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On This Day (USA) - 11 March



The Macra Terror: Episode 1 premiered on BBC One in 1967 at 5:51pm GMT, watched by 8.00 million viewers.

The TARDIS arrives at a human colony where everyone appears happy. However, one citizen claims to have seen something terrible and the Doctor is eager to find out what it is.


The Sea Devils: Episode Three premiered on BBC One in 1972 at 5:49pm GMT, watched by 8.30 million viewers.

Jo attempts to rescue the Doctor who is being held prisoner by the Master and Trenchard. The Master plans to summon the Sea Devils from beneath the waves.


The Invasion of Time: Part Six premiered on BBC One in 1978 at 6:25pm GMT, watched by 9.80 million viewers.

 Birthdays
John Barrowman was 57 - 95 credits, including Captain Jack Harkness in The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

John Barrowman is best known in the UK for his role as Captain Jack Harkness in  Doctor Who and the spin off Torchwood. His first appearance as Harkness was in the two-part story "The Empty Child"/"The Doctor Dances", going on to appear in the next three episodes, "Boom Town", "Bad Wolf" and "The Parting of the Ways". The character of Captain Jack Harkness became so popular, he was given his own show. Torchwood, which premiered in 2006. 

John Barrowman was born in the Mount Vernon area of Glasgow. He lived in the city for the first eight years of his life where his mother was a singer and  his father was employed by the Caterpillar heavy machinery company in Uddingston. In 1976, his father's company relocated the family to Aurora, Illinois in the United States, where his father managed the Caterpillar tractor factory. 

As a freshman, Barrowman won parts in several musical productions and from 1983 to 1985 he performed in Hello, Dolly!, Oliver!, Camelot, Li'l Abner and Anything Goes. After he graduated from high school, he moved to San Diego, California to study performing arts at the United States International University (USIU). As part of an exchange programme, he returned to the United Kingdom, in 1989, to study William Shakespeare for six months.

Barrowman's professional acting career began in London's West End in 1989, playing the role of Billy Crocker in Cole Porter's Anything Goes at the Prince Edward Theatre, alongside Elaine Paige as Reno Sweeney and Bernard Cribbins as Moonface Martin. He continued to appear in West End productions for the next decade, taking the title role of Domingo Hernandez in Matador at the Queen's Theatre in 1991; as Raoul in The Phantom of the Opera at Her Majesty's Theatre in 1992; as Claude in Hair at the Old Vic Theatre in 1993; as Chris in Miss Saigon at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane in 1993; as Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard at the Adelphi Theatre from 1994-1995; and as Beast in Beauty and the Beast at the Dominion Theatre in 1999. Barrowman was part of the musical Godspell in 1994, and was a soloist in two songs, "We Beseech Thee" and "On The Willows". He was nominated for an Olivier Award for Best Actor in a Musical in 1998 for originating the role of Cal Chandler in The Fix, a performance he repeated in Cameron Mackintosh's 1998 gala concert Hey, Mr Producer! Barrowman played the role of Joe Gillis in Sunset Boulevard in the West End and, briefly, on Broadway. His only other Broadway credit is in the role of Barry in the Stephen Sondheim revue Putting It Together (1999-2000) at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre alongside Carol Burnett, George Hearn and Bronson Pinchot. In a review of Putting It Together, theater critic Tom Samiljan noted Barrowman's "fine baritone voice and suave looks". In 2002, Barrowman appeared as Bobby in Sondheim's Company in the Kennedy Center's Stephen Sondheim Celebration.

Barrowman was one of the original hosts of Live & Kicking, a children's Saturday morning variety show on the BBC. He appeared on the children's television game show, The Movie Game from 1994-1996 and was one of the regular presenters on Five channel's afternoon show 5's Company from 1997-1999.

In 2007, Barrowman was a judge on the BBC One TV series Any Dream Will Do, hosted by Graham Norton. The show searched for a new, unknown actor to play the role of Joseph in a West End revival of the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. 

