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On This Day (USA) - 3 January



Spearhead From Space: Episode 1 premiered on BBC One in 1970 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 8.40 million viewers.

The TARDIS takes the newly regenerated Doctor to Earth to begin his exile. Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart leads a UNIT investigation into a mysterious meteorite shower.


The Brain of Morbius: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1976 at 5:56pm GMT, watched by 9.50 million viewers.

The Doctor and Sarah arrive on the planet Karn. There they take shelter in the castle of Dr Solon who is secretly hiding the living brain of the Time Lord criminal, Morbius.


Warriors' Gate: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1981 at 5:20pm GMT, watched by 7.10 million viewers.

Arc of Infinity: Part One premiered on BBC One in 1983 at 6:45pm GMT, watched by 7.20 million viewers.

Scream of the Shalka: Episode Five premiered on BBC Red Button in 2004 at 7:30pm GMT

The Eleventh Doctor premiered on BBC One in 2009 at 5:34pm GMT, watched by 6.30 million viewers.

 Birthdays
Simon Greenall was 66 - credited as Mr Skinner in Love & Monsters

Simon Greenall  is a British actor, writer and voice artist from Longtown in Cumbria.

He played  Mr Skinner in the 2006 Doctor Who episode "Love & Monsters"

He has appeared in a wide variety of roles in televisionfilmradio and the theatre, and is probably best known for his role as Michael in the TV series I'm Alan Partridge and as the voice of headmaster Iqbal in Bromwell High. He has also appeared in the TV series The BillHolby CityHarry Enfield and ChumsMonkey Dust(voice only), People Like UsDoc MartinTime Gentlemen Please, and as the voice of Mervin in cult MTV puppet show "Fur TV". His film credits include Wimbledon. He wrote for and appeared in Harry Enfield's Brand Spanking New Show. He has also contributed his voice to the video games Dragon Quest VIII and Tomb Raider II, among several others. Also, he plays several characters in the British version of The Mr. Men Show, he also played the Caretaker in theCBBC game show, Trapped! and Trapped! Ever After.

In the second series of Saxondale that started to air on BBC Two and BBC HD on 23 August 2007, Greenall was reunited with I'm Alan Partridge star Steve Coogan. He played an ex-roadie friend of Tommy (Coogan) who has since become the managing director of a sleek technology company. He plays a variety of different roles in popular BBC Radio 2 sitcom On the Blog.

Greenall was one of Grant Bovey's sparring partners when he was training for the BBC charity boxing match against comedian Ricky Gervais.

In 2002 he appeared in the Chris Morris production "My Wrongs 8245-8249 and 117" in which he played a brief role as the father of a child being baptized.

He currently provides the voice in the Weetabix adverts and is also the voice of Aleksandr Orlov in the comparethemeerkat.com adverts.[2]

He appears in Channel 4 sitcom Pete versus Life as one of the two commentators remarking on the title character's life. He also voices the character of Murgo in the Fable videogame franchise.

Since October 2010 is responsible for voicing the character of Captain Barnacles Bear in children's TV series -The Octonauts.

In 2011 he appeared in the BBC drama Holy Flying Circus.

In December 2011, Greenall voiced three Viz Comedy Blaps alongside Steve CooganSarah Millican and Gavin Webster for Channel 4.

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


Annie Lambert was 67 - credited as Enlightenment in Four To Doomsday

Annie Lambert  is a British actress, best known to fans of  Doctor Who for her role as Enlightenment in the 1982 serial Four to Doomsday.

Her other TV credits include: The Sweeney, Space: 1999, The New Avengers, All Creatures Great and Small, Bluebell, Inspector Morse, Rockliffe's Babies, Howards' Way, Lovejoy, Minder, Making News, Westbeach and 2point4 Children.


Peter Stephens (died 1972 aged 52) would have been 104 - 2 credits, including Kitchen Boy/Cyril in The Celestial Toymaker

Peter Stephens was an English stage, film and television supporting actor, notable for his portrayal of the Bunteresque character, Cyril, in The Celestial Toymaker.

