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On This Day (USA) - 27 January



The Enemy of the World: Episode 6 premiered on BBC One in 1968 at 5:26pm GMT, watched by 8.30 million viewers.

Astrid discovers the underground bunker and Salamander's secret. On the surface, Giles Kent reveals his true colours.


Carnival Of Monsters: Episode One premiered on BBC One in 1973 at 5:49pm GMT, watched by 10.30 million viewers.

The Doctor and Jo arrive in 1926 on the cargo ship SS Bernice. But when the TARDIS is taken by a huge hand and a dinosaur appears, the Doctor suspects that all is not as it seems.


The Armageddon Factor: Part Two premiered on BBC One in 1979 at 6:27pm GMT, watched by 8.80 million viewers.

Frontios: Part Two premiered on BBC One in 1984 at 6:41pm GMT, watched by 5.80 million viewers.

The Ghosts of N Space: Episode Two premiered on BBC Radio 2 in 1996 at 7:03pm GMT

 Birthdays
Brian Law was 35 - credited as Operative (US) in Spyfall

Brian Law was born and raised in Toronto, Canada and later lived in Miami and Berlin before settling down in London, UK.

He started his acting career after earning degrees in architecture and public policy.

He has since appeared in major projects including 'Spider-man: Far From Home' (Marvel), 'White Dragon' (Amazon/ITV)


Alan Cumming was 59 - 2 credits, including King James in The Witchfinders

Glenn Taranto was 65 - credited as Security chief in Rendition(TW)

Glenn Taranto  is an American actor and screenwriter, perhaps best known for his role as Gomez on The New Addams Family.

He is a member of Academy Award Winner Paul Haggis unofficial stock company having appeared in 6 projects for the highly acclaimed writer, director.

His first screenplay, Stolen (Originally titled "The Boy In The Box"), starringJosh Lucas and Jon Hamm was produced by A2 Entertainment and Code Entertainment and released to American theatres in 2010.

Taranto has recently completed his second screenplay "3-Way Split", an action-heist comedy.

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


Susan Skipper was 73 - credited as 'Heroine' in The Armageddon Factor

Susan Skipper  is a British television and stage actress.

After attending the Central School of Speech and Drama in London she went to the British television. She gave her debut in theCarry On Laughing sitcom series in 1975. In the following years she appeared in series like West End TalesDon't Wait Up(besides Nigel Havers), The Sweeney and Doctor Who. In 1982 she was seen as Elizabeth Sarah Lavinia SpencerLady Diana's oldest sister, in the television drama Charles & Diana: A Royal Love Story by James Goldstone. In 1987 she had a short appearance in a flashback sequence as Emily Lloyd's mother in David Leland's film Wish You Were Here (1987). She had also an engagement as stage actress at the Mill Theatre Sonning where she played e.g. the role of Pat Cooper in the Terence Rattigan playSeparate Tables.

Together with Eve Karpf she was one of the early voices of Sat-nav. Her name was the inspiration for the Viz comic strip Susan's Kipper.

Susan Skipper is married to British actor Anthony Valentine.


Derek Acorah (died 2020 aged 69) would have been 74 - credited as Himself in Army of Ghosts / Doomsday

Derek Acorah  was an English TV host, known as spiritual medium in a number of shows, notably Most Haunted.

He was born in Bootle, Merseyside, and lived for much of his life with his wife Gwen in Scarisbrick, near Southport. His career on television started out in 1996 on Granada's Livetime/Psychic Livetime, before becoming involved with Most Haunted (formerly Haunting Truths) in 2001, a show he presented with Yvette Fielding until 2005. In 2004 he was presented with the Variety Club of Great Britain's Multichannel TV Personality of the Year Award.

He appeared in a number of television shows over the following years, including the self-titled Derek Acorah for Sky Real Lives, as well as appearances on shows like Harry Hill's TV Burp and The Weakest Link, plus of course his cameo in Army of Ghosts. He also used to go on tour with live shows around the country.

His career wasn't without criticism over his legitimacy as a medium; in 2009 he presented Michael Jackson: The Search for His Spirit, and controversially claimed to have received a message from missing child Madeleine McCann in 2012 - something he had to make a public apology for after media outrage.



Michael Craig was 96 - credited as Commodore in The Trial of a Time Lord (Terror of the Vervoids)

Michael Craig is a British actor and scriptwriter, known for his work in film and television in both the United Kingdom and Australia.

Craig was born in PoonaMaharashtraBritish India, the son of Donald Gregson, a captain in the 3rd Indian Cavalry. He came to England with his family when aged three, and went to Canada when he was ten. At sixteen he joined theMerchant Navy.

He is the father of Michael, Stephen and Jessica Gregson; his brother is film producer Richard Gregson, and from Richard's marriage to Natalie Wood Michael the uncle of actress Natasha Gregson Wagner. In 2005 he released his autobiography The Smallest Giant: An Actors Tale.

Craig began his career in the theatre — his first job was as an assistant stage manager at the Castle Theatre, Farnham in 1950.

Craig's many stage credits include A Whistle In the Dark (Apollo Theatre, 1961), Wars of the Roses (Season at Stratford 1963–64), Funny Girl (with Barbra Streisand at the Prince of Wales Theatre 1964), the Homecoming (Music Box Theatre New Year 1966–67) and the lead role in Trying at the Finborough Theatre in 2008.

Craig's film career started in 1950 as an extra, gaining his first speaking part in 1953 in Malta Story. He appeared in a number of film including Campbell's Kingdom (1957), The Silent Enemy (1958), Sapphire (1959), Doctor in Love(1960), The Iron Maiden (1962), Modesty Blaise (1966), Turkey Shoot (1982) and Appointment with Death (1988).

