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On This Day (USA) - 8 August



The Reign Of Terror: A Land of Fear premiered on BBC One in 1964 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 6.90 million viewers.

When the Doctor attempts to return Ian and Barbara to their own time, the TARDIS actually lands in 18th Century France during the French Revolution.


Slipback: Episode Five premiered on Radio 4 in 1985 at 9:44am BST

Slipback: The Final Episode premiered on Radio 4 in 1985 at 11:36am BST

 Birthdays
Rosanna Lavelle will be 45 - credited as Barbara Smith in The Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith(SJA)

Rosanna Lavelle is an English actress. 

Lavelle has won critical praise for her stage roles. She was called the "emotional core" of the 2006 revival of An Inspector Calls. Lavelle's performance as Beatrice in A View from the Bridgewith the National Student Drama Festival won a Sunday Times Outstanding Performance Award,Scarborough.

She is currently working as a drama teacher in North London.


Tom Georgeson will be 87 - 2 credits, including Kavell in Genesis of the Daleks

Tom Georgeson is a British actor, best known for his television and film work. 

His most notable credits have been supporting parts in Between The Lines (1992-94) and in three dramas by Alan Bleasdale; Boys from the Blackstuff (1982) Scully (1984) and G.B.H. (1991). He appeared as the lawyer's clerk Clamb in the BBC adaptation of Bleak House by Charles Dickens (2005).

Other television work has included roles in notable police or hospital dramas such as Holby City, Juliet Bravo, The Manageress, Peak Practice, Agatha Christie's Poirot, A Touch of Frost, Cadfael, The Bill, Dalziel and Pascoe, The Professionals and Z-Cars. He has also appeared twice in Doctor Who, in the stories Genesis of the Daleks and Logopolis. He has also appeared in Ashes to Ashes, Foyle's War and The Crimson Petal and the White.

His film credits include A Fish Called Wanda (1988), where his character's name was a play on his own: "George Thomason". He is also well known for his stage work and was nominated for a 2002 London Evening Standard Theatre Award for Best Actor for his performance in Frozen at the Royal National Theatre: Cottesloe.


Keith Barron (died 2017 aged 83) would be 90 - 3 credits, including Striker in Enlightenment

Keith Barron is an English actor and television presenter.

He played Striker in the 1983 Doctor Who serial Enlightenment

In the early 1960s as the easy-going Detective Sergeant Swift in the Granada TV series The Odd Man and its spin-off It's Dark Outside. His major breakthrough, was as Nigel Barton, in the Dennis Potter plays Stand Up, Nigel Barton and Vote, Vote, Vote for Nigel Barton in BBC1's The Wednesday Playanthology series. Other parts included roles in Redcap, Z-Cars,  Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The New Avengers, The Professionals and A Touch Of Frost. 

He made two appearances in Upstairs, Downstairs as Australian Gregory Wilmot. One of his best-loved and best-remembered roles was in the 1980s Yorkshire Television sitcom Duty Free. In the 1990s he co-starred in the sitcoms Haggard and All Night Long. In the 2000s he was a regular character on the ITV Sunday night drama Where the Heart Is.

On the big screen, he appeared in Baby Love (1968) and the David Puttnam film Melody (1971) as Mr Latimer.


Terry Nation (died 1997 aged 66) would be 94 - 44 credits, including Writer for The Daleks

Terry Nation was a Welsh novelist and screenwriter best known for creating the Daleks for Doctor Who and the BBC series Survivors and Blake's 7.

Nation was born in Cardiff in Wales. He initially worked in comedy working for Associated London Scripts alongside Johnny Speight and John Junkin. He wrote for scores of British comedians including Terry Scott, Eric Sykes, Harry Worth and Frankie Howerd. His big break came in 1962 when he was commissioned to write material for the comedian Tony Hancock, initially for Hancock's new ATV television series and later for his stage show.

Nation accompanied Hancock as his chief screenwriter on tour in 1963, but Hancock continually fell back onto his old material and failed to use Nation's scripts. The two quarrelled and Nation was fired. At the same time nation was approached by Doctor Who script Editor David Whitaker to contribute to the new science-fiction series. Whitaker had been impressed with a script Nation had written for the science fiction anthology series Out of this World for ABC. Nation took up the offer, writing the second Doctor Who serial - The Daleks  which saw the introduction of the creatures that would become the show's most popular monsters

Nation went on to contribute several further scripts to Doctor Who. Various Dalek spin-off material appeared, including a comic strip in TV Century 21 and annuals. 

He also contributed episodes to such shows as The Avengers, The Baron, The Persuaders!, The Champions, Department S, and The Saint. In the late 1960s Nation attempted to launch the Daleks as a series in their own right in the United States, but this was not successful.

In the early 1970s the BBC commissioned  him to create a new science fiction drama series. Survivors was a post-apocalyptic tale of the few remaining humans, the population having been devastated by a plague. The show was well received, but Nation's vision for it conflicted with that of producer Terence Dudley and the other two seasons were produced without his involvement. 

His next BBC creation, Blake's 7, was more successful. The show told the story of a group of criminals and political prisoners on the run from the sinister Federation in a stolen alien space ship of unknown origins. It ran for four seasons from 1978 to 1981. Nation wrote the entire first season of the series. His input decreased over the run, the overall direction eventually being controlled by script editor Chris Boucher, with Nation not writing at all for the fourth and final season. 

In 1980 Nation moved to Los Angeles, California where he developed programme ideas and worked for various studios. Little of his work in this time was as successful as his original period in the United Kingdom. He contributed to the American TV series MacGyver, in addition to television series such as A Masterpiece of Murder and A Fine Romance.

Nation died from emphysema in Los Angeles on 9 March 1997.