Barrowman's television career began with several appearances in short-lived prime-time soap operas. Barrowman first starred as Peter Fairchild in Central Park West (1995). He appeared as Peter Williams in Titans (2000) alongside Yasmine Bleeth on NBC. Barrowman made a guest appearance in episode 22 of the BBC's comedy-drama show Hotel Babylon.

Barrowman appeared as Ben Carpenter in the low-budget film Shark Attack 3: Megalodon (2002). His musical abilities are featured in several film roles: as Jack in the Cole Porter biopic De-Lovely (2004), singing a duet with Kevin Kline on the song Night and Day; and in the role of the lead tenor Stormtrooper in The Producers (2005), singing Springtime for Hitler. Barrowman took part in the reality television series Dancing on Ice on ITV1 in January and February 2006. 

In 2014 he was awarded an MBE for services to entertainment and charity.

Official Site


Alex Kingston was 61 - 35 credits, including River Song in The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon

Alex Kingston was born and raised in Epsom, Surrey. She is the eldest of three daughters of a butcher, Anthony Kingston and his German wife. Her mother's younger brother is actor Walter Renneisen.
Kingston has appeared in a number of British-produced television dramas, including Grange Hill, Crocodile Shoes, Moll Flanders, The Knock and a guest role on The Bill. Her film credits include The Cook, the Thief, His Wife & Her Lover (1989), A Pin for the Butterfly (1994), Croupier (1998), Essex Boys (2000), Boudica (Warrior Queen in the USA) (2003) in which she played the title character Boudica, Sweet Land (2005), and "Crashing" (2007). In 1997, Kingston gained American television fame after being cast on the medical drama ER. Her first appearance was in the premiere of the fourth season in the live episode Ambush. Her character Elizabeth Corday was a surgeon arriving from England. Kingston played this role for just over seven seasons until leaving in 2004, four episodes into Season 11. In 2009, Kingston returned to ER during its fifteenth and final season for two episodes, including the series finale. In September the same year, Kingston took the part of Mrs. Bennet in ITV's acclaimed four-part production Lost in Austen which is based on Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice. In February 2009, Kingston portrayed a defence attorney in two episodes of the TV series Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. This guest spot reunited Kingston with her former cast mate from ER, Mariska Hargitay. Hargitay had a recurring role alongside Kingston during the fourth season of ER. In June 2009, Kingston played the main character Ellie Lagden in the BBC One drama series Hope Springs. In September 2009, Kingston had a recurring role in FlashForward, playing Inspector Fiona Banks.


Robert Glenister was 64 - 3 credits, including Salateen in The Caves of Androzani

Robert Glenister  is a British actor known for his roles as con man Ash "Three Socks" Morgan in the British TV series Hustle, and Nicholas Blake in the BBC spy drama Spooks.

He played Salateen in the 1984 story The Caves of Androzani

He is probably best known for his starring role in the BBC drama Hustle; Ash Morgan is a high-level con-man who has to convincingly play various roles or characters in order to pull off a con and lure a 'mark'. He is the only actor who has appeared in every episode of the series.Glenister made his first television appearance in the sitcom Sink or Swim in 1980. He has also appeared in shows such as Soldier SoldierOnly Fools and HorsesA Touch of Frost, and Hustle as Ash Morgan, as well as several films.

He has also had regular starring roles in the BBC dramas such as SpooksGeorge Gently and Spartacus.

He is the son of director John Glenister and the brother of actor Philip Glenister, who played DCI Gene Hunt in Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes. His ex-wife is actress Amanda Redman with whom he has a daughter, Emily. He and his current wife, Celia Glenister, have a son, Thomas. His sister in law is also an actress. When Robert Glenister was growing up he attended Hatch End High School.


Douglas Adams (died 2001 aged 49) would have been 72 - 9 credits, including Script Editor for Destiny of the Daleks

Douglas Adams  was an English writer and dramatist. He is best known as the author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which started life in 1978 as a BBC radio comedy before developing into a "trilogy" of five books that sold over 15 million copies in his lifetime, a television series, several stage plays, comics, a computer game, and in 2005 a feature film. Adams's contribution to UK radio is commemorated in The Radio Academy's Hall of Fame.

