Baker is probably best known for the starring role of Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford from 1987-2000 on ITV, although his previous notable roles included the BBC’s legendary I, Claudius in the key role of Tiberius and various appearances in the James Bond series, in particular the key role of Sir Hilary Bray in 1969′s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (as well as appearances in You Only Live Twice and The Spy Who Loved Me). Baker found himself dubbing star George Lazenby’s dialogue as the Australian’s accent was considered too broad to realistically impersonate Bray while undercover.

George Baker was born April 1st, 1931 in the city of Varna, Bulgaria, where his father was honorary vice consul. He appeared in repertory after leaving Lancing College, appeared at the Old Vic and began his film and television career in the 1950s, appearing in wartime classic The Dam Busters. A string of high-profile roles followed, with Baker easily able to pick and choose as he switched between stage, TV and cinema.

It was in 1980 that he appeared as Login in Andrew Smith‘s Full Circle, the first installment of the E-Space Trilogy. In the story, Login is a respected member of the Starliner community on Alzarius, and throughout the course of the events of the serial he finds himself as one of the three Deciders who govern their people. Despite a couple of dated visual effects sequences, Full Circle is one of the most memorable episodes from the 1980 season, featuring an interesting scientific concept; if you haven’t seen it yet, you should certainly begin making arrangements to do so.

Following his starring role as Wexford, Baker’s TV roles were restricted to prominent guest appearances, with Randall & Hopkirk (Deceased) (2001), Coronation Street (2003), Midsomer Murders and Spooks (both 2005) among his guest appearances.

Naturally it is sad to lose another great British actor, and one associated with Doctor Who, but Baker’s achievements even surpass encountering the Time Lord. As well as acting, he was a talented scriptwriter and producer, and his 1980 BBC2 play The Fatal Spring won a United Nations peace award for its portrayal of the first world war poets Wilfred Owen, Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves.

Baker is survived by four daughters from his first marriage and one from his second; he married three times, to the costume designer Julia Squires, to Sally Home, and to Louie Ramsay, his on-screen wife in the Inspector Wexford series.

George Baker died from pneumonia on October 7th, 2011, and will be widely missed.

Obituaries to George Baker can be found at:

• The Guardian
• BBC News
• The Telegraph

Doctor Who

Hewlett passed away after a long battle with illness at the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital in west London on Saturday the BBC reports.

Hewlett made his only appearance in Doctor Who as Hardiman in the 1971 classic The Claws of Axos but will always be remembered as the Commanding officer in the World War II British India based sitcom It Ain’t Half Hot Mum which ran from 1974-1981.

He is survived by his wife, Therese, and five children including daughter Siobhan, who is also an actress and has appeared in both Torchwood and Sherlock.

To Doctor Who fans, Skelton was the voice of the Daleks from 1967 to 1988, his final appearance being in Remembrance of the Daleks. Voice duties for Daleks on the new show have of course been taken over by Nicholas Briggs who also voices the Cybermen, another voice provided by Skelton in the classic series.

Skelton wasn’t only a voice actor, however, and he appeared in classic serials Colony in Space (1971, as Norton), The Android Invasion (1975, as Chedaki) and Planet of the Daleks (1973, as Wester). He also voiced the Krotons from the eponymous serial and King Rokon in The Hand of Fear in 1976.

However, it was as Zippy and George, the stars of Rainbow, that Skelton became best known, with his voice emanating from the two puppets for over 20 years on a Wednesday and Friday lunchtime. The pink hippo with his slightly effete ways and the orange Zippy (apparently originally derived from a snake) became television legends and two of the most popular characters to appear on TV, all thanks to Skelton’s superb delivery and comic timing.

Examples of his voice work as Zippy and George can be found online, and Skelton and the two puppets were regular guests on shows as recently as 2008, with appearances on The Weakest Link and Harry Hill’s TV Burp.

Skelton was born in 1932 and is survived by his daughter Samantha Skelton.

Both the Hancock brothers played a small but crucial part in Doctor Who’s history. Terry Nation had written for the show Hancock until he was fired by Tony- enabling him to join Doctor Who which he had previously refused to do.

While Roger Hancock was instrumental in negotiating with the BBC over the use of the Daleks resulting in the Terry Nation estate retaining the power to choose which Dalek stories can be  transmitted on television.

