Walk on the Wild Side - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,125
that Miss Kent had been blackballed by the industry after her unexpected departure from the series resulted in The Agency’s plummeting in the ratings and merciful cancellation after a partial season with a forgettable DD-cup Malibu blonde stuffed into the role of female lead. The consensus, however, pointed out that after her role in The Agency it was Stacey Steele who was in demand, and not Elisabeth Kent. Once the fad for secret agent films passed, there were no more roles for Stacy Steele. Nor for Elisabeth Kent. A situation-comedy series flopped after three episodes. Two films with her in straight dramatic roles were noteworthy bombs, and a third was never released. Even if Elisabeth Kent succeeded in convincing some producer or director that she was not Stacey Steele, her public remained adamant.
Her only film appearance within the past decade had been as the villainess in a Hong Kong chop-fooey opus, Tiger Fists Against the Dragon. Perhaps it lost some little in translation.
Inevitably, The Agency attracted a dedicated fan following, and Stacy Steele became a cult figure. The same was true to a lesser extent for Garrett Channing, although that actor’s death not long after the series’ cancellation spared him both the benefits and the hazards of such a status. The note he left upon his desk: “Goodbye, World—I can no longer accept your tedium” was considered an enviable exit line.
The Agency premiered in the mid-1960s, just catching the crest of the Carnaby Street mod-look craze. Harrison Dane, suave superspy and mature man of the world though he was, was decidedly hip to today’s swinging beat, and the promos boldly characterized him as a “mod James Bond.” No business suits and narrow ties for Harrison Dane: “We want to take the stuffiness out of secret agenting,” to quote one producer. As the sophisticated counterpart to the irrepressible Miss Steele, Dane saved the day once a week attired in various outfits consisting of bell-bottom trousers, paisley shirts, Nehru jackets, and lots of beads and badges. If one critic described Harrison Dane as “a middle-aged Beatle,” the public applauded this “anti-establishment super-spy.”
No such criticism touched the image of Stacey Steele. Stacey Steele was the American viewing public’s ideal of the Swinging London Bird—her long-legged physique perfectly suited to vinyl mini-dresses and thigh-high boots. Each episode became a showcase for her daring fashions—briefest of miniskirts, hip-hugging leather bell-bottoms, see-through (as much as the censors would permit) blouses, cut-out dresses, patent boots, psychedelic jewelry, groovy hats, all that was marvy, fab and gear. There was talk of opening a franchise of Stacey Steele Boutiques, and Miss Steele became a featured model in various popular magazines seeking to portray the latest fashions for the Liberated Lady of the Sixties. By this time Elisabeth Kent’s carefully modulated BBC accent would never betray her Long Island birthright to the unstudied ear.
Stacey Steele was instant pin-up material, and stills of the miniskirted secret agent covered many a dorm wall beside blowups of Bogie and black-light posters. Later detractors argued that The Agency would never have lasted its first season without Stacey Steeles legs, and that the series was little more than an American version of one of the imported British spy shows. Fans rebutted such charges with the assertion that it had all started with James Bond anyway, and The Agency proved that the Americans could do it best. Pin-up photos of Stacey Steele continue to sell well twenty years after.
While The Agency may have been plainly derivative of a popular British series, American viewers made it their favorite show against formidable prime-time competition from the other two networks. For three glorious seasons The Agency ruled Saturday nights. Then, Elisabeth Kent’s sudden departure from the series: catastrophe, mediocrity, cancellation. But not oblivion. The series passed into syndication and thus into the twilight zone of odd-hour reruns on local channels and independent networks. Old fans remembered, new fans were born. The Agency developed a cult following, and Stacey Steele became its goddess.
In that sense, among its priesthood was Alex Webley. He had begun his worship two decades ago in the TV lounge of a college dorm, amidst the incense of spilled beer and tobacco smoke and an inspired choir of whistles and guffaws. The first night he watched The Agency Webley had been blowing some tangerine with an old high school buddy who had brought a little down from Antioch. Webley didn’t think he’d gotten off, but when the miniskirted Miss Steele used dazzling karate chops to dispatch two