He was Script Editor on Doctor Who for the 17th season of the show and was the author of three stories, The Pirate Planet, City of Death and the unfinished Shada.

Adams also wrote Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (1987) and The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul (1988), and co-wrote The Meaning of Liff (1983), Last Chance to See (1990), and three stories for the television series Doctor Who. A posthumous collection of his work, including an unfinished novel, was published as The Salmon of Doubt in 2002.

Adams became known as an advocate for environmental and conservation causes, and also as a lover of fast cars, cameras, and the Apple Macintosh. He was a staunch atheist, famously imagining a sentient puddle who wakes up one morning and thinks, "This is an interesting world I find myself in�an interesting hole I find myself in�fits me rather neatly, doesn't it? In fact it fits me staggeringly well, must have been made to have me in it!" Biologist Richard Dawkins dedicated his book, The God Delusion (2006), to Adams, writing on his death that, "[s]cience has lost a friend, literature has lost a luminary, the mountain gorilla and the black rhino have lost a gallant defender."

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


Graeme Harper was 79 - 32 credits, including Director for Rise of the Cybermen / The Age of Steel

Graeme Harper  is a British television director.

 He is the only person to have directed episodes of both the original run (1963-89) and revived run (2005-present) of the programme. Doctor Who Magazine has described him as "the longest-serving crew member on Doctor Who."

Born in London, Harper began elocution lessons at the Italia Conti Academy as a child in 1955, at the encouragement of his mother who was worried that he was developing a cockney accent. This led to him being cast as Master Bardell in an adaptation of Charles Dickens' novelThe Pickwick Papers for the independent television company Associated-Rediffusion,

Further television work followed in the late 1950s, appearing in children's serials for BBC Television under producer / director Shaun Sutton.From the ages of sixteen to twenty-one Harper worked predominantly in the theatre, not only as an actor but also as a stage manager. After further television work, however, he decided that acting was not the career he would like, and he would instead rather be behind the scenes.

After hearing nothing from his various applications to the BBC, Harper wrote to his former director Shaun Sutton, who was by now Head of Drama Serials at the BBC. With Sutton's assistance Harper gained an interview for the position of floor assistant, in which role he began working at BBC Television Centre in London in September 1966.

Harper worked on various productions in this capacity, including the Doctor Who serial "The Power of the Daleks" and later the 1967 adaptation of The Forsyte Saga novels. He also worked on the series Play of the Month, where he first worked with the director Douglas Camfield, with whom he would often work in later years. In 1969 he was promoted to assistant floor manager. In 1975 he was promoted again and became a production assistant. One of the first productions he was assigned to in this role was the Doctor Who serial "The Seeds of Doom", again working under director Douglas Camfield.

In 1980, Harper once more worked on Doctor Who when he was assigned to be production assistant to director Paul Joyce on the serial "Warriors' Gate". Joyce's approach to the production resulted in various delays, and Harper had to take on extra responsibility for helping to direct the serial in order to ensure it was finished in time. Following this, Doctor Who'executive producer and producerBarry Letts and John Nathan-Turner, endorsed Harper's application for the BBC's in-house television director course, from which he graduated in 1982.

Harper's first television directing work consisted of episodes of the medical drama series Angels. In 1983, John Nathan-Turner offered him work on Doctor Who, but as he could only employ freelance directors, Harper would need to resign from the staff of the BBC first. This Harper did, and he began working on Doctor Who in the autumn of 1983

Harper's first Doctor Who serial, "The Caves of Androzani", was the last Doctor Who story to feature Peter Davison in the title role. Produced in late 1983, it was broadcast in March 1984. It is widely regarded by fans of the programme as one of the finest instalments of the series. In 1985 he worked again on the programme, directing "Revelation of the Daleks", starring Colin Baker. In 1989 he was approached to direct the Sylvester McCoy-starring Doctor Who serial "Battlefield", but he was committed to episodes of the Central Television drama seriesBoon. In 1993 he was attached to the potential Doctor Who thirtieth anniversary special "The Dark Dimension", but this was abandoned at the pre-production stage.

