Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 22 August



The Reign Of Terror: A Change of Identity premiered on BBC One in 1964 at 5:29pm BST, watched by 6.90 million viewers.

Barbara and Susan are saved from the guillotine by two royalists, Jules and Jean, but Susan has fallen ill. At the prison, a stroke of luck provides Ian with a chance to escape.


 Birthdays
Megan Duffy will be 45 - credited as Claire in End of the Road(TW)

Megan Duffy played Claire in the Torchwood story End of the Road.

Megan competed for, and won a scholarship to Broadway Dance Center at age 14 and has appeared in more than 20 national commercials.


James Corden will be 46 - 4 credits, including Craig Owens in Closing Time

James Corden is an English actor, television writer, producer and presenter. He is co-creator and star of BBC comedy shows Gavin & Stacey and Horne & Corden, and acted in the 2009 film Lesbian Vampire Killers.

In June 2010, Corden played Craig Owens in the Doctor Who episode "The Lodger", in which the Doctor moved in with him. Craig did return as Owens in "Closing Time" in the sixth series 

Corden was born in Hillingdon, Greater London, and grew up in Hazlemere, Buckinghamshire. He has an older sister, Ange, and a younger sister, Ruth.

Corden obtained his first part at eighteen years old in the musical Martin Guerre. He then starred in the British television series Fat Friends as Jamie Rymer, and played Gareth Jones in the series Boyz Unlimited. His television work includes a credited minor role as Razor #1 in Renford Rejects (Series 1 Episode 2, 1998), a role playing a bookish student in Teachers (Series 1, 2000) and he also made a guest appearance in Little Britain. Corden's film credits include Whatever Happened to Harold Smith? (1999) and Mike Leigh's All or Nothing (2002).

In 1998, Corden appeared in an advertising campaign for Tango, where his every word is being copied by overweight balding ginger men using megaphones that the company were promoting as a free gift. The advert was subsequently banned after complaints of a trend in school children bullying others in the same manner as the advert.

Corden played a small part in Channel 4/T4's Hollyoaks. He played a caretaker of the local college briefly around 2001�02. In an August 2008 interview with Esquire Magazine, he commented on his disdain for the programme and members of the cast.

Corden played the role of Timms in the original London stage production of Alan Bennett's play The History Boys, as well as in the Broadway, Sydney, Wellington and Hong Kong productions and radio and film versions of the play. Corden stars in the BBC Three comedy Gavin & Stacey that he co-wrote with his Fat Friends co-star Ruth Jones.

Corden guest hosted Big Brother's Big Mouth with his Gavin & Stacey co-star Mathew Horne in August 2007. He appears in the film of Toby Young's autobiography How to Lose Friends & Alienate People and series two of Gavin & Stacey.

In February 2008 he shot a BBC pilot, Hey, Hey, We're The Monks. He collaborated with Horne on a 2009 sketch show named Horne & Corden, described by the BBC as a "traditional comedy entertainment show in the style of Morecambe and Wise." The show ran for only one series and was poorly received by the critics, with Corden later admitting "the absolute truth is I wasn't good enough."

In February 2009, he co-presented the Brit Awards with Mathew Horne and Kylie Minogue. On 13 March 2009, he appeared in a sketch for Comic Relief giving the England football team a motivational talk. He later went on to present a section with Mathew Horne showing their best bits of comedy from the last two years along with highlights from the night.

In 2009, he had a minor role in The Boat That Rocked as Bernard, a deejay for Radio Sunshine. This clip was taken out of the film for the US release (retitled Pirate Radio), and is now in the deleted scenes feature on the DVD.

In March 2010, Corden began hosting the Sky One comedy/sports panel show A League of Their Own alongside team captains Andrew Flintoff and Jamie Redknapp. In March 2010, he presented Sport Relief 2010 alongsideDavina McCall and others and contributed a "sequel" to the 2009 England football team sketch this time giving a motivational talk to various sport stars including Jenson Button and David Beckham.

In March 2010, Corden took part in Channel 4's Comedy Gala, a benefit show held in aid of Great Ormond Street Children's Hospital, filmed live at the O2 Arena in London on 30 March. On 5 June 2010, he performed his England World Cup single with Dizzee Rascal on the finale of Britain's Got Talent. All of the proceeds from the single will be going to Great Ormond Street Hospital.