Hancock’s death has become tangled in bureaucracy following changes to protocol following the Harold Shipman murders. Anybody whose death has been ruled ‘unnatural’ has to have both an autopsy and an inquest leaving  his son, Tim, who has run the agency since Roger unofficially retired in 1996, to find a way through the ‘red tape nightmare’.

Rogers death came as a result of a series of falls and occured on the same day one of his clients, the Only Fools and Horses writer John Sullivan, also passed away after a viral infection.

Tim Hancock paid glowing tribute to his father:

“He was the wise old owl whom I would consult. He is a very hard act to follow. He had no greater delight than to embarrass the hell out of his children. He stopped coming into the office in 1996, but he still claimed he was working until four or five years ago.

If I can be half the man he was, I will die a happy man.”

You can get an idea of the role Roger Hancock played in Terry Nation’s career from the recent book by Alwyn Turner, The Man Who Invented the Daleks – The Strange Worlds of Terry Nation.

You will know Elmes’ work as the opening titles and logo that graced the Sylvester McCoy era of the show, and various merchandise that was released between 1987 and 1996, including the Virgin New Adventures novels.

The video below will remind you of his work, which took 3 months to complete using the CAL video system:

You can visit the BBC Logo Gallery for more information about the pioneering graphics work that Elmes completed at the BBC during the 1980s.

Born in Liverpool on 1 February 1948, Sladen was best known for her portrayal of time travelling companion Sarah Jane Smith from 1973 to 1976 opposite Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and had in recent years returned to the role thanks to an appearance in the 2006 episode School Reunion and the subsequent spin-off series, The Sarah Jane Adventures, as well as the finales The Stolen Earth/Journey’s End and The End of Time, Part Two.

In the intervening years, Sarah Jane Smith had also been allowed to breathe in the failed pilot K-9 and Company, 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors and various fan-funded productions, before taking Sarah Jane off on her own with a series of popular audios produced by Big Finish.

Easily one of the most popular and enduring characters in Doctor Who’s history, Sarah Jane Smith was always played with the right tone, never for laughs, and Elisabeth Sladen was always absolutely true to the character who she clearly came to love, and be very protective of.

Like Tom Baker after her, Elisabeth Sladen came to Doctor Who to replace a very popular actress, in this case Katy Manning’s Jo Grant. Her difference to her predecessor made her an instant hit as the feminist journalist Sarah Jane Smith, while her similar background with new co-star Tom Baker (both were born in Liverpool to part-Irish families) saw her become a vital part of the show following the departure of Jon Pertwee.

This is just the tip of the iceberg, of course. Sarah Jane Smith’s restoration to the TV Whoniverse in School Reunion in 2006 made perfect sense, as did The Sarah Jane Aventures, a show that made Elisabeth Sladen a much loved figure for children of a completely new generation, something that her energy and enduring good looks will surely have helped.

Beyond her commitment to Sarah Jane and the love fans had for both actress and character, Elisabeth Sladen was more than an actress who repeatedly played the same part over a 36 year period. Indeed, she made regular appearances on TV before and after Doctor Who.

Sladen’s other roles included Len Fairclough’s girlfriend Anita Reynolds in Coronation Street back in 1970, as Sarah Collins in the barely-remembered cult classic Doomwatch in 1972, as both Valerie Hollingsworth and Rose in two Z Cars serials in 1971 and 1972 and even as fruit shop girl Judy in a 1973 edition of Some Mothers Do ‘Ave ‘Em opposite Michael Crawford.

Post-Doctor Who, Elisabeth Sladen starred with Victor Spinetti in Take My Wife as Josie Hall, as well as appearing as a bank secretary in the David Essex movie Silver Dream Racer. With appearances in The Bill and Dempsey and Makepeace in the 1980s, a regular role in Peak Practice came along in 1996 as Dr. Pat Hewland.

That’s quite a varied career, one that was conducted around giving birth to and raising daughter Sadie with her husband, actor Brian Miller, whom she married in 1968. Interestingly Sladen’s autobiography is due for release on April 25th, while Doctor Who Magazine’s Sarah Jane Smith special is due to appear in newsagents today.