Harper's other work has included episodes of Juliet Bravo (1984 & 1985), Bergerac (1985 & 1987), Star Cops (1987), The New Statesman(1987), The House of Eliott (1991-93), The Bill (1993), The Detectives (1995-97), Casualty (1997, 2004-05), EastEnders (2000-02) andRobin Hood (2006 & 2009). In 1999 his work on the television adaptation of David McRobbie's novel See How They Run was nominated for anAustralian Film Institute Award for "Best Direction in a Television Drama", and in 2001 he shared in a BAFTA Children's Award win in the category of "Best Drama" for Custer's Last Stand Up. Harper directed ITV1 soap opera Coronation Street's fateful tram crash in October 2010, screened on 6 December.

In 2005, twenty years after his last work on Doctor Who, he was invited to direct four episodes of the 2006 series, starring David Tennant. Having previously worked with the new series' executive producer Russell T Davies on the programmes On the Waterfront and The House of Windsor, Harper had contacted Davies soon after the announcement of Doctor Who's revival in September 2003, to say that he would very much like to work on it. Scheduling conflicts meant that he was unable to work on the first series of the revival in 2005, but for the second series in 2006 he directed two two-part stories featuring the Cybermen; "Rise of the Cybermen" / "The Age of Steel", and the series finale "Army of Ghosts" / "Doomsday". His work on the episode "Doomsday" saw him awarded the BAFTA Cymru Award for Best Drama Director in April 2007.

Harper directed two episodes, "42" and "Utopia", for the 2007 series of Doctor Who, as well as the mini-episode "Time Crash", part of the 2007 edition of the BBC's annual Children in Need charity telethon. He also directed Whatever Happened to Sarah Jane?, a two-part serial for spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures.

He directed five episodes of the 2008 series of Doctor Who, "Planet of the Ood", "The Unicorn and the Wasp", "Turn Left", "The Stolen Earth", and "Journey's End" and the second of the 2009 specials, "The Waters of Mars", broadcast in November 2009. He directed the last two stories for the second series of The Sarah Jane AdventuresThe Temptation of Sarah Jane Smith and Enemy of the Bane

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


Terence Alexander (died 2009 aged 86) would have been 101 - credited as Lord Ravensworth in The Mark of the Rani

Terence Alexander was an English film and television actor, best known for his role as Charlie Hungerford in the BritishTV drama Bergerac.

In Doctor Who he played Lord Ravensworth in the 1986 story Mark of the Rani

Alexander was born in London, the son of a doctor, and grew up in Yorkshire. He was educated at Ratcliffe CollegeLeicestershire, and Norwood CollegeHarrogate, and started acting in the theatre at the age of 16. During World War II he served in the British Army as a lieutenant with the 27th Lancers, and was seriously wounded by artillery fire in Italy. In 1956, Alexander appeared on stage in Ring For Catty at the Lyric Theatre in London. He is probably best remembered as Charlie Hungerford from the detective series Bergerac, though he was also very prominent in the 1967 BBC adaptation of The Forsyte Saga. One of his early roles was in the children's series Garry Halliday. He also appeared in one episode of Please Sir in 1970 as the headteacher of a rival school.

Also in 1970, Alexander played Lord Uxbridge in Sergei Bondarchuk's war epic Waterloo.

Alexander appeared in many other film and television roles including three appearances in different roles in The AvengersTerry and June (1979–1980); Behind the Screen (1981–1982); the 1985 Doctor Whoserial The Mark of the Rani; and The New Statesman (1987). On radio he starred as The Toff in the BBC radio adaptation of the John Creasey novels. He appeared in all but one episode of Bergerac from 1981 to 1991.

He appeared on the West End in comedies and farces and his credits included Move Over Mrs Markham (1971), Two and Two Make Sex (1973), There Goes The Bride (1974/5) and Fringe Benefits (1976).


