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On This Day (USA) - 21 February



Doctor Who And The Silurians: Episode 4 premiered on BBC One in 1970 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 8.20 million viewers.

Fearful of a war breaking out between the Silurians and mankind, the Doctor attempts to make peace between the races. But there are those on both sides unwilling to listen.


Television Club: Putting On A Show (2) premiered on BBC One in 1972 at 11:30am GMT

The Seeds of Doom: Part Four premiered on BBC One in 1976 at 5:46pm GMT, watched by 11.10 million viewers.

Keeler has been infected by the alien pod and is transforming into a Krynoid. Chase refuses to listen to the Doctor's warning and throws him into a compost machine.


The Keeper of Traken: Part Four premiered on BBC One in 1981 at 5:12pm GMT, watched by 6.10 million viewers.

 Birthdays
Huw Higginson was 60 - 2 credits, including Mr Cunningham in The Day of the Clown(SJA)

Huw Higginson is an English actor. He is most famous for playing PC George Garfield in The Bill from 1989 to 1999. He has appeared inHeartbeatEastEndersCasualty and Jessica. He also appeared as Mr Cunningham in two stories of The Sarah Jane Adventures entitled The Day of the Clown and The Mark of the Berserker.


Van Epperson was 67 - credited as Archivist in The New World(TW)

Actor who appeared in Torchwood


Elize du Toit was 44 - 2 credits, including Miss Dexter in The Sound of Drums / Last of the Time Lords

Elize du Toit  is a South African born actress best known for playing the role of Izzy Davies in the Channel 4 soap opera Hollyoaks from 2000 to 2004, with a brief return in 2007.

Elize du Toit was born in Grahamstown, South Africa, the second of four children, to an artist mother and an orthodontist father. She spent most of her childhood in Pretoria, SA. She moved toBerkshire, United Kingdom in December 1994, where she completed her A-levels, attaining straight As in English, French, History and History of Art. She studied History at Edinburgh University. She currently lives in KensingtonLondon with husband, actor Rafe Spall.

Du Toit won the role of Izzy Davies in the Channel 4 Soap Opera Hollyoaks after an open audition – beating out 40,000 hopefuls. She left the show in 2004 after four years filming inLiverpool.

In November 2011, Du Toit made an appearance in Coronation Street as Jenny, the ex-girlfriend of Matt Carter.

Biography from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA


Kenneth Seeger was 93 - credited as Cyberman in The Tomb of the Cybermen

Kenneth Seeger played a Cyberman in the Doctor Who story The Tomb of the Cybermen.

Also worked on Z CarsDixon of Dock GreenKnock on Any DoorThe Haunted HouseQuatermass and the PitBefore Your Very Eyes


George Selway (died 1994 aged 70) would have been 100 - credited as Meadows in The Faceless Ones

George Selway was a British actor who had a lengthy career in film and television.

He played George Meadows in the Doctor Who story The Faceless Ones.

He played a police sergeant in two films starring Hayley MillsTiger Bay (1959) and Sky West and Crooked (1966).


Sydney Arnold (died 1993 aged 93) would have been 124 - credited as Perkins in The Highlanders

Sydney, (also sometimes credited as Sidney, was a comedy actor in the English theatre and on television. Although small in statue, (he was under 5'), he had an abundance of energy that saw him working well into his 90's. At the age of eighty he received rave notices for his performance as Estragon in Waiting for Godot for the Causes Theatre Company. He was a stalwart of the light comedy series with regular guest appearances on the Benny Hill show. Committed to the profession at all levels he was one of the founding fathers of British Actors Equity.


 Deaths
Stewart Bevan (died 2022 aged 73) - 3 credits, including Clifford Jones in The Green Death

Stewart Bevan was a British actor, best known for his performances in both film and television.

He played Clifford Jones, Jo Grant's love interest, in the 1973 story The Green Death.

His film credits include: The Flesh and Blood Show, The Ghoul, Brannigan, Steptoe and Son Ride Again, and House of Mortal Sin.

TV roles include: Public Eye, Secret Army,Shoestring, Blake's 7, The Enigma Files, Airline, The Gentle Touch, Casualty, Silent Witness and Murder in Mind.


Raymond P Cusick (died 2013 aged 85) - 15 credits, including Designer for The Daleks (as Raymond Cusick)

Raymond  Cusick was a designer for the British Broadcasting Corporation. He was best known for designing the Daleks, created by Terry Nation for the second Doctor Who story.

Born in London, Cusick became interested in engineering while still at art school, and began attending evening classes. However, his father wanted him to follow a more regular career, so Cusick took a course in mathematics and science, intending to become a civil engineer. Not finding this to his liking, he enlisted instead in the British Army and found himself stationed in Palestine but did not enjoy that experience either. On his return to England he completed a teacher-training course, but then obtained a nine-month position in repertory theatre at the Prince of Wales Theatre in Cardiff.

In the late-1950s Cusick took a position teaching art but then noticed an advertisement placed by Granada Television for designers on a show, Chelsea at Nine, which was recorded at the Chelsea Palace Theatre. 

Cusick then joined the BBC as a staff designer responsible for set design on a large number of Doctor Who stories, designing not just futuristic settings but also historical sets and diorama. Cusick worked on a large variety of television programmes for the BBC including comedy, variety, drama, single plays, and films.

