The Purdey cut was unbelievable...I was told to do it myself

In her breakthrough role, playing sexy spy Purdey in 70s classic The New Avengers, she had to do her own stunts - and her own hairdo.

- MARC BAKER

IN her new TV show, Dame Joanna Lumley is exploring the Danube river, from Germany's Black Forest to the Black Sea.

It's the latest colourful adventure in a 56-year career that has been packed with iconic roles.

There will be no time for glamour on her travels, but it won't be the first time Joanna has had to do things the hard way.

In her breakthrough role, playing sexy spy Purdey in 70s classic The New Avengers, she had to do her own stunts - and her own hairdo.

"I remember the haircut was unbelievable," she said, of the famous bob. "I said I wanted my hair cut short and they said: 'You have to do it yourself.' It was extraordinary.

"When I began as a model, you had to do all your own make-up and your own hair, eyelashes, your own fingernails. You had to provide all your own accessories."

And despite being afraid of heights, one episode involved Joanna dangling off the bottom of a helicopter in flight.

She recalled: "They let down a ladder. They told me to step on the first rung and I had to hold this glass of champagne and up we went.

"I hung on and up it goes. I said: 'Where am I going?' and they said: Across Oxfordshire'.

"I was swinging underneath the helicopter for about 40 miles.

My arms were dead as I was hanging on." Younger viewers will know Joanna best as Hester Frump in the Netflix hit Wednesday. Those slightly older will remember her as Patsy in 90s sitcom Absolutely Fabulous.

She also appeared in Steptoe & Son, Coronation Street and Are You Being and played a Served? Bond girl alongside George Lazenby in 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

But she looks back fondly on the early part of her career, modelling in London in the Swinging Sixties.