ACTRESS Alexandra Bastedo made her name as star of the 1960s cult TV adventure series The Champions.

She played Sharon Macredy, one of secret agents recruited for the superpowers bestowed on them by mystical holymen after a plane crash in the Himalayas. Well it was the '60s, after all! Week after week they battled evil.

These days the 61-year-old former pin-up, who will be co-hosting the Magic of Mantovani concert at Lighthouse in Poole on Sunday, would welcome a few superpowers to help run her animal rescue campaign. The 10-acre sanctuary she maintains in West Sussex houses 150 cats, dogs, goats, sheep, pigs, ponies and other animals.

But what happened to her Champions sidekicks?

Stuart Damon, the American actor who played Craig Stirling, returned to the States in the 1970s and for the past 30 years has played Dr Alan Quartermaine in the popular soap General Hospital. Such is his popularity with the viewers and fellow actors that when the programme-makers decided to kill him off last year the protests forced them to bring the 70-year-old actor back as Quartermaine's ghost.

William Gaunt, who played agent Richard Barrett, continues to be one of Britain's most popular TV and stage actors. Also 70, he is perhaps best remembered by British TV viewers for his role as harrassed father Arthur Crabtree in the 1980s sitcom No Place Like Home but has also appeared in everything from The Avengers and Doctor Who to Juliet Bravo and the 1990s sitcom Next of Kin with Penelope Keith.

He has also worked extensively in the theatre. His most recent roles were in the Royal Shakespeare Company productions of The Seagull and King Lear at the New London Theatre in Drury Lane.

All three Champions were reunited for the first time in nearly 40 years in 2005 to provide the audio commentary for a special DVD release.