As Cusick was a BBC employee at the time he designed the Daleks, he was on a salary and not paid royalties. Given the large revenue generated by merchandise featuring Cusick's Dalek design, some feel that he should have been paid a royalty (as was script writer Terry Nation, who created the concept of the Daleks but not their design or appearance). However, this was not in the terms of his contract. Despite this, the BBC did recognise his contribution with an ex-gratia payment. Cusick himself never asked for more money; just to be recognised as the designer.

In the late-1970s, he was a designer for the James Burke BBC programme Connections. He lived near HorshamWest Sussex. After retiring as an art director for the BBC he wrote - as a hobby - about battles from the Napoleonic era, and contributed to a number of specialist magazines and periodicals.

In July 2008 he appeared in an episode of the BBC Three documentary series Doctor Who Confidential, where he spoke of the original Dalek design and how the concept came to fruition. He also contributed commentaries and appeared in features for the BBC DVD range.

Cusick died of heart failure in his sleep after a short illness, leaving two daughters and seven grandchildren. He was 84 years old.

Biography segments reproduced from the Wikipedia article, licensed under CC-BY-SA  


Ron Grainer (died 1981 aged 58) - 327 credits, including Title Music for An Unearthly Child

Ron Grainer was one of the mos prolific composers of music for British television.  He composed the Doctor Who Theme music used on every episode of the series.

Grainer was born in Atherton, Queensland, Australia, where his father owned the local milk bar. His mother played piano and Ron was on the keyboard from the age of two and considered a child genius, playing concerts for the local community by the age of six. 

He studied music under Sir Eugene Goosens at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, but this was interrupted by World War II. He returned to Sydney Conservatorium when the war ended but he gave up the violin to concentrate on composition. 

In 1952, he moved to England, initially finding work as a pianist in light entertainment, touring as part of a musical act - The Alien Brothers & June - with other acts such as Billy Daniels, Guy Mitchell, Frankie Laine, Al Martino and Billy Eckstine. He was rewarded with no less than three appearances at the London Palladium.

He began to act regularly as musical adviser to many gala programmes produced by Associated Rediffusion TV, including those featuring Tito Gobbi and Maria Callas. He was asked to write music for a number of television plays, including The Birthday Party, and also accepted the job as musical adviser to a Julie Andrews series. He was commissioned to write both the theme and incidental music for a new detective series - "Maigret" (1960) - based on the books written by Georges Simenon. This proved to be a major landmark in Grainer's own career. His work on Maigret, which began in 1960 with Rupert Davies in the title role, was directly responsible for him securing his first recording deal with Warner Bros., who issued both a single and e.p. featuring musical extracts from the BBC series. Bandleader Joe Loss also recorded the theme and perhaps surprisingly it was his single which reached number 20 in the charts.

Over the next few years, a succession of TV themes and scores followed, many for the BBC. The first of these was Happy Joe in 1962, the theme to "Comedy Playhouse" One of the first Comedy Playhouse pilots to get its own series was "Steptoe and Son" (1962), which starred Wilfrid Brambell and Harry H. Corbett as the feuding father and son rag and bone men. Grainer was invited to compose the theme, which he named Old Ned - a reference to the horse which in the opening sequence was shown pulling the cart along.

One of BBC's very first cooking programmes, Fanny Craddock, transmitted in 1963, also benefited from a Grainer theme, as did Giants Of Steam, "The Flying Swan" (1965) & "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1962). In 1963, Grainer was asked to provide a theme for a new children's BBC's science fiction series entitled "Doctor Who" (1963). Despite some changes in the arrangement, this theme is still being used today.

Producer Ned Sherrin was impressed with Grainer's ability to create themes for such a wide variety of programmes and in the same year commissioned him to compose the theme for the ground-breaking satirical BBC TV show, "That Was the Week That Was" (1962) and its successor, "Not So Much a Programme, More a Way of Life" (1964). Lyricist Caryl Brahms provided the words sung by Millicent Martin.

After concentrating for a few years on films and theatre work, 1967 saw him back on the small screen. "Man in a Suitcase" (1967), an ITC series starring Richard Bradford as McGill - "The Prisoner (1967). and  "Paul Temple" (1969), created by thriller-writer Francis Durbridge for a series of novels in the 1930s.

 In the early seventies, Grainer achieved further success as a writer of television themes with three commissions for London Weekend Television: Man In The News, "Trouble with Lilian, The" (1971) and "The Train Now Standing (1972), as well as one for Thames - "For the Love of Ada" (1970). 

He was commissioned by Anglia Television to write the theme for a new mystery series entitled "Tales of the Unexpected" (1979). Thames Television provided Grainer with two further commissions in that same year. "Born and Bred" (1978) and "Edward & Mrs. Simpson" (1980). 

Ron Grainer continued writing music for television and films right up to his death in 1981, including two comedies for Independent Television: "Shelley" (1979) and "It Takes a Worried Man" (1981) His score for The Business Of Murder, an episode of LWT's Saturday Night Thriller series, was his very last and was transmitted posthumously in 1982. 

He died on 21st February, 1981, suffering from cancer of the spine.