Stephens first appeared in films playing Major Lench in the 1956 John Boulting offering, Private's Progress, which starred Richard Attenborough as an innocent young recruit who gets involved with a gang of Army spivs. In the same year, he also made his first major television appearance as Hassan Ben Ali in "Albania", an episode of the ITC Entertainment adventure serial The Count of Monte Cristo. He took a lesser role in the ITV "Television Playhouse" production of Skipper Next to God, portraying a Dutch officer.

In 1957, he switched to the BBC, playing Monte in No Shepherds Watched, the story of a bungling criminal family headed by Warren Mitchell, whose plans for a robbery are foiled by a cafe owner, played by Mitchell's future Till Death Us Do Part wife, Dandy Nichols. Stephens first appeared in films playing Major Lench in the 1956 John Boulting offering, Private's Progress, which starred Richard Attenborough as an innocent young recruit who gets involved with a gang of Army spivs. In the same year, he also made his first major television appearance as Hassan Ben Ali in "Albania", an episode of the ITC Entertainment adventure serial The Count of Monte Cristo. He took a lesser role in the ITV "Television Playhouse" production of Skipper Next to God, portraying a Dutch officer.

His only film appearance that year was in the Columbia Pictures British black-and-white movie, Kill Her Gently, directed by Charles Saunders but with no star names appearing in the main roles of a man, his wife, and his chance encounter with two known prison escapees, who he then tries to employ to murder his spouse.

He appeared in two TV series in 1958 - the 6-part "demob" saga from the BBC called Fair Game, and the popular police programme Dixon of Dock Green (playing Todd in "The Key of the Nick").

Peter Stephens' only film as a directorMustang!, was released through United Artists in 1959. It was based on the book Capture of the Golden Stallion by Rutherford Montgomery, and tells of the attempts by occupants of a ranch first to kill a troublesome wild mustang horse, and then to capture and tame it. He had been approached by film producersRobert Franklyn and Sam Abarbanel to make the Western in the early 1950s, and shooting took place in California andOklahoma, with the final edit ready by 1955. Unfortunately, the picture quality was poor, reputedly because it had been shot with 16mm film and then enlarged to 35mm.

He returned to Dixon of Dock Green once more in 1959, though playing an entirely different character, Chapman, in "Over and Out". He also took the role of Mr Lirriper in "The Runaways", part of the Tales from Dickens presentations by Fredric March.

His work in the early years of the 1960s included regular appearances in some well-known productions for television, such as Maigret (1960), Danger Man (1961 and 1966), and the 1962 mini-series of Oliver Twist (featuring a very youngMelvyn Hayes as the Artful Dodger) when Stephens played Mr Limbkins. He also played a councillor in Sir Francis Drakein 1962, after which he took time out to appear on the stage.

On 6 August 1964, Stephens opened at the New Arts Theatre in the London premiere of Alan Ayckbourn's play Mr Whatnot, portraying Herbert the Butler, amongst a cast which included Ronnie BarkerRonnie Stevens and Judy Cornwell. He did find time to play two characters on television that year, Mr Dawson in "My Late Dear Husband", an episode in the popular Scottish series Dr Finlay's Casebook, and Mr Jinkins in the BBC's 13 part serial Martin Chuzzlewit, adapted from Charles Dickens' novel.

1965 saw a brief return to the cinema for him, portraying Sir Giles Redman in the 30-minute "Scales of Justice" featuretteThe Hidden Face. In television that year, he made appearances in single episodes of more anthology-style series, namely The Man in Room 17Out of the UnknownAn Enemy of the State, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Perhaps Stephens' best-remembered performances were in three episodes of season 3 of Doctor Who, the long-running British sci-fi series featuring a time-travelling Time Lord played in this series by William Hartnell. In the storyline popularly known as The Celestial Toymaker, he played both Cyril the kitchen boy and the animated playing card the Knave of Hearts. The producers subsequently received complaints from lawyers acting on behalf of the deceased author Charles Hamilton's estate. The character Cyril was said to bear a remarkable resemblance to William George Bunter, who Hamilton wrote many books about under the pen name Frank Richards. The BBC finally issued a disclaimer, saying that Cyril was merely "Bunter-like".

