the saint

Edward Woodward, probably best known to U.S. audiences as crime-fighting ex-agent Robert McCall on the cool 80s series The Equalizer, has died at the age of 79.

Of course, before taking that role, Woodward had a long, distinguished film career, starring in such classic films as Breaker Morant and The Wicker Man. Long before The Equalizer he did a British series where he played a spy in the series Callan, which ran from 1967 to 1972.. He appeared in several other TV shows over the years, including The Defenders, The Saint, La Femme Nikita, CI5, Over My Dead Body, Nice Work, 1990, The Edward Woodward Hour, and many others.

This year he guest starred in several episodes of the classic British show EastEnders. He was also an accomplished stage actor and singer.

In AOL TV's continuing countdown of the best TV shows of each decade, we travel back in time to the 1960s, when viewers were entertained by wacky sitcoms like 'Green Acres,' 'Bewitched' and 'The Addams Family,' a proliferation of Westerns that featured future superstars like Clint Eastwood and Michael Landon, variety shows like 'Laugh-In' and 'The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour' and James Bond-inspired spy shows like 'The Saint' and 'I Spy.'

Viewers were also into grittier fare like realistic cop dramas ('Ironside,' 'Adam-12') and war action series ('12 O'Clock High,' 'Combat!'), though there was plenty of classic sitcom fun on the airwaves, too, from 'The Andy Griffith Show' and 'The Dick Van Dyke Show' to 'Get Smart' and 'My Three Sons.'

Take a look at our picks of the decade's best and let us know if we got it right. -- By Kimberly Potts

Hello! The Saint is rising again. The venerable character, who was created by writer Leslie Chareris in novels in the 1920's, will be back on television in a contemporary setting, and actor James Purefoy (Rome) has been in talks to play Simon Templar, the suave, British "good guy" thief. Aside from Purefoy, the Hollywood Reporter writes that the production team includes first class talent: Homicide's Barry Levinson and Tom Fontana (Oz), writer Jorge Zamacona, Bill Macdonald, and the original TV Saint himself, Roger Moore, and his son Geoffrey Moore.