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On This Day (USA) - 7 July



Children Of Earth: Day Two premiered on BBC One in 2009 at 9:00pm BST, watched by 6.14 million viewers.
Torchwood are forced underground, as the government takes swift and brutal action. With members of the team being hunted down, only Lois holds the key to Torchwood's salvation - but she is helpless as her superiors make plans for the mysterious Floor 13.

 Birthdays

Mat Irvine was 76 - 9 credits, including Visual Effects Designer for Warriors of the Deep

Mat Irvine was a Technical Consultant and Visual Effects Designer who worked on television, primarily for the BBC, from the 1970s to the 1990s, including on a number of episodes of Doctor Who

He is credited with building the first K-9 prop for the serial The Invisible Enemy, (1977). Irvine eventually built a second K-9 that could cover rougher ground. He occasionally operated the K-9 prop during filming. 

In 1981, Irvine served as Visual Effects Designer for the Doctor Who spin-off, K-9 and Company. 

Irvine also worked on shows such as The Sky at Night, Tomorrow's World and Robot Wars, on which he was hired as a technical consultant in 1998.

His work as a Visual Effects Designer included Rentaghost, Terry and June, Blake's 7, The Tripods, Edge of Darkness and To the Manor Born.


Ringo Starr was 84 - credited as Himself in The Chase
Ringo Starr is an English musician and actor who gained worldwide fame as the drummer for the Beatles.

Mostyn Evans (died 1990 aged 67) would have been 101 - 3 credits, including Dai Evans in The Green Death

Mostyn Evans appeared in two Doctor Who stories: as Dai Evans in The Green Death and the High Priest in Death to the Daleks.


Jon Pertwee (died 1996 aged 76) would have been 105 - 42 credits, including Doctor Who in Spearhead From Space

Jon Pertwee is a British actor best known for his portrayal of the Third Doctor between 1970 and 1974.

Pertwee was born in Chelsea, London, the son of noted screenwriter and actor Roland Pertwee.He joined the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), but  was expelled after he refused to play a Greek "wind" during one of the lessons. He joined the Royal Navy, spending some time working in naval intelligence during the Second World War. He was a crew member of HMS Hood and was transferred off the ship shortly before she was sunk, losing all but three men. 

After the war he made a name for himself as a comedy actor, notably on radio in Waterlogged Spa, alongside Eric Barker, and Puffney Post Office in which he played a hapless old postman. From 1959 to 1977, he had a long-running role as the conniving Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in The Navy Lark on BBC Radio. 

On stage, he played the part of Lycus in the 1963 London production of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum with Frankie Howerd and appeared in the smaller role of Crassus in the 1966 film version. He appeared as Sidney Tait in the 1963 comedy Ladies Who Do and later in four Carry On films: Carry On Cleo (1964, as the soothsayer), Carry On Screaming (1966, as Dr. Fettle), Carry On Cowboy(1965, as Sheriff Earp) and Carry On Columbus (1992, as Duke of Costa Brava). 

On television, he started off with small parts in children's shows like Mr Pastry. Later he made an appearance in The Avengers episode "From Venus with Love" as Brigadier Whitehead, and in the 1970s, he guest-starred as a vicar in The Goodies' episode "Wacky Wales". 

In 1969, Pertwee was selected by producer Peter Bryant to take over the role of the Doctor. Pertwee had already applied for the role and was surprised to find he had been shortlisted for it. He played the role until 1974. He later reprised the role in the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors, in two radio adventures and on stage in The Ultimate Adventure. 

Away from Doctor Who he had one of his most memorable film roles in the 1971 Amicus horror compendium The House That Dripped Blood. He was the host of the Thames Television murder-mystery game show Whodunnit! But he is best remembered for playing Worzel Gummidge in the Southern TV series based on the books written by Barbara Euphan Todd. 

He voiced the character of "Spotty" in the 1980s cartoon series SuperTed and in 1985 he starred in Do You Know The Milkyway?, a television adaptation of Karl Wittlinger's stage play. In 1995, Jon Pertwee played General Von Kramer in the Young Indiana Jones Chronicles episode "Attack of the Hawkmen". 

Pertwee voiced and appeared in the television advertisement which promoted the Green Cross Code by use of the mnemonic "SPLINK". 

Pertwee's final film role was in a short film, "Cloud Cuckoo" for Scottish Screen, released 18 June 1994. His last formal television appearance was on Cilla's Surprise Surprise, broadcast on 21 April 1996. 

Pertwee was a regular on the convention circuit right up until until his death from a heart attack in Connecticut on 20 May 1996 two months before his 77th birthday.

 He was cremated at Putney Vale Crematorium with a toy Worzel Gummidge affixed to the coffin, following the instructions in his will. 

The BBC broadcast of the 1996 Doctor Who Movie featured a dedication to Pertwee at its end.  