Stephens would portray a completely different character, Lolem, during episodes one and three of the four-part The Underwater Menace storyline while Patrick Troughton was playing the re-generated Doctor Who in early 1967.

Stephens made further 1967 television appearances in Adam Adamant Lives!Dr Finlay's Casebook (for the second time, but as a different character), and played Felix Delmer in one episode of the BBC drama Champion House.

He continued his movie career in 1967 by appearing in a 38 minute short film called Money-Go-Round, based on dealings at the Stock Exchange, and in which he played a tycoon. He followed this in the same year with a more prominent role as Farson in the full-length film Herostratus, whose plot involves issues on suicide, and featured minor roles for a young Helen Mirren, and Malcolm Muggeridge, who played himself.

In the Wednesday Play series, he appeared as Captain Carruthers in the final part of Alan Plater's 1968 trilogy, To See How Far It Is, about a "humble pen-pusher in a cardboard factory" who, in his attempts to brighten up his life, ends up surrounded by "a little feminine company" on a cruise ship. He could also be seen on TV in that year in anotheranthology series, "ITV Playhouse", playing Mr Morrow alongside Nicky Henson and Ronald Fraser in Peter Wildeblood's play Rogues' Gallery: The Lives and Crimes of Jonathan Wild and Jack Sheppard.

Stephens' only cinema appearance of 1969 was as the Abbott of St Mary's in the Hammer/LWT co-productionWolfshead. He was very busy on the small screen however. He took the parts of Bellchamber in "Love All", an episode of the quirky ITV series The Avengers, Quintin Blythe in one episode of Yorkshire Television's The Flaxton Boys serial, and Sir Timothy Grange in "When Did You Start to Stop Seeing Things?", from the offbeat ghost-related television series Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). He also played Mr Bailey in seven instalments of the TV series Mr Digby Darling, which starred Peter Jones and Sheila Hancock.

After portraying Don Gutierre in the BBC's epic historical drama The Six Wives of Henry VIII, he made a cinema film alongside Jean Simmons called Say Hello to Yesterday, in which he played a businessman.

1971 saw many television appearances from Stephens. The list included Doctor in the HouseBrettZ-Cars, and portraying Beppo Bowles in Eyeless in Gaza.

He made a major movie in 1971 with Pier Paolo PasoliniI Racconti di Canterbury, an Italian language adaptation ofChaucer's The Canterbury Tales, playing Justinus. He had previously appeared as a friar in the BBC's bawdy 1969 TV version. The friar turned up in episode 5, entitled "The Wife of Bath's Tale/The Clerk's Tale".

In late 1971 another film, Hammer Films’ Twins of Evil, was released, starring Peter Cushing, and in which Stephens supported as a member of the Brotherhood, a fictional sect which fought vampirism in middle Europe in the nineteenth century.

In the final year of his life, he secured a regular role as the Chairman of the Board of St. Swithin's hospital in four episodes of Doctor in Charge, the ITV comedy series based on Richard Gordon's books, and starring Robin Nedwell,George LaytonGeoffrey Davies and Richard O'Sullivan.

His last ever film was Go for a Take, an inward-looking treatment satirising the movie industry, in which he took the part of a film director who has to contend with two men 'on the run' invading a set, pretending to be film extras.

Peter Stephens died on 17 September 1972; however, one further appearance occurred posthumously — his portrayal of Amlodd in HTV's historical adventure series Arthur of the Britons. The episode he had completed before his death, "In Common Cause", was not broadcast until 24 October 1973.


William Mervyn (died 1976 aged 64) would have been 112 - credited as Sir Charles Summer in The War Machines

William Mervyn was an English actor best known for his portrayal of the Bishop in the clerical comedy All Gas and Gaiters.

He was in the 1966 Doctor Who story The War Machines. He was married to Anne Margaret Payne Cooke and they had two sons, including Michael Pickwoad who in 2010 became the production designer on Doctor Who.

