THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD
1,787) Linda Thorson — “Wishful Thinking”
This number with Tara King-sized sass was to have appeared on a ’70 UK single, but only made it onto the B-side of a ’71 Portuguese EP. (https://www.discogs.com/es/release/6640372-Linda-Thorson-You-Will-Want-Me)
Richie Unterberger writes that:
Linda Thorson is known primarily as a stage, screen, and television actress, her late-’60s stint in the TV series The Avengers being her most famous role. It’s not well known that, at the apex of her exposure on The Avengers, she also recorded some pop singles for the U.K.’s small Ember label. Produced [and, in the case of “Wishful Thinking”, written] by Kenny Lynch, who’d had some success of his own as a singer/songwriter in Britain in the ’60s, these actually were respectable pop-soul concoctions. They were derivative and unexceptional, though Thorson’s vocals were competent and respectably emotive, not just a novelty vehicle as an adjunct to her television stardom.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/linda-thorson-mn0000831575#biography
Linda was born in Toronto, Canada (sorry about that World Series thing) and in ‘65 moved to the UK to study acting. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linda_Thorson) Hal Erickson tells us that:
[When] Linda Thorsen replaced Diana Rigg on . . . The Avengers, one critic summed up Thorson as “a cute trick, but not in Diana’s league.” Hold on there! Though Thorson was only 20, she was no mere bubble-headed starlet. The daughter of a Canadian math and physics teacher, she was a trained dancer and an alumnus of London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. She had previously won speaking and singing honors while in school, and was well on her way to a prestigious stage career when she was selected from a field of 200 actresses to play Tara King, the new partner of crimefighter John Steed . . . . Some fans of the series have a low regard of Thorson’s contributions, citing her misguided efforts to inject more sexual tension between Tara and Steed, and her tendency to react more fearfully to dangerous situations than the unflappable Rigg. In point of fact, Thorson was only following orders; the producers . . . were responsible for the questionable “improvements” in their flagging property. After the series’ cancellation in 1969, Thorson launched her stage career in earnest, racking up respectable credits on the British stage and in such films as Valentino . . . and The Great Tycoon . . . . She won a Theatre World Award for her 1982 Broadway debut in Steaming, and proved a superb farceur in the . . . stage comedy Noises Off. The mature, poised, wryly self-confident Linda Thorson who co-starred on the 1986 TV comedy series Marblehead Manor was a far cry from the slightly awkward, plucked-eyebrowed nymphet who co-starred in the waning days of The Avengers.
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