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On This Day (USA) - 9 September



The Tomb of the Cybermen: Episode 2 premiered on BBC One in 1967 at 5:50pm BST, watched by 6.40 million viewers.

Professor Parry and his team begin to unlock the secrets of the Cybermen's tomb. But there are some amongst the explorers who have a dark agenda of their own.


The Ribos Operation: Part Two premiered on BBC One in 1978 at 6:21pm BST, watched by 8.10 million viewers.

 Birthdays
Gretchen Egolf will be 51 - credited as Norlander in The Zygon Invasion / The Zygon Inversion

Gretchen Egolf is an American theater, film and television actress.

She has guest starred on numerous shows: "Law and Order," "Lie to Me," "CSI: Miami," "Criminal Minds," "The Good Wife," "Without a Trace," "NCIS," and "Medium," among others. She has also played series regular roles in the pilots "Leap of Faith," (NBC) "The Corsairs," (ABC) and "Eden" (USA).


Goran Višnjić will be 52 - credited as Nikola Tesla in Nikola Tesla's Night of Terror

A Croatian–American actor.

He is best known in the United States for his roles as Dr. Luka Kovač on the NBC television series ER and Garcia Flynn on Timeless.


Julia Sawalha will be 56 - credited as Emma in Doctor Who and The Curse Of Fatal Death(Misc)

Julia Sawalha is an English actress known mainly for her role as Saffron Monsoon in Absolutely Fabulous. She is also known for portraying Lynda Day, editor of the Junior Gazette, in Press Gang and Lydia Bennet in the 1995 television miniseries of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. Additionally, she played Dorcas Lane in the BBC's costume drama Lark Rise to Candleford and Carla Borrego in Jonathan Creek.

Sawalha was born in London, the daughter of Roberta Lane and actor Nadim Sawalha. She was named after her grandmother, a Jordanian businesswoman who had received an award from Queen Noor for enterprise. She is of Jordanian, English, and French Huguenot ancestry. As part of an acting family, Sawalha's father Nadim appeared in the James Bond movies The Spy Who Loved Me and The Living Daylights, while her sister Nadia starred in the soap EastEnders and is now a television presenter and chat show host.

Sawalha made her debut in the 1982 BBC miniseries Fame is the Spur and in 1988, played a small role in Inspector Morse on the episode "Last Seen Wearing". She first gained attention for her starring role in the Bafta award-winning ITV teenage comedy/drama Press Gang, which ran from 1989 to 1993.

In 1992 she starred in episode "Parade" (S2 E4) of "Bottom" as Veronica Head, a beautiful young barmaid at the Lamb and Flag, whom Richie tries to woo by boasting of his false adventures in the Falklands.

From 1991–94, she starred in the ITV family comedy Second Thoughts and continued with her character, Hannah (Lynda Bellingham's daughter), in the British Comedy Award-winning Faith in the Future (1995–98). In 1994, she played Mercy (Merry) Pecksniff in the BBC production of Martin Chuzzlewit.

From 1992 to 2012, Sawalha played strait-laced daughter Saffron Monsoon in the BBC sitcom Absolutely Fabulous alongside Jennifer Saunders and Joanna Lumley. She starred in the 1995 BBC adaptation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice as Lydia Bennet, co-starring opposite Jennifer Ehle and Colin Firth. She also voiced Ginger in DreamWorks/Aardman's Chicken Run. In addition, on Christmas Eve, in The Flint Street Nativity, she played Dawn "the wise man".

In 2000, she appeared as Janet, the Australian barmaid ("Built for bar work; it's instinct... instinct!!") in the first series of the British sitcom Time Gentlemen Please. The following year, she became Alan Davies's co-star in Jonathan Creek after Caroline Quentin left, appearing in a Christmas Special ("Satan's Chimney"). She returned for a series between 2003–2004.