News of Elisabeth Sladen’s sad passing, attributed to cancer, has swarmed the Internet (via news sites, Twitter and Facebook) with quite remarkable fervour since it was first rumoured on Tuesday evening. We have been informed that online news services in territories where Doctor Who is largely ignored are running this as major stories; meanwhile the reaction to this news, which comes just a few weeks after the loss of another enduring Doctor Who star, Nick Courtney, has been nothing short of awe-inspiring.

Elisabeth Sladen was a true legend of Doctor Who, graceful, passionate and clearly hugely loved.

Further news and obituaries can be found at:

• BBC News
• BBC.co.uk/Doctor Who
• The Guardian
• The Telegraph
• Doctor Who News Page
• SFX
• Digital Spy
• Den of Geek
• ITN

Meanwhile the following (very different) tributes are particularly moving:

• Elisabeth Sladen’s Doctor Who co-star, Tom Baker
• IDW comic series writer and fan Tony Lee

A towering actor in both height and ability, he is best known to Doctor Who fans as the eponymous Celestrial Toymaker (1966) and Councillor Hedin (1983′s Arc of Infinity) as well as being the one-time husband of Anneke Wills, who played the First and Second Doctor’s companion Polly.

However Gough – who was remarkably born November 23rd, 1916 – is also well known in theatre and cinema as one of the greatest actors of his generation, with Laurence Olivier and John Gielgud among his peers.

Gough most recently appeared in Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland (2010), and had previous appeared in Burton’s Sleepy Hollow and Corpse Bride, as well as famously playing Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred Pennyworth in both of Burton’s Batman movies as well as the Joel Schumacher-directed Batman Forever and Batman & Robin.

However these titles are the tip of a screen career that dates back to 1948′s Anna Karenina, 1955′s Richard III, 1969′s Women in Love and many more.

Michael Gough’s loss will be widely felt in showbusiness, such was popular regard for him.

Born in Egypt on 16th December 1929, William Nicholas Stone Courtney completed National Service in 1950 and joined the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art before entering repertory theatre in 1952. Over the coming years he moved to London, where he able to find work on TV and became a familiar face popping up in shows such as Callan, The Saint, and The Avengers.

However it was for Doctor Who that Nicholas Courtney would become best known, and his first appearance came as Space Security Agent Bret Vyon in The Daleks’ Master Plan in 1964, opposite First Doctor actor William Hartnell. This one-off casting unbeknowlingly aided Courtney in becoming the only actor to appear on screen with the first five Doctors; a few years later he was cast as Colonel Lethbridge-Stewart in The Web of Fear where he became a friend of the Second Doctor (Patrick Troughton).

By 1969, a new earth-based format for Doctor Who was envisaged and Courtney was invited back once more to appear in The Invasion. By now UNIT had been formed and Lethbridge-Stewart promoted to Brigadier, and his team’s military expertise was enough to help the Doctor defeat the Cybermen.

One year later, The Invasion deemed a success by outgoing producer Peter Bryant, and a new Doctor cast, the show was reformatted with Jon Pertwee as the Third Doctor, with Liz Shaw as his companion and Nicholas Courtney in a new permanent role as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, the Doctor’s friend and occasional frustration. It was during this period that the actor became an iconic element of Who lore, and over the coming years her would appear in 23 stories (including appearing as an alternative universe version, Brigade Leader Lethbridge-Stewart in Inferno, above), making a final regular appearance in Season 12′s Robot.

As a regular between 1970 and 1974, Courtney formed a close bond with his fellow cast members that was ultimately rocked by the sudden death of fellow regular (Master actor) Roger Delgado in 1973.

With 1975′s Terror of the Zygons his character’s last appearance as a member of UNIT, Nicholas Courtney was regularly in work in the theatre but was able to take part in a couple of Doctor Who 20th anniversary season episodes, namely Mawdryn Undead and The Five Doctors. With a final on-screen appearance with Sylvester McCoy in Battlefield in 1989 Courtney soon found himself a focal point of Doctor Who fandom, appearing at conventions and events around the world.

“The Brigadier” as he was affectionately known would appear in several Big Finish audio plays, but made his final appearance on screen in The Sarah Jane Adventures story Enemy of the Bane in 2008.