In December 2010, This Is JLS, an hour long Christmas special featuring the boyband and The X Factor runners up, was aired on ITV1, with Corden writing and producing some of the sketches featured in the special.

In February 2011, Corden again presented the 2011 BRIT Awards. In March, Corden reprised his role as Smithy in the Smithy Red Nose Day sketch. The sketch included appearances by Gordon BrownJLSPaul McCartney andJustin Bieber. It received positive reviews from critics and was highly regarded as the best sketch of the night.

In June 2011, Corden played the lead role in One Man, Two Guvnors.

Corden was nominated for the 2000 RTS Award for Network Newcomer � On Screen for his work on Fat Friends.

Corden won Best Male Comedy Performer and Gavin & Stacey won Best New British Television Comedy at the 2007 British Comedy Awards.

At the 2008 Television BAFTAs, Corden won the BAFTA for Best Comedy Performance.Gavin & Stacey won the Sky+ Audience Award for Programme of the Year, the only award at the ceremony voted for by the public, beating the likes of The Apprentice and Britain's Got Talent.

Gavin & Stacey won the award for Most Popular Comedy Programme at the National Television Awards 2010, beating other nominees Benidorm and Harry Hill's TV Burp.

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


Mark Williams will be 65 - 4 credits, including Brian Williams in Dinosaurs on a Spaceship

Mark Williams is an English actor, comedian, screenwriter and presenter. He is best known as one of the stars of the popular BBC sketch show The Fast Show, as well as for his role as Arthur Weasley in the Harry Potter films.

Williams was born in BromsgroveWorcestershire. In 2007, Williams appeared in the film adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Stardust alongside Michelle PfeifferRobert De Niro and Claire Danes.

Williams has also presented several documentary programmes: Mark Williams' Big Bangs on the history of explosives, a follow-up to previous series Mark Williams on the RailsIndustrial Revelations andMore Industrial Revelations.

He is a supporter of both Aston Villa and Brighton & Hove Albion football clubs.

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


David de Keyser (died 2021 aged 93) would be 97 - credited as Atraxi Voice in The Eleventh Hour

David de Keyser  is a British actor.

He voiced the Atraxi in the 2010 Doctor Who story The Eleventh Hour and did the voices for the Cybermen in the video game The Eternity Clock, replacing Nicholas Briggs.

In the mid-sixties de Keyser worked twice with the writer, actor and director Jane Arden. Their first collaboration, The Logic Game (January 1965), was directed by Philip Saville. They acted together again in another Jane Arden script in the film Separation (Jack Bond 1968) which was set in London and featured music by Procol HarumMatthew Fisher and Stanley Myers. The themes of both pieces were marital strife and disintegrating relationships.

De Keyser has also worked on four occasions for the British director John Boorman, twice on screen in Catch Us If You Can (1965) and Leo the Last (1970), and on two further occasions Boorman has used de Keyser's rich, distinctive voice, firstly as the Voice of the Tabernacle in Zardoz (1974), and as the Voice of the Grail in Excalibur (1981).

He starred in the BBC Radio 4 comedy The Attractive Young Rabbi with Tracy-Ann Oberman. He also made an appearance in the UK TV series The Professionals (TV series), in the episode entitled "Servant of Two Masters". He was the narrator for Pathe Pictorial in the 1960s, and has also been a prolific voiceover on television advertisements in the UK, as well as serving as the announcer on the first series of comedy panel game Would I Lie to You?, before being replaced for the second series.


Ivor Salter (died 1991 aged 65) would be 99 - 3 credits, including Odysseus in The Myth Makers

Ivor Salter was an English actor who appeared in character roles in numerous United Kingdom television productions and films from the early 1950s until the 1980s.

His television appearances included; Doctor Who (The Space Museum, The Myth Makers and Black Orchid)The SaintThe AvengersThe Double Deckers (as the policeman), Danger Manand Ghost Squad. Between 1978 and 1980 he appeared in the Midlands soap Crossroads as farmer Reg Cotteril.

Films included Be My Guest.

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


Honor Blackman (died 2020 aged 94) would be 99 - 2 credits, including Professor Lasky in The Trial of a Time Lord (Terror of the Vervoids)

Honor Blackman is an English actress, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers (1962�64) and Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964).