Mervyn was born in Nairobi, Kenya, but educated in Britain before embarking on a stage career, spending five years in provincial theatre. He made his West End debut in The Guinea Pig at the Criterion Theatre in 1946, before parts in plays such as the comedy Ring Round the Moon, The Mortimer Touch, A Woman of No Importance by Oscar Wilde at the Savoy Theatre in 1953 and Charley's Aunt.

Mervyn's later stage roles included those of O'Trigger in The Rivals, Lord Greenham in the comedy Aren't We All? and Sir Patrick Cullen in The Doctor's Dilemma. One of his first major small screen roles was Sir Hector in the 1962 series Saki. Four years later, he played the Bishop of St. Ogg's in the comedy series All Gas and Gaiters. It was, at that time, breaking with tradition, allowing a laugh at the expense of the established church.

He also played the police chief inspector Charles Rose in the Granada TV series The Odd Man and its spin-offs It's Dark Outside and Mr Rose. He played the Hon. Mr. Justice Campbell in the Granada TV series Crown Court.

Having taken the part of a Chief Inspector in the 1949 Ealing Studios film The Blue Lamp, in which PC George Dixon first appears, he then reappeared in a 1960 Dixon of Dock Green episode "The Hot Seat", several Carry On films in the late 1960s, and also appeared as Mr. Whitty in the Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) episode "A Disturbing Case" in 1969.

Usually cast as a wealthy upper class gentleman, he also appeared in The Railway Children in 1970 and The Ruling Class in 1972.


Paddy Ryan (died 1990 aged 79) would have been 113 - 2 credits, including Scientist (Kalid) in Genesis of the Daleks

Paddy Ryan was born in Greenwich in 1911 (sometimes cited as 1904), his parents being William McCree and Jane Margaret Martha (nee Lazell). He was known for his work on films such as An American Werewolf in London (1981), The Meaning of Life (1983) and The Crimson Permanent Assurance (1983). He lived in Watford, where he died in 1990.


 Deaths
Barbara Shelley (died 2021 aged 88) - credited as Sorasta in Planet of Fire

Barbara Shelley is an English film and television actress, often dubbed "The First Leading Lady of British Horror" 

She was at her busiest in the late 1950s (Blood of the Vampire) and 1960s when she became Hammer Horror's number one female star, with The Gorgon (1964), Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966), Rasputin, the Mad Monk (1966), and Quatermass and the Pit (1967) among her credits. Although she is known as a scream queen, in fact her most famous scream (in the aforementioned Dracula film) was dubbed by co-star Suzan Farmer.

She also appeared in Village of the Damned (1960) and in the 1984 Doctor Who serial Planet of Fire.


Derek Acorah (died 2020 aged 69) - 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.


Jenny Tomasin (died 2012 aged 75) - credited as Tasambeker in Revelation of the Daleks

Jenny Tomasin  was an English actress best known for her roles in Upstairs, Downstairs and Emmerdale.

She played Tasambeker, an employee of Tranquil Repose, in the 1985 story Revelation of the Daleks.

Tomasin became well known in the early 1970s when she joined the cast of Upstairs, Downstairs as kitchen maid Ruby. She stayed with the series until the end in 1975, appearing in 41 episodes. Plans were drawn up for a spin off series following the further adventures of Ruby with Hudson and Mrs Bridges. The series was never made following the death of Angela Baddeley who played Mrs Bridges.

Between 2005 and 2006 she was a member of the cast of the soap Emmerdale as Noreen Bell, a cantankerous villager, who was killed off in July 2006. This role was the second character she had played in the soap as she played Naomi Tolly (1981–1982), daughter of Enoch Tolly, killed in a tractor accident in the soap.


Dennis Tate (died 1993 aged 61) - credited as Technix Engineer / Pilot in The Daleks' Master Plan

Born in Iowa, USA, Tate mainly worked there, appearing in films such as Shaft, and No Place to Hide, and also appeared in Benson. He died in Los Angeles.