While Doctor Who was off-air, Courtney appeared in a couple of official BBC radio adventures with Jon Pertwee and Lis Sladen – The Paradise of Death and The Ghosts of N-Space were traditional adventures which were popular with fans. Following the success of Doctor Who’s revival, Courtney was asked to appear opposite Tom Baker in the audio-only series that would become Hornet’s Nest - while he initially agreed, illness meant that he was unable to appear.

Nicholas Courtney died on 22nd February 2011 and is survived by his wife Karen, his son Philip and daughter Bella.

…And he will be greatly missed.

Press Reports and Obituaries

• The Stage
• BBC News
• The Mirror
• Press Association
• The Stage Obituary
• The Guardian
• The Telegraph Obituary
• The Telegraph report/opinion/BBC jibe
• Daily Express
• BBC Official Doctor Who site

Further tributes can be found online at:

• Big Finish
• www.tom-baker.co.uk
• Doctor Who Online
• SFX
• Digital Spy
• Den of Geek
• Doctor Who TV
• Down the Tubes
• io9.com
• Nebula One News
• Shiny Shelf
• Media Spy
• The Register
• Universe Who (Portuguese)

Additionally, Nicholas Courtney’s official website www.greyhoundleader.com will be providing a space for fans to leave tributes over the coming days.

“Nicholas Courtney” is currently the 5th most popular trending topic on Twitter, reports The Independent.

We’ll be updating the page throughout the day and over the next week or so as more tributes to the late Nicholas Courtney are published.

Born in 1929, he started his illustrious career by performing several Gilbert and Sullivan shows at St Patricks College. Despite spending six years working in banks and finance, McKenna never let go of the acting bug that he had caught and made the decision to join the prestigious Abbey Theatre.

Between the years of 1953 and 1962, the actor took part in over seventy stage roles whilst also performing with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the Royal National Theatre Company.

Whilst he starred in films alongside Hollywood talents such as Gregory Peck and Dustin Hoffman, he never shied away from television roles. He appeared in cult shows such as The Sweeney, Minder, The Saint, Blake’s 7 and on three separate occasions in The Avengers.

Doctor Who fans will recognise the actor from the 1988 adventure The Greatest Show in the Galaxy, where McKenna played an egotistical and selfish explorer called Captain Cook. He brought a brilliant edge to the character, one of nobility, pride and ruthlessness all at the same time.

Irish actress Roma Tomelty described the actor as:

“One of a new generation of Irish actors with this fierce, wonderful energy, but still in the old natural tradition, he had a blend of both.”

T P McKenna passed away on Sunday, February 13th 2011 after a long illness. He was 81 years old and is survived by a daughter and four sons. His funeral will take place at  St.Kilian’s Church, Mullagh, Co.Cavan on Saturday 26th February, 2011.

You can find out more about the actor’s career at www.tpmckenna.com.

Our thoughts are with his family at this time.

Related articles

• Irish actor TP McKenna dies at 81 (bbc.co.uk)
• TP McKenna: Actor whose career took him from the Abbey Theatre to numerous character roles on stage and screen (independent.co.uk)
• TP McKenna obituary (guardian.co.uk)

Norman was Technical Operations Manager on Crew 9 based at Lime Grove, London, who, during down time made the serendipitous discover of the ‘visual howl-around’- the haunting effect that was a mainstay of the show until being replaced by the star effect in 1980.

After experimenting with a camera filming a monitor showing its own image, Norman found that:

“I got the usual effect of diminishing images of the monitor disappearing into limbo, when suddenly some stray light hit the monitor screen and the whole picture went mobile with swirling patterns of black and white. Later I repeated the experiment but fed a black and white caption mixed with the camera output to the monitor, and very soon got the Doctor Who effect.”

The titles were believed to have been recorded in August 1963 in TC5 at Television Centre where Bernard Lodge, who was credited as creating the titles, was marshaling proceedings from the gallery while Taylor lit a match to trigger the ‘howl-around’ while Hugh Sheppard operated the camera.

Taylor was given a Technical Suggestion award of £25.00, a handsome fee at the time.

Later in life, Norman claimed to be:

“Somewhat miffed that Bernard Lodge got the credit when all he did was to produce one white on black caption”.

For discovering such a vital component in giving Doctor Who its other-worldliness  Taylor deserves every accolade for his sterling work.

(Via Gallifreynewsbase)