 Deaths
Ken Dodd (died 2018 aged 90) - credited as Tollmaster in Delta and the Bannermen

Sir Ken Dodd OBE  was a British comedian and singer-songwriter, famous for his frizzy hair or "fluff dom" and buck teeth or "denchers", his favourite cleaner, the feather duster (or "tickling stick") and his greeting of "How tickled I am!", as well as his send-off "Lots and Lots of Happiness!". He works mainly in the music hall tradition, although, in the past, has occasionally appeared in drama, including as Malvolio in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night on stage in Liverpool in 1971; on television in the cameo role of 'The Tollmaster' in the 1987 Doctor Who story Delta and the Bannermen; and as Yorick (in silent flashback) in Kenneth Branagh's film version of Shakespeare's Hamlet in 1996. In the 1960s his fame was such that he rivalled The Beatles as a household name.

Dodd's stand-up comedy style is fast and relies on the rapid delivery of one-liner jokes. He has claimed that his comic influences include other Liverpool comedians like Arthur Askey, Robb Wilton, Tommy Handley and the "cheeky chappy" from Brighton Max Miller. He intersperses the comedy with occasional songs, both serious and humorous, in an incongruously fine light baritone voice.

Dodd has had many recording hits, charting on nineteen occasions in the UK Top 40, including his first single "Love Is Like a Violin" (1960), produced on Decca Records by Alex Wharton, which charted at number 8 (UK), and his song "Tears" (Columbia), which topped the UK charts for five weeks in 1965, selling over a million copies. At the time it was the UK's biggest selling single by a solo artist, and remains one of the UK's biggest selling singles of all time. Dodd was selected to perform the song on A Jubilee Of Music on BBC One on December 31, 1976, a celebration of the key pop successes of Queen Elizabeth II's first twenty-five years as UK monarch.

Dodd is renowned for the length of his performances, and during the 1960s he earned a place in the Guinness Book of Records for the world's longest ever joke-telling session: 1,500 jokes in three and a half hours (7.14 jokes per minute), undertaken at a Liverpool theatre, where audiences were observed to enter the show in shifts. More recently, Ken Dodd appeared at the Royal Variety Performance in 2006 in front of Charles, Prince of Wales and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, where he reprised some of his famous jokes, including those about tax accountants as well as singing his famous song "Happiness".

He was knighted in the 2017 Honours list.

The entertainer died at home in Knotty Ash on 11th March, having married his long term partner of 40 years, Anne Jones, the previous Friday.

His publicist Robert Holmes said:

To my mind, he was one of the last music hall greats. He passed away in the home that he was born in over 90 years ago. He's never lived anywhere else. It's absolutely amazing.

 

 

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


Reg Whitehead (died 2016 aged 83) - 5 credits, including Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen

Reg Whitehead appeared in a number of television programmes over the course of his career, including Z Cars, The Power Game, The Avengers, The Saint, and Counterstrike. In Doctor Who, he is attributed with the first appearance of a Cyberman in the series, appearing at the cliff-hanger to The Tenth Planet: Episode 1; he played Cybermen in subsequent stories The Moonbase and The Tomb of the Cybermen, and also a Yeti in The Abominable Snowmen.

Outside of acting he was an avid horse lover, and owned several racehorses.


David Nettheim (died 2008 aged 82) - credited as Fedorin in The Enemy of the World

David Nettheim was an Australian actor.

He appeared in the 1967 Enemy of the World.

He was educated at Sydney Grammar School and joined 2GB as an office boy in 1941. He took on occasional writing and announcing roles and was involved in production of John Dease's "Quiz Kids".

He was involved with the Metropolitan Theatre, Mercury Theatre and Phillip Street Theatre, where he both wrote for and acted in their famous revues.

He worked with Michael Bentine and John Bluthal in the Goon Show-like radio programme "Three's a Crowd" for radio 2UE, which ran for 34 weekly half-hour episodes. He next worked in England with Peter Sellers and Michael Bentine in the 1957 television comedy skit show Yes, It's the Cathode-Ray Tube Show. 

He was the uncle of director Daniel Nettheim.