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On This Day (USA) - 7 January



The Highlanders: Episode 4 premiered on BBC One in 1967 at 5:50pm GMT, watched by 7.30 million viewers.

Exposing the traitors, the Doctor, Ben and Polly are taken safely back to the TARDIS, where they invite Jamie to join them…


Underworld: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1978 at 6:24pm GMT, watched by 8.90 million viewers.

Stargazing Live: Back To Earth 1 (Series 4) premiered on BBC2 in 2014 at 9:00pm GMT
Dara O Briain hosts after-show chat, in-depth discussion and astronomical trivia, as Brian Cox and guests from Stargazing LIVE are joined at Jodrell Bank Observatory by more science VIPs. Featuring Doctor Who's celebrated robo-pet K-9 as quiz master, the team reveals the viewers' most extraordinary astronomy images.

 Birthdays
John Voce was 61 - 6 credits, including Mr Fanshawe in The Woman Who Lived

John Voce is an English actor.

He has portrayed William Kempe in the period drama A Waste of Shame(2005) and the recurring character Tim Parker in Primeval (2007).

He has also appeared in the 2001 film Crush and the 2008 film Penelope. 


Helen Worth was 73 - credited as Mary Ashe in Colony In Space

Helen Worth is an English actress most famous for playing Gail Potter in the ITV soap Coronation Street.

Worth  has had roles in films such as Oliver! and The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie (1969), and has appeared on television in The Doctors, Helen: A Woman of Today (1973), Within These Walls (1974) and The Carnforth Practice (1974).

She joined Coronation Street in 1974 and has been with the soap ever since. Since arriving on the Street as Gail Potter, Worth's character has married four times, has had three children and has been involved in some of the soap's biggest storylines, including a marriage to the serial killer, Richard Hillman.

In September 2006 Helen Worth was honoured with an Outstanding Achievement award at the Inside Soap Awards.


Valentino Musetti was 81 - 7 credits, including Egyptian Soldier in The Daleks' Master Plan

Valentine Musetti played numerous uncredited roles in several of the early stories of Doctor Who. 

These included a Mongol warrior in Marco Polo, a Saracen warrior in The Crusade - his only credited role in the programme - an Egyptian soldier in The Daleks' Master Plan and one of the prisoners and an audience member in The Mind of Evil. He was also an extra in Colony in Space and The Time Monster.

He had a racing career, highlights of whichinclude finishing third in the Shellsport International Series in 1977. In 1978 he finished fifth in the Aurora F1 Series. In the late 1980s he drove in the FIA World Sportscar Championship. He competed in one round of the 1991 British Touring Car Championship at Donington Park] With a privately entered BMW M3, he finished in thirteenth place. That year he also entered the 24 Hours of Le Mans, but his team failed to qualify.

He has appeared in many TV programmes since the sixties, such as The AvengersSpace: 1999The ProfessionalsMinder and Dempsey and Makepeace. He has worked as a stuntman on many TV programmes and films such as The Italian JobThe New AvengersSuperman IIAn American Werewolf in LondonRobin Hood: Prince of ThievesAlien 3 and Midsomer Murders among others.


Geoffrey Bayldon (died 2017 aged 93) would have been 100 - 3 credits, including Organon in The Creature from the Pit

Geoffrey Bayldon (born in Leeds, West Riding of Yorkshire) is a British actor. 

After playing roles in many dramas including Shakespeare, he became known for portraying the title role of the children's series Catweazle (1970-72), after turning down the opportunity to play both the First and Second Doctors in Doctor Who. Bayldon's other long-running parts include the Crowman in Worzel Gummidge (1979-81) and Magic Grandad in the BBC television series Watch (1995).

Bayldon made several film appearances in the 1960s and 1970s, including King Rat (1965), To Sir, with Love (1967), Casino Royale (1967), the Envy segment of The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins (1971), the Marc Bolan/T. Rex film Born To Boogie and the film version (Porridge) of the television series Porridge (1979) as the Governor.

Among his more recent television appearances was the Five game show Fort Boyard (1998).

He also had a guest appearance in Doctor Who as Organon in The Creature from the Pit (1979). More recently, he has played an alternative First Doctor in two audio plays based on theDoctor Who television series by Big Finish Productions in the Doctor Who Unbound series: Auld Mortality and A Storm of Angels.

Other television roles include parts in the dramatisation of Blott on the Landscape (1985) and in two episodes of The Avengers (1961, 1967) and of Star Cops (1987). He was in the Tales of the Unexpected episode "Down Among the Sheltering Palms" (1983). He has also appeared in a number of BBC Schools programmes,[1] where he has displayed a number of otherwise unexploited talents (such as singing). In 1993 he played Simplicio in the Open University video Newton's Revolution. In 2007 he made a guest appearance in New Tricks as Leonard Casey.

In 1986 Bayldon provided the vocals on Paul Hardcastle's "The Wizard" which was also used (without the vocal) as the theme for BBC TV's Top of the Pops.

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


Francis de Wolff (died 1984 aged 71) would have been 111 - 2 credits, including Agamemnon in The Myth Makers

Francis de Wolff  was an English character actor. Large, bearded, and beetle-browed, he was often cast as villains in both film and television.

He played Agamemnon in the 1965 story The Myth Makers.

Born in Essex, he made his film debut in Flame in the Heather in 1935, and went on to make many other appearances in such films as Fire Over England (1936), Treasure Island (1950),Scrooge (1951), as the Ghost of Christmas Present, Ivanhoe (1952), Moby Dick (1956), Saint Joan (1957), From Russia with Love (1963), Carry On Cleo (1964) and The Three Musketeers(1973).

He is perhaps best remembered as a supporting player in horror films of the 1950s and 1960s, many of them for Hammer Studios. These include Corridors of Blood (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959), The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959), The Two Faces of Dr. Jekyll(1960), Devil Doll (1963) and The Black Torment (1964).

His television appearances include The AvengersDanger ManDixon of Dock GreenJesus of NazarethMaigretPaul TempleThe Saint, and The Tomorrow People.

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


 Deaths

Lorne Cossette (died 2001 aged 75) - credited as Maitland in The Sensorites

Played Captain Maitland in the 1964 story The Sensorites.


Llewellyn Rees (died 1994 aged 92) - credited as The President in The Deadly Assassin

Llewellyn Rees was an English actor.

Television Roles include: Doctor Who (in the serial The Deadly Assassin), The BrothersInspector MorseDoomwatch and Coronation Street.

He appeared in a number of films such as Carry On EmmannuelleThe DresserWithnail and IA Fish Called Wanda and Splitting Heirs. In The Dresser, Rees played an aging member of a British touring company. The play that the film was based on had its genesis in the touring company of actor/manager Sir Donald Wolfit, whom Reese had toured with in the 1940 and 1950s.

Rees was also active in the political end of the theatre serving as General Secretary, Actors' Equity Association 1940- 46; Secretary, Federation of Theatre Unions 1944-46; Governor, Old Vic 1945-47; Drama Director, Arts Council of Great Britain 1947-49; Administrator, Old Vic 1949-51; Administrator, Arts Theatre 1951-52.

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