His television credits include appearing in: Arthur of the Britons (1973), The Emigrants (1976), Rush (1976), The Professionals (1980), Shoestring (1980), The Timeless Land (1980), Triangle (1981–83), Tales of the Unexpected (1982),Robin of Sherwood (1986), Doctor Who (in the serial Terror of the Vervoids 1986), the Australian series G.P. (1989–95), Brides of Christ (1991), Grass Roots (2000) and Always Greener (2003).

Craig's scriptwriting credits include the highly acclaimed ABC-TV trilogy The Fourth Wish which starred John Meillon in his award winning performance as the father of a dying boy. Michael also wrote the screenplay for the feature film of The Fourth Wish which was produced following the success of the television series.

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


 Deaths
Sylvia Syms (died 2023 aged 89) - credited as Mrs Pritchard in Ghost Light

Sylvia Syms was a star of British cinema. She appeared in a number of iconic movies including Ice Cold in AlexNo Trees in the Street, Victim, and The Tamarind Seed.

She appeared in Doctor Who in 1989 playing Mrs. Pritchard in the Seventh Doctor story Ghost Light

Sylvia Syms was born in South East London in 1934.  At the age of five World War II broke out and she became one of the thousands of children who were evacuated from London, moving first to Kent and then, in 1940, to Monmouthshire in Wales. She later recalled the trauma of being separated from her mother, who was to die of a brain tumour when Syms was just 12.

At 16, she suffered a nervous breakdown and contemplated suicide but, at the insistence of her stepmother, had psychotherapy which helped her through the crisis.She trained as an actor at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art

After graduating she quickly moved into filmmaking earning plaudits with her second role, playing the delinquent daughter of  Anna Neagle in My Teenage Daughter. The following year she had a key supporting role in the kitchen-sink drama Woman in a Dressing Gown, for which she was nominated for the Bafta for best British actress

A couple of years later she was appearing alongside John Mills in the war movie Ice Cold with Alex. She later played thwannabe singer Maisie in Expresso Bongo. By 1960 had worked with Flora Robson, Orson Welles, Stanley Holloway, Lilli Palmer and William Holden.

In 1961 she played the wife of Dirk Bogarde in the film Victim. The movie dealt with homosexual activity, then unlawful in the United Kingdom, and the movie is thought to have helped change the law. In 1963 she played Tony Hancock's wife in The Punch and Judy Man. Another comedy followed with The Big Job alongside Sid James, Dick Emery, and Joan Sims.

She was again nominated for a British Film Academy award for the 1974 film The Tamarind Seed where she starred with Julie Andrews and Omar Sharif. In 2006 she played The Queen Mother in the Stephen Frears film The Queen

From the mid-seventies onwards her main work was on Television appearing in many supporting roles. In 1991 she portrayed Margaret Thatcher in Thatcher: The Final Days for Granada.  She played Marion Riley in the ITV comedy-drama series At Home with the Braithwaites and in 2007 joined EastEnders for a short run playing dressmaker Olive Woodhouse.

Her last role was in the 2019 series Gentleman Jack, where she played Mrs Rawlinson


Martin Grace (died 2010 aged 67) - credited as Thal in Dr Who and the Daleks(Aaru)

Douglas Camfield (died 1984 aged 52) - 12 credits, including Director for Inferno

Douglas Camfield was an accomplished director for television from the 1960s to the 1980s. He studied at York School of Art and aimed to work for Walt Disney. He was a Lieutenant in the West Yorkshire Regiment, and was training to be in the SAS (but due to an injury he pulled out of the application process). His programme credits include Doctor Who, Z-Cars, Paul Temple, Van der Valk, The Sweeney, Shoestring, The Professionals, Out of the Unknown, The Nightmare Man, the BBC dramatisation of Beau Geste, and Ivanhoe, the 1982 television movie. Camfield was known for his strict professionalism but was well liked personally by many actors, producers, and writers.

Early life

Camfield was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps in 1951 during his National Service. Later the same year he transferred to the West Yorkshire Regiment (Territorial Army). He was promoted Lieutenant in 1952. He left in 1956 for health reasons. It has often been noted by those who worked with him that Camfield always retained an affection for the British Army and brought military standards of organisation to the programmes he subsequently directed.

Doctor Who

He is particularly well known for his work on Doctor Who and was production assistant on its earliest serials, both the pilot and broadcast versions of An Unearthly Child, and Marco Polo. Camfield went on to direct many other stories in its first thirteen years:

 

One of Camfield's notable contributions to the series was the casting of Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart, who would become one of the most long-running and popular characters in its history.

He submitted a script for the series to producer Philip Hinchcliffe called "The Lost Legion", which involved aliens and the French Foreign Legion (a subject which fascinated him). However the story never made it into production.

Personal life

In later life he suffered from a heart ailment and died of a heart attack. He was married to the actress Sheila Dunn whom he cast in the Doctor Who stories The Daleks' Master Plan, The Invasion, and Inferno. They had a son Joggs, who as of 2012 was working in the music industry. Joggs featured heavily in a DVD tribute documentary "Remembering Douglas Camfield" which was included in the 2013 DVD release of Douglas' Doctor Who serial Terror of the Zygons.

Legacy

In 2013, as part of the fiftieth anniversary celebrations for Doctor Who, the BBC produced a drama depicting the creation and early days of the series. Camfield appears as a character in the drama, An Adventure In Space And Time, portrayed by actor Sam Hoare.

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