In 2006, she participated in the third series of the genealogy documentary series Who Do You Think You Are? tracing her family's roots, which are Jordanian Bedouin on her father's side, and French Huguenot on her mother's. She also appeared in the pilot of BBC 1's A Taste of my Life presented by Nigel Slater. After a two-year break, she was back on screen in May 2007, competing in the BBC dog training celebrity reality show The Underdog Show. She then returned to acting in two successive BBC costume dramas; as Jessie Brown in 2007 series Cranford, followed by Lark Rise to Candleford in 2008.

Sawalha lived with Press Gang co-star Dexter Fletcher, and subsequently comedian Richard Herring. She also had a relationship with Patrick Marber. She reportedly had an affair with actor Keith Allen.

On 1 January 2004, it was alleged in the tabloid newspapers that she had married boyfriend Alan Davies, her co-star in the television series Jonathan Creek. Both she and Davies, who avoided discussing their private lives in public, denied this, and took legal action against the reports.

After she met Rich Annetts at the Glastonbury Festival in 2005, the couple moved to Bath, Somerset, and lived in a flat close to the Royal Crescent. Sawalha started growing her own vegetables, attending yoga lessons and studying for an Open University English degree. Sawalha and Annetts have since split up.

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


Richard Gauntlett will be 61 - 2 credits, including Urak in Time and the Rani

Richard Gauntlett played Urak in the 1987 story Time and the Rani.

Also worked on DealersShakespeare 4 Kidz: A Midsummer Night's DreamThe GrandPigstyMotormouth


Hugh Grant will be 64 - credited as The Doctor in Doctor Who and The Curse Of Fatal Death(Misc)

Hugh Grant is a British actor and film producer. 

He has received a Golden Globe Award, a BAFTA, and an Honorary C�sar. His films have earned more than $2.4 billion from 25 theatrical releases worldwide. Grant achieved international stardom after appearing in Richard Curtis's successful Four Weddings and a Funeral (1994). He used this breakthrough role as a frequent cinematic persona during the 1990s, delivering comic performances in mainstream films like Mickey Blue Eyes (1999) and Notting Hill (1999). By the turn of the 21st century, he had established himself as a leading man skilled with a satirical comic talent. Grant has expanded his oeuvre with critically acclaimed turns as a cad in Bridget Jones's Diary (2001), About A Boy (2002), Love Actually (2003), and American Dreamz (2006). He later played against type with multiple cameo roles in the epic drama film Cloud Atlas(2012).

He played the Twelfth Doctor in the comic relief spoof  The Curse of Fatal Death.


John Novak will be 69 - credited as Salinger in The TV Movie

John Novak (born in Caracas, Venezuela) is an actor and anime voice actor who frequently does voice work for the Ocean Group based in VancouverCanada.

He has also starred in the Wishmaster sequels Wishmaster 3: Beyond The Gates Of Hell, and Wishmaster; The Prophecy Fulfilled replacing Andrew Divoff as The Djinn.

He appeared twice in the TV series Sliders as a shyster lawyer, Ross J. Kelly.

He most recently starred as the Sheriff in Bloodrayne 2: Deliverance.

Novak is probably best known, in Canada at least, from Kokanee beer commercials, as he plays the Park Ranger who is constantly trying to prevent the Kokanee Sasquatch from stealing the beer.


Janet Fielding will be 71 - 72 credits, including Tegan in Logopolis

Janet Fielding  is an Australian actress, known for her role  as Tegan Jovanka, a companion of the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker, and the Fifth Doctor, played by Peter Davison. 

She was born in Brisbane. As 'Janet Claire Fielding' she made her UK TV debut in the Hammer House of Horror episode Charlie Boy, which aired in October 1980 as she was announced as the new Doctor Who companion. Fielding played the part between 1981 and 1984. She made a guest appearance on Jim'll Fix It in a Doctor Who related sketch alongside Colin Baker's Doctor in 1985 (A Fix with Sontarans).

 In 1984, she had a role in the ITV children's drama Murphy's Mob, followed in 1985 with a part in Hold The Back Page. In the 1990s, Fielding worked as a theatrical agent, at one point representing Paul McGann when he took the role of the Eighth Doctor. She returned to acting and the role of Tegan for Big Finish Productions audio plays including The Gathering (2006), Cobwebs and The Cradle of the Snake alongside Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor. 