Blackman was born in PlaistowNewhamLondon. Her father Frederick was a statistician. Blackman was educated at Ealing Girls' School in west London and trained as an actress at theGuildhall School of Music and Drama, after her father on her fifteenth birthday thought that an appropriate birthday gift would be acting lessons. While attending the Guildhall School she also worked as a clerical assistant for the Home Office.

Blackman's film debut was a nonspeaking part in Fame is the Spur (1947). Other films include Quartet (1948) and So Long at the Fair (1950) with Dirk BogardeA Night to Remember (1958); Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey,The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970), and the Western films Shalako (1968) with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot and Something Big (1971) with Dean Martin. She played the role of Hera in Jason and the Argonauts (1963). She also did an overdub for an actress in the same film providing the voice for the character of Medea. More recently, she has had small roles in the films Bridget Jones's Diary (2001) and Jack Brown and the Curse of the Crown (also 2001).

Blackman as Pussy Galore, 1964

Bond film producer Albert R. Broccoli admitted that Blackman had been cast on the back of her success in The Avengers, despite the fact that the American audience had never even seen the programme. Broccoli said, "The Brits would love her because they knew her as Mrs. Gale, the Yanks would like her because she was so good, it was a perfect combination".[5]Blackman was the first and one of two "Bond girls" older than the actor playing James Bond, and at 38 she was the oldest actress ever to play a Bond girl.[6]

In 1981, she was in the London revival of The Sound of Music opposite Petula Clark, which opened to rave reviews with, at that time, the largest advance sale in British theatre history. She spent most of 1987 at the Fortune Theatre starring as the Mother Superior in the West End production of Nunsense. From 2005 to 2006, she toured the country as Mrs Higgins in My Fair Lady. Her show Word Of Honor premiered in October 2006. In April 2007, she took over the role of Fraulein Schneider from Olivier Award-winning actress Sheila Hancock, in Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End. She left the show at the end of September 2007.

One of her earliest appearances on TV was in a recurring role as Nichole, secretary/assistant to Dan Dailey's character of Tim Collier in the 1959 series The Four Just Men.

In a 1965 episode of The Avengers, titled "Too Many Christmas Trees", John Steed received his Christmas cards, one of which was from Cathy. "A card from Mrs Gale!", Steed exclaims in delight. Then, reading the inscription, he says in a puzzled voice, "Whatever can she be doing at Fort Knox...?". It was an inside joke, as Blackman was filming Goldfinger at the time.

Blackman co-starred with Richard Basehart as a married pair of Shakespearean actors who commit a homicide in the Columbo episode "Dagger of the Mind" with Peter Falk.

In 1986, she had a role in the Doctor Who serial The Trial of a Time Lord. From 1990 to 1996 she appeared as Laura West on The Upper Hand. Blackman took a guest role on Midsomer Murders as ex-racing driver Isobel Hewitt in the episode "A Talent for Life". In September 2004, she briefly joined the Coronation Street cast in a storyline about wife swapping.

In 2007, she participated in the BBC TV project The Verdict, as one of 12 well-known figures forming a jury to hear a fictional rape case. The series was designed to explore the jury system. She was sworn in as a juror as "Honor Kaufmann".

A song she recorded with Patrick Macnee during 1964, "Kinky Boots", was a surprise hit, peaking at No.5 in 1990 after it was played incessantly by BBC Radio 1 breakfast show presenter Simon Mayo. After her appearance inGoldfinger, Blackman recorded a full album of songs, "Everything I've Got".

On 6 July 2009, Blackman released a new single, "The Star Who Fell from Grace", composed by Jeff Chegwin and Adrian Munsey and compered a James Bond Prom as part of the "Welsh Proms" concert series.

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


Robert Marsden (died 2007 aged 85) would be 103 - credited as Abraham Lincoln in The Chase

Character actor and singer of songs in children's programmes and variety who first broadcast in 1942

Began his career on the Shakespearean stage at Stratford-on-Avon in 1940 and joined the BBC Drama Repertory Company a few years later.

Primarily an actor on stage and radio, he sometimes served as a stage director and portrayed Abraham Lincoln in many shows including the 1965 Doctor Who story The Chase


 Deaths
Michael Leader (died 2016 aged 78) - 4 credits, including Terileptil in The Visitation

Michael Leader played a number of extra roles in film and television, which as well as Doctor Who also included many years as the milkman in Eastenders, and is also credited as the notorious stormtrooper who bangs his head on a door on the Death Star during the original Star Wars film.

He was also a founder member of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society.