Jon Pertwee was married twice, first in 1955 to Jean Marsh, whom he divorced, and then, on 13 August 1960, to Ingeborg Rhoesa, by whom he had two children, Sean and Dariel. 


Brenda Bruce (died 1996 aged 77) would have been 106 - credited as Tilda in Paradise Towers

Brenda Bruce was a British actress. She had a long and successful career in the theatre, radio, film and television.

She appeared in the 1987 Doctor Who story Paradise Towers.

She appeared on television in many dramas, and in a chat show Rich and Rich with her husband. She starred as Winnie in the 1962 British premiere of Samuel Beckett's Happy Days, and in 1977 as Lucilla Edith Cavell Teatime in "Murder Most English".

Bruce played P.G. Wodehouse's character Aunt Dahlia in the 1990s production of Jeeves and Wooster with Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie


Buster Ambler (died 1979 aged 74) would have been 119 - 2 credits, including Sound Recordist for Daleks' Invasion Earth 2150 A.D.(Aaru)

Alec Ambler was born in India in 1905 before coming to the United Kingdom with his mother and two sisters, arriving 25 July 1920 on the City of Calcutta. The family came c/o Thomas Cook and Sons of Ludgate Circus, where he was staying when studying electrical engineering in London, later becoming a sound recordist.

He married Vivienne Phillipps in 1931, and at the time of filming Dr Who and the Daleks they lived in Wokingham. He died in Winkfield, Berkshire in 1979.

 


 Deaths
Ian Frost (died 2024) - 2 credits, including Baccu in The Ark

Actor who appeared in the 1966 story The Ark


Anna Wing (died 2013 aged 98) - credited as Anatta in Kinda

Anna Wing, MBE  is an English actress. She has had a long career in television and theatre.

Wing is best-known for portraying the Beale and Fowler family matriarch Lou Beale on EastEnders from the show's inception in February 1985, until the character was killed off in July 1988 

She had a small role in the Fifth Doctor story Kinda.

Wing was born in Hackney, London, and started out as an artist's model and later, during the Second World War, worked in East End hospitals. At 30, she married the actor Peter Davey, by whom she had a son, actor-director Mark Wing-Davey, but the marriage ended in divorce after three years. Her five years as the partner of Philip O'Connor, a surrealist writer and contemporary of Stephen Spender and Laurie Lee, saw her spend some time as a nursery teacher in West London. She had a second son by Philip, Jon O'Connor.

An earlier soap appearance of hers was in Market in Honey Lane for ATV in the late 1960s. Other television credits include roles in Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Play for Today and The Sweeney.

Wing was appointed MBE in the 2009 Birthday Honours for her services to drama and charity.


Freddie Earlle (died 2007 aged 83) - credited as Aldo in Warriors' Gate

Scottish actor born in Glasgow

Diminutive music hall veteran and actor/writer/director who began performing on stage as a comedian and was once partnered with his first wife Freda Mundy as "Mundy and Earl", appearing and sharing the bill with Laurel and Hardy, Frank Sinatra and Gypsy Rose Lee, among others.

Appeared in The Bill and Coronation Street.


Royston Tickner (died 1997 aged 74) - 2 credits, including Steinberger P Green in The Daleks' Master Plan

Royston Tickner  was a British actor who appeared in a couple of small roles in Doctor Who.

He served in the Royal Navy in World War II and from 1947 took a break from the theatre to work as alighthouse keeper, miner, fireman and publican, before returning to acting in 1958.

His television credits include: The Avengers, Z-Cars, Gideon's Way, The Baron, King of the River, The Troubleshooters, Dixon of Dock Green, Timeslip, The Flaxton Boys, Out of the Unknown,Emmerdale Farm, Porridge, Last of the Summer Wine, Angels, Return of the Saint, Secret Army,Danger UXB, George and Mildred, The Enigma Files, Kessler, Minder, Reilly, Ace of Spies, Just Good Friends and One By One.


Ewen Solon (died 1985 aged 67) - 2 credits, including Chal in The Savages

Ewen Solon was a New Zealand-born actor, who worked extensively in both the United Kingdom and Australia.

He had two roles in Doctor Who in the 1960's and 70's

Film credits include: The Dam Busters, Rob Roy, the Highland Rogue, 1984, Robbery Under Arms, The Hound of the Baskervilles, The Stranglers of Bombay, The Terror of the Tongs, The Curse of the Werewolf, The Yangtse Incident, The Message and The Spaceman and King Arthur.

Television appearances include: The Four Just Men, Maigret, Man of the World. Danger Man, Dixon of Dock Green, The Troubleshooters, Redcap, The Revenue Men, Bellbird, Virgin of the Secret Service, Journey to the Unknown, Matlock Police, Spyforce, Division 4 and Into the Labyrinth.