Fielding has also provided audio commentaries for several DVD releases of Tegan's Doctor Who stories. She also appeared in DVD extras for Frontier in Space and Planet of the Daleks, stories in which she did not appear, where she provided forthright critique on the portrayal of female characters in the serials. Fielding has also worked as the head of finance for a charity, One Plus One.

She was married to editor Nicholas Davies between 1982 and 1991, and was also a partner of Michael Percival for a number of years.



 Deaths
Howell Jones (died 2014 aged 86) - 4 credits, including Manton's Officer in A Good Man Goes to War

Howell Evans was a Welsh actor, comedian, and singer who worked extensively in television and theatre roles in a career spanning over 60 years. 

He was best known for having played "Daddy" in the Sky1 TV comedy drama series Stella.


Bill Fraser (died 1987 aged 79) - 2 credits, including General Grugger in Meglos

Bill Fraser was a Scottish actor on the British stage and screen for many years. In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play When We Are Married.

Early life

Fraser was born in Perth, Scotland and educated at Strathallan School. He began his career as a clerk in a bank before moving on to acting. In the early days when acting work was scarce, Fraser was often penniless, frequently sleeping rough on the Embankment at London. Before World War II he ran the Connaught Theatre in Worthing; when called up he served in a Royal Air Force Special Liaison Unit, reaching the rank of Flight Lieutenant, where he met and became friends with Eric Sykes. Just after the war a chance meeting in a London street led to Fraser's giving Sykes his first work as a writer for radio comedy and the two friends worked together many times over the following years. Fraser is also credited with giving Peter Cushing his first acting job.

Career

Fraser often played irascible or belligerent characters on screen and had many roles as a policeman, soldier or judge. His first television appearance was on The Tony Hancock Show in 1956, after which he became a regular actor on Hancock's Half Hour. He then joined The Army Game as Sgt Claude Snudge, which led to a sequel called Bootsie and Snudge. He also played Snudge in the 1964 series Foreign Affairs. Later comedic roles included parts in the TV dramatisation of The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13¾ as well as Ripping Yarns, The Train Now Standing, The Corn is Green and Father, Dear Father.

He also appeared in the comedy films The Amorous Milkman and Doctor at Large; the big-screen version of Love Thy Neighbour; and the Frankie Howerd trilogy Up Pompeii!, Up the Front and Up the Chastity Belt.

He had a recurring role on Rumpole of the Bailey as Judge Roger Bullingham, an unsympathetic judge privately nicknamed "the Mad Bull" by defence barrister Horace Rumpole.

Fraser's straight parts included Boanerges in The Apple Cart and Eddie Waters in Comedians, both for the BBC, and appearances on The Professionals and The Avengers. He also starred in the Doctor Who story Meglos in 1980, and appeared in the spin-off show K-9 and Company the following year. In the early 80s he was in two series of a straight drama on BBC1, Flesh and Blood; his performance in its first episode of an industrialist sitting at the bedside of his dying wife was regarded by many as a tour de force.

He appeared as Mr Micawber in the TV dramatisation of David Copperfield in 1966. He played Serjeant Buzzfuzz in the TV musical Pickwick for the BBC in 1969; and his last role was as Mr Casby in the 1988 screened production of Little Dorrit.

Fraser also appeared in an early advertisement for the Austin Metro. In 1985 he was cast as Bert Baxter in The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.

During those periods when Fraser was not acting, he ran a small sweetshop and tobacconists at Ilford Lane in Ilford, Essex.

Bill Fraser played husband to Googie Withers in the Chichester Theatre production of Maugham's, The Circle. It transferred to the West End and played at the Haymarket, and then toured England. The cast included Susan Hampshire and John McCallum (Googie Withers' husband).

Awards

In 1986 he won the Laurence Olivier Award for Best Comedy Performance for his stage role in the play When We Are Married.

Death

He died from emphysema in Hertfordshire, aged 79, leaving a widow, the actress Pamela Cundell, whom he had married in 1981.

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