Statistics


On This Day (USA) - 4 July



 Birthdays
Jonathan Lewis Owen was 53 - credited as Banana Boat in Something Borrowed(TW)

Jonathan Lewis Owen played Colin Davies in the Torchwood television story Something Borrowed


Marcus Wilson was 51 - 40 credits, including Producer for The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon

Marcus Wilison is a Television producer whose work includes Taggart, Paradox, Whitechapel, True Dare Kiss, Life on Mars, No Angels and Cutting It.


Jo Whiley was 59 - 4 credits, including Self in Doctor Who Live: The Next Doctor(Factual)

Jo  Whiley is an English radio disc jockey and television presenter. 

She was the host of the long running weekday Jo Whiley Show on BBC Radio 1.


Paddy Russell (died 2017 aged 89) would have been 96 - 4 credits, including Director for Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Paddy Russell is a British television director.

She directed several television programmes between 1962 and 1981 and her work includes Out of the Unknown (1965), Late Night Horror(1968), Pere Goriot (1968), Little Women (1970), The Moonstone (1972) and The Omega Factor (1980).

Before becoming a director herself, during the 1950s she been a production assistant for BBC television, working on many productions with famed director Rudolph Cartier. She worked on the Quatermass science-fiction serials, as well as the famous 1954 adaptation of George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.

She was the director on four Doctor Who serials: The Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve (1966), Invasion of the Dinosaurs (1974), Pyramids of Mars (1975) and Horror of Fang Rock (1977). She was the first female director to work on the programme, in an era when television production crews were dominated by men.

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


Kathleen Bidmead (died 2004 aged 76) would have been 97 - 6 credits, including Production Unit Manager for Shada

Kathleen Bidmead played a woman in the 1989 story Survival as well as appearing an an extra in several other stories,

Also worked on BreakoutLondon's BurningCasualtyThe BillHi-de-Hi!The Murder at the VicarageKing of the Ghetto 


 Deaths
Ysanne Churchman (died 2024 aged 99) - 4 credits, including Voice of Alpha Centauri in The Monster of Peladon

Ysanne Churchman worked as an actress and narrator on British radio, TV and film for over 50 years (1938–1993). She achieved national fame as 'Grace Archer' in the long-running BBC drama series, when Grace died in a fire on the night when ITV launched in 1955.

Ysanne Churchman was born on 14 May 1925 in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, to Andrew Churchman and Gladys Dale, well-known stage and radio performers in London.

In 1938 Churchman appeared on both BBC Radio Children's Hour and in a BBC TV play Gallows Glorious. She trained as a dancer at Cone-Ripman College. After learning repertory and theatre she specialised in radio and voice work for film and television. This led to national fame as Grace in the long-running radio series The Archers when Grace suffered grievous injuries in a fire on the night of the ITV launch in 1955; the character died in the following day's episode. (She strongly suspected the producer was glad to be rid of her at the time as she had discovered that some of her cast members in this regional, Birmingham, production, were not being paid Equity minimum rates and raised the matter). She went on to voice five other Archers characters over the years, most recently Mary Pound in 1983.

Along with many story-telling and reading roles on the BBC she also performed as: Sara in the series Sara and Hoppity, Marla and Cassie in Space Patrol, the voice of Alpha Centauri in the series Doctor Who, and Soo the computer in Dominick Hyde. She was the first actress employed by Capital Radio, reading a serial book.

She married Tony Pilgrim MBE a senior BBC engineer, in 1951 and they celebrated their Diamond Wedding anniversary in 2011. He died in January 2015 after 63 years of marriage. She retired in 1993, but still does occasional voice-over and television appearances.

Following the death of Dorothy-Rose Gribble on 1st October 2014, Churchman is currently the oldest-living Doctor Who actress, followed by Honor Blackman and June Whitfield.

