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On This Day (USA) - 31 March



Frontier In Space: Episode Six premiered on BBC One in 1973 at 5:52pm BST, watched by 8.90 million viewers.

The Doctor leads a mission to the Ogron home world to apprehend the Master and rescue Jo. But the Master is in league with some old enemies of the Doctor.


Aliens of London premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2006 at 9:00pm EST

Smith and Jones premiered on BBC One in 2007 at 7:00pm BST, watched by 8.71 million viewers.

Meet Martha Jones premiered on BBC Three in 2007 at 7:45pm BST

 Birthdays
Anthony Lewis was 41 - 2 credits, including Tommy Brockless in To the Last Man(TW)

Anthony Lewis is an English actor.

Lewis began acting at just nine years old with early roles in many popular television shows, including HeartbeatA Touch Of Frost and Cracker as well as a role alongside Brenda Blethyn andJulie Walters in the feature film Girls' Night written by Kay Mellor. Regular roles in Children's Ward (as Scott Morris for three series) and Adam's Family Tree (as Adam for 2 series), as well as the lead in British Comedy Award-winning show My Dad's a Boring Nerd marked Lewis out as a young actor of note. This resulted in a full time role on popular soap Emmerdale, where Lewis played Marc Reynolds for four years. After leaving the show, Lewis would further his career with a challenging role in Broken Voices at the Tristan Bates Theatre in London's West End. Further television roles followed in Dalziel and Pascoe and Respectable before taking another feature film role as Steve in the multi-award-winning film Boy A. This was immediately followed by a lead in popular sci-fi show Torchwood as the young World War I soldier Tommy Brockless, who is charged with saving the Universe. Lewis also featured in the film version of A Passionate Woman and football comedy Everything But The Ball. In his spare time, he has performed for several years in the band 'The Good Die Young', regularly performing across the country.

Lewis recently appeared on stage at Hull Truck Theatre as Mark in A Passionate Woman alongside Kay MellorStuart Manning and Andrew Dunn. The show toured in 2011 as a co-production between The New Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich and Oldham Coliseum.

Lewis most recently appeared as Peter Davies in BBC Television series The Syndicate alongside brother Matthew LewisJoanna Page and Timothy Spall.

 

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

 


Daniel Mays was 46 - credited as Alex in Night Terrors

One of four boys, Mays was raised in Buckhurst Hill, Essex. He attended the Italia Conti stage school before going on to win a place at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art.

After graduating from RADA in 2000, Mays soon started appearing in a number of supporting roles ranging from a bit part in the BBC soap opera EastEnders in 2000 to playing a pilot in Jerry Bruckheimer's big-budget Pearl Harbor (2001). He was cast in the Mike Leigh film All or Nothing (2002) as Jason, a thug who abused his girlfriend, and also appeared in Leigh's next project, Vera Drake (2004), in which he played Sid, the protagonist's son. His performances for Leigh resulted in further offers of work.

One of Mays's most notable early roles was in the improvised BBC drama Rehab. Directed by acclaimed film maker Antonia Bird, Rehab was a drama about life inside a drug rehabilitation facility. He starred as Adam, a young heroin addict released from prison and sent directly to rehab. For his performance Mays was awarded the Best Actor award at the Palmare-Reims Television Festival in 2003.

Mays has continued to work regularly, and has appeared in a variety of productions, which have included a part in Johnny Vaughan's sitcom, Top Buzzer (2004), the lead role of Carter Krantz in BBC Three's Funland (2005), as well as film appearances in Atonement (2007), White Girl (2008) and The Bank Job (2008).

Mays starred in Channel 4's Friday-night comedy-of-errors sitcom Plus One, in which he played Rob Black, the perennial victim of Sod's law whose girlfriend has dumped him to marry "Duncan from Blue". He played the role of Michael Myshkin in Channel 4's adaptation of David Peace's Red Riding trilogy. He also appears in the third and final series of Ashes to Ashes on BBC1 as Discipline and Complaints Officer, DCI Jim Keats.

In addition to his TV and film work, Mays has also starred in six stage plays at London's Royal Court Theatre. The productions have included Ladybird, Motortown, The Winterling and Scarborough. Simon Stephens wrote the lead role of Danny in Motortown with Mays in mind. He went on to win critical acclaim for his performance, but the hard-hitting play was too much for some audience members and walkouts were not uncommon.

Projects in 2009 included Hippie Hippie Shake (as '60s alternative figurehead David Widgery, alongside Cillian Murphy and Sienna Miller); a role opposite Anna Friel in the third series of Jimmy McGovern's The Street; a "mark" in the BBC drama serial Hustle; as well as an appearance in the independent British movie Shifty, co-starring Riz Ahmed, for which he received a nomination for best supporting actor at the British Independent Film Awards.

Expected in 2010 are roles in No One Gets Off in This Town and a supporting role in the Steven Spielberg film The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn.

Big courtesy of daniel-mays.co.uk


John Lee (died 2000 aged 72) would have been 96 - credited as Alydon in The Daleks

John Lee was an Australian actor.

He is best known in Australia for his roles on television, including Andrew Reynolds in Prisoner and Philip Stewart in Return to Eden.

He also worked in the United Kingdom throughout the 1960s and 1970s, appearing in series such as The Avengers, The Troubleshooters, Doomwatch, Marked Personal, Warship, Survivors and Wilde Alliance. 

He played Alydon in the second Doctor Who story, The Daleks.


 Deaths
Ronnie Corbett (died 2016 aged 85) - credited as Ambassador in From Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love(SJA)

Ronnie Corbett, CBE  was a Scottish actor and comedian who had a long association with Ronnie Barker in the television comedy series The Two Ronnies.

Born in Edinburgh, Corbett was educated at the Royal High School, and then served his national service in the Royal Air Force (where he reportedly became the shortest commissioned officer in the British Forces). Following the end of his service, he moved to London in order to become an actor, and initially played schoolboy roles owing to his height in films such as You're Only Young Twice, Fun as St Fanny's and Rockets Galore, and television shows like Rheingold Theatre.

His comedy talent developed over this time, leading him to supporting roles in The Dickie Henderson Show and It's Tarbuck; however it was in 1966 during The Frost Report where he was to first meet and work alongside Ronnie Barker, leading to their successful partnership in The Two Ronnies, which ran between 1971 and 1987 plus specials, making him a household name.

Outside of The Two Ronnies, he appeared in shows like It's Tommy Cooper, and The Prince of Denmark, but his other major television role was as Timothy Lumsden in Sorry!, which ran from 1981-1988. Later work included the films Fierce Creatures, Burke and Hare, and on television in The Ronnie Corbett Show, game show Small Talk, Ronnie's Animal Crackers, The One Ronnie, and also an appearance as 'himself' in both Extras and Little Britain.

Though not directly related to Doctor Who, he "inherits" the TARDIS from a 'Doctor' of sorts played by Ronnie Barker in their 1983 Christmas Special sketch, The Adventures of Archie. He was later to appear in the Sarah Jane Adventures universe, playing an ambassador that later turned out to be a Slitheen in the 2009 Comic Relief segment From Raxacoricofallapatorius with Love.

Outside of his career, Corbett was a keen golfer, and was also president of the Lord's Taverners cricketing charity in 1982 and 1987. He received an OBE in 1978 and then a CBE in 2012 for services to entertainment and charity.

He was married to actress and dancer Anne Hart, with two daughters who also act, Emma and Sophie.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article.