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On This Day (USA) - 22 February



Marco Polo: The Roof of the World premiered on BBC One in 1964 at 5:15pm GMT, watched by 9.40 million viewers.

The TARDIS lands in the Himalayas and the Doctor, Barbara, Ian and Susan meet Marco Polo and join him on his journey to Peking.


The Seeds of Death: Episode Five premiered on BBC One in 1969 at 5:14pm BST, watched by 7.60 million viewers.

An Ice Warrior invasion fleet is on its way to the Moon. Meanwhile the Doctor, Zoe & Jamie return to Earth by T-Mat, where the Doctor discovers there is only one way to destroy the fungal pods.


The Sontaran Experiment: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1975 at 5:30pm GMT, watched by 11.00 million viewers.

The Doctor, Harry and Sarah find Earth is a desolate wilderness. They meet a group of stranded human colonists who are being hunted by a robot and experimented upon by its master.


The Visitation: Part Three premiered on BBC One (Not Wales) in 1982 at 6:57pm GMT, watched by 9.90 million viewers.

Terminus: Part Three premiered on BBC One in 1983 at 6:54pm GMT, watched by 6.50 million viewers.

Death Comes To Time: Planet Of Blood (pt 2) premiered on BBC Online in 2002 at 12:00pm GMT

My Life As A Dalek premiered on Radio 4 in 2003 at 10:30am GMT

Mark Gatiss celebrates the 40-year reign of galactic terror by the Daleks, Dr Who's most feared opponents. Rula Lenska, Alexei Sayle and designer Ray Cusick provide the vital data. Producer David Prest.


 Birthdays
Dichen Lachman was 42 - credited as Lyn in Rendition(TW)

Dichen Lachman is an Australian actress and producer, best known for appearing in the soap opera Neighbours as Katya Kinski andJoss Whedon's science fiction drama television series Dollhouse as Sierra

She played Lyn Peterfield in Torchwood Rendition.

Lachman is currently playing Suren in the supernatural drama television series Being Human. She will star as Tani Tumrenjack in the upcoming ABC military drama series Last Resort. She acted as executive producer on Lust for Love. 


Steve Spiers was 59 - credited as Strickland in Aliens of London / World War Three

Actor who appeared in the 2005 story Aliens of London


Nigel Planer was 71 - 2 credits, including Vorgenson in Doctor Who Live(Stage)

Appeared as Vorgenson in Doctor Who Live!


Judy Cornwell was 84 - credited as Maddy in Paradise Towers

Judy Valerie Cornwell is an English actress best known for her role as Daisy in the British sitcom Keeping Up Appearances.

Cornwell's father served in the RAF and she grew up in Britain where she attended a convent school, before moving to Australia where her family emigrated. She has written about her childhood experiences in her autobiography Adventures of a Jelly Baby. She returned to Britain, where she became a professional dancer and comedienne in her teens, working her act between the nudes at the Windmill Theatre before becoming an actress. Her long career includes roles in radio's The Navy Lark, the controversial play Oh! What A Lovely War, her own TV comedy series Moody and Pegg, and several seasons with theRoyal Shakespeare Company.

Cornwell's film roles include Santa Claus: The Movie (as Mrs. Claus) and Mad Cows. On television she has appeared in Dixon of Dock GreenCakes and AleBergeracDoctor Who (the episode Paradise Towers), several episodes of Farrington of the F.O.The Famous FiveThe BillHeartbeat, Miss Marple and Midsomer Murders. She also appeared on radio as WREN Cornwell in The Navy Lark. Judy is also appearing in BBC soap opera EastEnders as Queenie Trott, the mean tyrant mother of lovable loser Heather Trott. In 1987, she appeared as the English spinster lady Rosemary Tuttle in the episode 'Rumpole and the Official Secret' from Season 4 of Rumpole of the Bailey. She is best known, however, for her portrayal of lovable working class housewife "Daisy" in the popular sitcom Keeping Up Appearances, which ran from 1990 to 1995.

Cornwell has published a number of books, including her autobiography Adventures of a Jelly Baby (ISBN 0-283-07001-3) that was published in 2005 which describes her childhood growing up in Britain during the war, and then in Australia where her family emigrated.

She has also published several novels, including Cow and Cow Parsley in 1985, Fishcakes at the Ritz in 1989, The Seventh Sunrise in 1994, and Fear and Favour in 1996.

Biography from the TARDIS wiki article, licensed under CC-BY-SA 


Bridget Turner (died 2014 aged 75) would have been 85 - credited as Alice Cassini in Gridlock

Bridget (Biddy) Turner (born Cleethorpes, Lincolnshire) was a British actress.

She has worked with a number of very famous actors including Peter O'Toole, Elizabeth Taylor, Kirk Douglas, Bernard Blier, Trevor Howard, Bernadette Lafont and Richard Burton and Christina Ricci.

On May 8, 2009 John Cleese stated in an interview that Bridget was originally offered the part of Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers back in 1974. She turned it down and the role was passed on to Prunella Scales.

She was married to the director Frank Cox.


Sheila Hancock was 91 - credited as Helen A. in The Happiness Patrol

Sheila Hancock's first big television role was as Carol in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade in the early 1960s. She also played the lead roles in the sitcoms The Bed-Sit Girl, Mr Digby Darling and Now Take My Wife. Her other television credits include Doctor Who, Kavanagh QC (opposite her husband, John Thaw), EastEnders, Gone to the Dogs (TV series) The Russian Bride, Brighton Belles, Bedtime, Fortysomething, Bleak House, New Tricks and The Catherine Tate Show. In 2008, she played the part of a terminally ill patient who's travelled to Switzerland to have an assisted suicide in one of The Last Word monologues for the BBC. In 2009, she played Liz in The Rain Has Stopped, part of the BBC daytime mini-series Moving On.

