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On This Day (USA) - 7 April



Planet of the Daleks: Episode One premiered on BBC One in 1973 at 6:11pm BST, watched by 11.00 million viewers.

Injured by the Orgrons, the Doctor asks the Time Lords to send the TARDIS after the Daleks. Leaving him to sleep and recuperate, Jo goes to explore the planet Spirodon.


World War Three premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2006 at 9:00pm EDT

The Shakespeare Code premiered on BBC One in 2007 at 6:59pm BST, watched by 7.23 million viewers.

Stage Fright premiered on BBC Three in 2007 at 7:45pm BST

 Birthdays

Clarke Peters was 72 - credited as Night Eagle in Dreamland

Clarke Peters is an American actorsingerwriter and director best known for his roles as Detective Lester Freamon and Albert "Big Chief" Lambreaux, on the HBO dramasThe Wire and Treme respectively



Arthur Cox (died 2021 aged 87) would have been 90 - 2 credits, including Cully in The Dominators

Arthur Cox was a British actor of television and film.

His most regular role was as George, the driver of Jim Hacker in the comedy Yes Minister. His other television credits include The Avengers,Terry and June, and Harbour Lights

His roles of Cully and Mr Henderson in the Doctor Who stories The Dominators and The Eleventh Hour make him the record holder for longest gap between appearances on the series.

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


Cynthia Grenville (died 2021 aged 90) would have been 93 - credited as Maren in The Brain of Morbius

Actress who appeared in the 1976 story, The Brain of Morbius.

Also appeared in The Citadel, Kessler and Poldark.

She acted in Jerry Bock and Joseph Stein's musical, "Fiddler on the Roof," at Her Majesty's Theatre in London, England with Topol, Miriam Karlin, Paul Whitsun-Jones, Sander Eles, Rosemary Nicols, Dilys Watling, George Little, Jonathan Lynn, Caryl Little, Tony Sympson, Derek Birch, Terence Soall, and Brian Hewitt-Jones in the cat. Jerome Robbins was director. 


Andrew Sachs (died 2016 aged 86) would have been 94 - 5 credits, including Skagra in Shada (Online)(Misc)

Andrew Sachs was born in Berlin in 1930, but his family moved to England in 1938 to escape Germany (his father being Jewish) - they setlled in Kilburn, where the actor spent the rest of his life.

His acting career encompass stage, television and screen, with appearances in series like The Saint, Randall & Hopkirk Deceased, and the film The Night We Dropped A Clanger. However, it was as Spanish waiter Manual alongside John Cleese in Fawlty Towers that was to become his most famous role and a household name. He later appeared in some 27 episodes of Coronation Street as Ramsey, and also in the 2008 Christmas special of Casualty.

On radio, he portrayed Father Brown in the 1980s, and Doctor Watson in original Sherlock Holmes stories for BBC Radio 4 during the 2000s. He also played Professor Chronitis in a 2007 adaptation of Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, and Tooley in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere in 2013.

He also played the voice of the Book in the live tour of Douglas Adams's The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy in 2012.

Though he never appeared in the television series, his Doctor Who credentials included playing Skagra in the Big Finish/BBC Online adaptation of another Douglas Adams creation, Shada, and also Big Finish audio adventures TheBoyThatTimeForgot and Orbis. He also appeared as Temmosus in the BBC Radio 4 audio play Whatever Happened To... Susan Foreman?.

As well as acting he was also a veteran narrator of numerous television and radio documentaries, including all five series of Troubleshooter; he also narrated several audio books, such as the Narnia series by CS Lewis.

In 2012 he was diagnosed with vascular dementia, but this was kept secret until his death in 2016.

His autobiography, I Know Nothing!, was published in 2014.

He married his wife Melody in 1960 (who also appeared in an episode of Fawlty Towers), and had a stepson John and grand-daughter Georgina.



 Deaths
Tim Pigott-Smith (died 2017 aged 70) - 2 credits, including Marco in The Masque of Mandragora

Tim Pigott-Smith was an English film and television actor.

Pigott-Smith was born in Rugby, Warwickshire, the son of Margaret Muriel (née Goodman) and Harry Thomas Pigott-Smith, who was a journalist. He was educated at Wyggeston Boys' School, Leicester, King Edward VI School Stratford-upon-Avon, and Bristol University. He trained as an actor at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School.

Notable appearances included Ronald Merrick in The Jewel in the Crown, the title role in the crime drama series The Chief (1990-1993), a recurring role in ITV drama The Vice as Ken Stott's nemesis, Vickers, Bloody Sunday and two separate adaptations of North and South. In the 1975 version he played Frederick Hale, while in 2004 he played his father Richard.

His film career included the 2004 film Alexander, The Four Feathers, Gangs of New York, Johnny English, The Remains of the Day, and V for Vendetta. Tim also makes an appearance in the 2008 film Quantum of Solace.

Pigott-Smith was a regular stage actor in Shakespearean and Greek roles; for instance, he played Posthumus in John Barton's 1974 production of Cymbeline for the Royal Shakespeare Company. His most recent appearance was as Kenneth Lay in ENRON (2009).

He received an OBE in 2017.