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


Mona Hammond (died 2022 aged 91) - credited as Rita-Anne Smith in Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel

Mona Hammond OBE is a Chinese Jamaican actress and co-founder of the Talawa Theatre Company

She played Ricky's Grandmother, Rita-Anne Smith, in the 2006 story Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel

Born in Jamaica, Hammond emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1959, where she has remained ever since. Hammond has had a long and distinguished stage career. She is best known for her work on British television, which has included various roles in sitcoms and playing Blossom Jackson in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. She was made an OBE in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours List for her services to drama.

Hammond was born Mavis Chin to a Chinese father from Guangdong, and a black Jamaican mother in Tweeside, Clarendon Parish, JamaicaWest Indies. She moved to the United Kingdom in 1959 on a Jamaican Scholarship and worked for Norman and Dawbarn Architects. She attended evening classes at the City Literary Institute for two years and was awarded a Scholarship to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

Hammond began her career on stage and made early appearances on television shows such as Softly, Softly (1968) and The Trouble Shooters (1969). Her first leading role was Lady Macbeth at the Roundhouse in 1970 in Peter Coe's African version of the play. She went on to star in many plays by an array of up and coming black writers including Sweet Talk by Michael Abbensetts11 Josephine House by Alfred Fagon and several plays written by Mustapha Matura including As Time Goes ByPlay Mas andPlayboy of the West Indies. She also spent two years at the Royal National Theatre in productions including Fuente Ovejuna and Peer Gynt directed by Declan Donnellan, and The Crucible.

In 1985 Hammond along with Yvonne Brewster, Inigo Espejel and Carmen Munroe founded the Talawa Theatre company, which became one of the UK's most prominent black theatre companies. It has produced award-winning plays from and about the African diaspora and has championed reinterpretations of classical British pieces. Hammond performed in several of its productions including The Black JacobinsThe Importance of Being Earnest and King Lear.

Television work followed, which included roles in The Sweeney (1976); Wolcott (1980�1981), a three-part ATV mini-series about a black detective based in East London; Black Silk (1985); Juliet Bravo (1985);Playboy of the West Indies (1985), Casualty (1986) and When Love Dies (1990).

Hammond has appeared in ITV's Coronation Street, twice, first playing the role of Jan Sargent and second time playing Mrs Armitage, the mother of Shirley Armitage. In 1994 she was cast as Blossom Jackson in BBC's EastEnders. She remained in the role until 1997. This was Hammond's second role in the soap, having previously played the minor part of Michelle Fowler's midwife in 1986.

She is also an occasional actor in The Archers, where she plays Mabel Thompson, the mother of Alan Franks' deceased wife.

Hammond has played many roles in television sitcoms, including: Susu in Desmond's (1990�1994) and its spin-off Porkpie (1995�1996); Us Girls (1992�1993), where she played Grandma Pinnock; Chef! (1996), and Grandma Sylvie Headly in The Crouches (2003�2005).

In 1999 she played the role of Nan in the children's TV series Pig-Heart Boy, based on a novel by Malorie Blackman and other television credits include Making Out (1989); Trial & Retribution (1998) as Bibi Harrow: Sunburn (1999); Storm Damage (2000); The Bill (2001); Babyfather (2001); White Teeth (2002); A Touch of Frost (2003); Holby City (2001; 2005; 2011) and Doctors (2006). Film credits include Fords on Water (1983),Manderlay (2005) and Kinky Boots (2006). Hammond appeared in the movie 10,000 BC, directed byRoland Emmerich.[5]

In October 2010 she reprised her role for a brief stint as Blossom Jackson in the TV soap Eastenders. Appearing in connection to screen great grandson Billie Jackson's funeral, she returned with her onscreen grandson Alan Jackson.

Hammond was awarded the Officer of the Order of the British Empire (O.B.E.) in the 2005 Queen's Birthday Honours List, for her services to drama in the UK. In 2006 Hammond was presented with the Edric Connor Inspiration Award - the Screen Nation Television and Film Awards' highest UK honour.

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