She was married to actors Alec Ross and John Thaw.


 Deaths
Pamela Salem (died 2024 aged 80) - 16 credits, including Toos in The Robots of Death

Pamela Salem is a British film and television actress.

She appeared in Doctor Who twice, playing Toos in the 1977 story, Robots of Death and Rachel in the 1988 story Remembrance of the Daleks.

She was born in Bombay, India, and educated at Heidelberg University in Germany and later at the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England. 

She is best-remembered on television for her co-starring role in the early 1980s ITV children's fantasy series Into the Labyrinth as the evil witch Belor, and her late 1980s guest role in the BBC's popular soap opera EastEnders as shady mafia affiliate Joanne Francis. 

She had previously auditioned for the role of the Fourth Doctor's companion Leela, but the role eventually went to Louise Jameson instead. Salem also had a recurring role in the British sitcom French Fields between 1989-91.

Other television guest appearances have included roles in popular British series such as Out of the Unknown, Blake's 7, The Onedin Line, The Professionals, Howards' Way, Ever Decreasing Circles and All Creatures Great and Small, and more recently in American series including Magnum, P.I., Party of Five, ER, and The West Wing where she played a British prime minister.

In film, she played the role of Miss Moneypenny in the 'unofficial' 1983 James Bond film Never Say Never Again, starring Sean Connery. She also appeared in Michael Crichton's The Great Train Robbery (1979, another film which also starred Connery), as well as supporting roles in The Bitch (1979) and Gods and Monsters (1998).

She is married to the actor Michael O'Hagan, and they currently live in Los Angeles.



Nicholas Courtney (died 2011 aged 81) - 49 credits, including Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart in The Three Doctors
Born in Egypt, Nicholas Courtney spent his childhood and education in a variety of places - his father serving in the diplomatic service - before entering the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art after completing his National Service in 1950. He then entered rep in 1952 - his first job being actor/ASM in Cromer! - before a move to London brought him to the world of television.
His first appearance in this media was as a Warrant Officer in the 1957 series Escape, followed by playing King Charles II in Looking About and Mark Norman in an episode of No Hiding Place. He was then to appear throughout the 1960s in shows like Callan and Sword of Honour, as well as popular fantasy genre titles like The Saint, The Champions, The Avengers, and Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) (alongside Master-to-be, Roger Delgado).His first brush with Doctor Who was to be as Space Security Agent Bret Vyon in the First Doctor epic The Daleks' Master Plan. For Doctor Who fans, of course, he will always be remembered as UNIT stalwart Lethbridge-Stewart. Originally slated to play Captain Knight in the Second Doctor adventure The Web Of Fear, he was 'promoted' to the role of Colonel by director Douglas Camfield when original actor David Langton pulled out, and returned a year as a newly promoted Brigadier in The Invasion, a role he was to become associated with for over forty years! Appearing as one of the main characters throughout the Third Doctor's incarnation as the UK head of UNIT, he was then to appear with every other classic series Doctor, both during the television show's original run and through the Big Finish audio adventures. Name-checked a number of times in the revived series of Doctor Who, Sir Alistair was to eventually return in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2008 - the actor being re-united with 70s co-star Elisabeth Sladen.Work continued after his departure from Doctor Who, appearing in shows such as All Creatures Great And Small and Sink or Swim (both alongside Fifth Doctor Peter Davison), Shelley, Yes, Prime Minister and Only Fools and Horses; he also played Lt. Col. Robert Witherton in 1993's Then Churchill Said to Me. More recently, he appeared in popular shows like The Bill, Doctors, and Casualty. In 2008 he played the Archbishop of Canterbury in Incendiary.In 1997, he became the Honorary President of the Doctor Who Appreciation Society, a position he was very proud to hold.
There have been two autobiographies on his life, Five Rounds Rapid! in 1998 and Still Getting Away With It in 2005; his memoirs were also released by Big Finish as A Soldier In Time in 2002.He is survived by his wife Karen, his son Philip and daughter Bella.

Nicholas Pennell (died 1995 aged 56) - credited as Winton in Colony In Space

Nicholas Pennell  was an English actor who appeared frequently on film and television in the 1960s.

He was educated at Allhallows College, Lyme Regis and trained at RADA. He then appeared in repertory theatre. On television he appeared in The Saint, The Flaxton Boys, The Forsyte Saga as Michael Mont and in Doctor Who, Colony in Space.

On film he appeared as an RAF pilot in Battle of Britain (1969) and in Only When I Larf (1968) as Spencer.

In 1972, he joined the Stratford Festival company upon the urging of William Hutt. In his first season, he appeared as Orlando in As You Like opposite Carole Shelley as Rosalind. The following year he returned to star as Pericles in 1973 in a production designed by Leslie Hurry and directed by Jean Gascon.

He can be seen on DVD in the role of Malvolio in a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth night (1986) CBC Home Video, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, based on the 1985 Stratford Shakespeare Festival production.

Pennell died in 1995 of lymphatic cancer.

Independent Obituary


Peter R. Newman (died 1975 aged 48) - credited as Writer for The Sensorites

Peter R. Newman was born in Essex. 

In World War II he served as a pilot in Burma. He used his wartime experiences in a  television play, Yesterday's Enemy, which he later turned into a screenplay for Val Guest; the film version was released in 1959 and nominated for four BAFTA's

As a three-act play, it was published by Samuel French in 1960. 

The Sensorites was Newman's only contribution to Doctor Who, and his last credit for British television. He died in 1975 after an accident.

His life was the subject of a DVD extra, Looking For Peter on the DVD release of The Sensorites.