surprised I never got round to seeing her co-starring with Brett in Rebecca, and Emilia played the same role later on too.

I've just posted this to my website, but I thought I'd direct link it here as well. I recently acquired a copy of Woman magazine from April, 1977, which features a nice long interview with Gareth, as well as three pictures I've never come across before (though one may look rather familiar now on account of my avatar ). It's quite a good piece, with lots of nice little touches, everything from Gareth's defective umbrella to him apologising for not being particularly funny that day (used it all up trying to cheer up Joanna on set, no doubt). It also explains why he was so paranoid about his car being towed in another article I read from later that year--there's one mystery cleared up. I get the funny feeling he's pulling the interviewer's leg when he claims he made up the story about being thrown in jail for going AWOL from the navy--he grins wickedly after he says it, after all.

You can read the article here. "Has Success Spoiled Our Gareth?" the article asks. The short answer, if you have no time to read: no.

Timeless, Where is your website? Have a link? Does everyone here have a website? You guys are awesome and true Avenger experts. How fortunate I am!

anti-clockwise wrote:Timeless, Where is your website? Have a link? Does everyone here have a website? You guys are awesome and true Avenger experts. How fortunate I am!

Yes, I have a site--it's linked in my signature, actually, but you can also find it at avengersanew.com. It's a TNA-only site, as it's been the focus of most of my interest in the show in the last few years, and there isn't nearly as much available about it as the original series. I've been neglecting it terribly, though, and it needs some major updates, and the photo galleries have been down an inordinately long time. Sorry about that.

We have a fair number of people with sites here, including the people who run most of the major sites on the show on the net, so we're very lucky indeed.

anti-clockwise wrote:Does everyone here have a website?

I don't!!! I used to have a Colin Jeavons gallery up on Livejournal, that was it

Timeless A-Peel wrote:You can read the article here. "Has Success Spoiled Our Gareth?" the article asks. The short answer, if you have no time to read: no.

Heehee, excellent. There are few similarly unspoiled actors in the profession!

So, did he stick with Carrie and her sausages?

Frankymole wrote:

Timeless A-Peel wrote:You can read the article here. "Has Success Spoiled Our Gareth?" the article asks. The short answer, if you have no time to read: no.

Heehee, excellent. There are few similarly unspoiled actors in the profession!

So, did he stick with Carrie and her sausages?

He always seemed really ordinary and unaffected, which is to his credit. I get the sense he was pretty quiet and private generally, too. He could do an entertaining interview, but in the end he would have rather just gone and hung out with a good friend, like Joanna.

Alas, he and Carrie didn't last. I'm fairly certain it was his break-up with her that he was still recovering from when he met his second wife (the dates add up). Like Patrick, he finally got it right with marriage number three--he was with Mandy for ages, until he died. I can't comment on his continued relationship with the sausages.

Gareth appears in the comedy horror Bloodbath at the House of death (starring Kenny Everett ) on the horror channel tonight. Never heard of this one before. Sounds like one of those films that is so bad it's good! I've set my skybox. Rich.

So I watched The Hanged Man, for the very good reason "Because Gareth is in it." It was actually pretty good, Gareth aside. It's basically an eight-part miniseries, which made for a change as it actually had a heavy dose of continuity, something I'm not used to seeing in shows from that time, but it was really gratifying when the characters referred casually to something that happened two episodes back.

The premise is pretty straight-forward. Lew Burnett (played by Colin Blakely, whose part in Murdersville we've been chatting about recently. He was also the interrogator in the Champions clips episode "The Interrogation", which I watched, awhile back, but don't remember what said interrogator looked like well enough to recognise him) having survived several attempts on his life, decides to pretend that the latest attempt worked and "stays dead" to buy himself time to work out who it is who's trying to kill him, and why. Michael Williams (who I've just discovered was Judi Dench's husband!) plays Alan Crowe, an ex-mercenary who now works for an insurance company (I'm so serious) doesn't believe Lew's dead, so he tracks him down and offers to help him out, basically because he's bored and figures he could learn a trick or two. Of the two, Alan is my favourite. Lew's always getting beaten up and bloodied, but Alan gets the job done and barely ruffles his side-part. They make a pretty good double act. This is one of those shows where the characters manage to be likeable and follow their own code of ethics, despite having done and still doing some morally questionable stuff. It actually reminds me a bit of Man in a Suitcase. I would have loved a show where Alana, Lew, and McGill traipsed across Europe doing jobs and writing wrongs like a bloodier, more brutal Persuaders (the suitcase probably would have gotten jealous, though ).

They're tracked almost the whole time by an assassin named Quentin, who is possibly the least-successful hired killer ever, because he manages to kill lots of people around Lew, but fails to kill Lew himself a whole whack of times. Even his employer (who leaves all his instructions on an answering machine or communicates via intercom) points out that his success rate isn't too good. Honestly, you'd think he'd hire someone else, because it must be costing a fortune to keep him on.

Gareth has a two-episode stint as one of Alan's shady contacts at a shady bar where shady stuff goes on. All his scenes are quite talky, so he doesn't get a lot of action. Instead he smokes a lot, gets sent to do dirty work, and reports back on the state of things. It's not a mile away from Gambit, though, since it's insinuated he can go off and do a fair bit of damage when required. This was shot in 1974, so it's pre- both Upstairs, Downstairs and TNA, but I desperately want to know when in 1974, because Gareth shot his guest spot in UpDown in August of the same year (which led to him being asked back as part of the regular cast), and his hair was pretty short there, but it's quite a bit longer here. So either he did this first and cut it, or he did it after and grew it out really fast. If anyone has a production date, I'd be grateful.

There's also a whole whack of Avengers guest stars floating around in pretty much every episode--Julian Glover, Frederick Jaeger, Angela Browne, and loads of others where I know the face but not the name, plus Ray Smith from Dempsey and Makepeace. Jane Seymour pops up at the end as Lew's daughter, fresh off Live and Let Die.

It's really quite enjoyable, and it kept me hooked because I wanted to know who was trying to kill Lew. It's more violent than, say, TNA, but by today's standards it's nothing. I'd recommend it.