Segments from Rigby's abbreviated autobiography, begun shortly before his death, are included in the book by his long-time friend, the television and radio dramatist Juliet Ace, Rigby Shlept Here: A Memoir of Terence Rigby 1937–2008. Along with correspondence and interviews with his friends and theatrical colleagues, Ace's memoir draws on her own diaries and shows much of the working actor and private man who remained a mystery to those close to him. It was published in November, 2014.

Film roles included: Get Carter (1971), Watership Down (1978), Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), Elizabeth (1998), Mona Lisa Smile (2003) and Colour Me Kubrick (2006).

Among his stage credits was the première of No Man's Land by Harold Pinter, at the Royal National Theatre in 1975, in which he played a supporting role to the leads played by John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson. His first work with Pinter was in the original Peter Hall production of The Homecoming (1965), when he created the role of Joey. He received considerable acclaim for his portrayal of Joseph Stalin in another National Theatre production, Robert Bolt's State of Revolution, opposite Michael Bryant.

He was also Dr Watson to Tom Baker's Sherlock Holmes. The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982) was known amongst the crew as the 'Tom and Terry show'.

Rigby died at home in London on 10 August 2008 of lung cancer, after a period of illness.