Earl Cameron (died 2020 aged 102) would be 107 - credited as Williams in The Tenth Planet

Earl Cameron, CBE  is a Bermudian actor.

He appeared in the 1966 Doctor Who story The Tenth Planet

Cameron was born in Pembroke, Bermuda. His first stage experience came in 1942 when he talked his way into a West End production of Chu Chin Chow. He went on to act in a number of plays in London, including The Petrified Forest. 

He has appeared in the films Pool of London, Simba, The Heart Within, Sapphire (1959) in which played Dr Robbins; and The Message (1976) - the story of the Prophet Muhammad.

Other film appearances have included: Tarzan the Magnificent (1960), in which he played Tate; No Kidding (1960); Flame in the Streets (1961), in which he played Gabriel Gomez; Tarzan's Three Challenges (1963), in which he played Mang;Guns at Batasi (1964), in which he played Captain Abraham; Battle Beneath the Earth (1967), in which he played Sergeant Seth Hawkins; The Sandwich Man (1966), in which he played a bus conductor; and the James Bond movie Thunderball (1965), in which he played Bond's Caribbean assistant Pinder Romania.

His most recent film appearances include a major role in The Interpreter (2005), playing the fictitious dictator Edmond Zuwanie. 

One of Cameron's earliest TV roles was a starring part in the BBC 1960 TV drama The Dark Man, in which he played a West Indian cab driver in the UK. The show examined the reactions and prejudices he faced in his work. In 1956 he had a smaller part in another BBC drama exploring racism in the workplace, Man From The Sun, in which he appeared as community leader Joseph Brent.

He appeared in a range of popular television shows including five episodes of the TV series Danger Man (Secret Agent in the US) alongside series star Patrick McGoohan. 

His other television work includes Emergency - Ward 10, The Zoo Gang, Crown Court (two different stories, each 3 episodes long, in 1973), Jackanory (a BBC children's series in which he read five of the Brer Rabbit stories in 1971), Dixon of Dock Green, Neverwhere, Waking the Dead, Kavanagh QC, Babyfather, EastEnders (a small role as a Mr Lambert), Dalziel and Pascoe, and Lovejoy.

He also appeared in a number of other one-off TV dramas, including: Television Playhouse (1957); A World Inside BBC (1962); ITV Play of the Week (two stories � The Gentle Assassin (1962) and I Can Walk Where I Like Can't I? (1964); the BBC's Wind Versus Polygamy (1968); ITV's A Fear of Strangers (1964), in which he played Ramsay, a black saxophonist and small-time criminal who is detained by the police on suspicion of murder and who is also racially abused by a Chief Inspector Dyke played by Stanley Baker; Festival: the Respectful Prostitute (1964); ITV Play of the Week � The Death of Bessie Smith (1965); Theatre 625: The Minister (1965); The Great Kandinsky (1994); and two episodes of Thirty-Minute Theatre (Anything You Say 1969 and another in 1971).


John Baker (died 2002 aged 85) would be 107 - 4 credits, including Paramilitry in Silver Nemesis

John Baker appeared in two Doctor Who stories: as a Time Lord in Colony in Space and Ralph in The Visitation.

Had a long career in British television appearing in Class ActAnglo Saxon AttitudesThe Brittas EmpireAmerican RampageThe Dark AngelDavid CopperfieldBergeracBy the Sword DividedOne by OneSquadronPlay for TodayShine on Harvey MoonA Tale of Two CitiesSpy!Crime and PunishmentSecret ArmyBlakes 7Our Mutual FriendThe Growing Pains of PC PenroseAre You Being Served?Heil Caesar!Casanova '73War & PeaceAlcock and GanderThe DoctorsTrogThe Wednesday PlayThe AvengersTwo in CloverCold Comfort FarmTheatre 625It!Quick Before They Catch UsRotten to the CoreR3Contract to KillCount of Monte CristoThe Big NoiseSergeant CorkThe Edgar Wallace Mystery TheatreFive to OneSix More Faces of JimMan Who Couldn't WalkThe Frightened CityEcho Four TwoThe Unstoppable ManDeadline MidnightEmergency-Ward 10Mother Courage and Her ChildrenLife in Emergency Ward 10The Last Chronicle of BarsetCover Girl KillerThe ViseBig GunsThe Adventures of Robin HoodCat GirlBBC Sunday-Night TheatreSuspended AlibiThe End of the RoadThe Crime of the CenturySatellite in the SkyThe Black RiderThe Beggar's OperaThe Broken HorseshoeNocturne in ScotlandMidshipman BarneyFive Children and ItFace to FaceThe Cruise of the Toytown BelleGood FridayR.U.RKing LearAliceMorning DepartureHere We Come Gathering: A Story of the Kentish OrchardsHotel Reserve 


Scott Slimon (died 1980 aged 64) would be 109 - credited as Set Decorator for Dr Who and the Daleks(Aaru)

Scott Slimon  was a set decorator

He was nominated for an Academy Award in the category Best Art Direction for the film Suddenly, Last Summer.



 Deaths
Simon Lack (died 1980 aged 66) - 2 credits, including Zadek in The Androids of Tara

Simon Lack appeared in two Doctor Who stories: as Professor Kettering in The Mind of Evil and Zadek in The Androids of Tara.

Simon Lack was a Scottish actor who appeared in pre-World War II films such as Goodbye, Mr Chips. After the War he worked in television and radio (he was on the BBC Drama Repertory Company in the 1950s) as well as on stage. His TV appearances included roles in South Riding, Dixon of Dock Green and the original Dr Finlay's Casebook.

On radio he played John Tregorran in The Archers and was a regular without a fixed role in the Paul Temple serials.