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On This Day (USA) - 30 May



The Aztecs: The Warriors of Death premiered on BBC One in 1964 at 5:16pm BST, watched by 7.40 million viewers.

The High Priest of Sacrifice, Tlotoxl begins to doubt Barbara's claim to be the reincarnation of Yetaxa and plots to undermine her position and eliminate her friends.


Inferno: Episode 4 premiered on BBC One in 1970 at 5:15pm BST, watched by 6.00 million viewers.

In the parallel world, the drilling project is about to penetrate Earth's crust. The Doctor, arrested as a spy, is unable to convince his captors of the danger that faces them.


Shada (Online): Part Five premiered on BBC Online in 2003 at 12:00pm BST

The Lost Boy: Part Two premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2008 at 8:30pm EDT

The Poison Sky premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2008 at 9:00pm EDT

The Wrath of the Iceni premiered on Radio 4 Extra in 2015 at 6:00pm BST

Leela is reunited with the ancient tribes of Norfolk in an uprising against the Romans.


 Birthdays
Rachael Stirling will be 47 - 4 credits, including Ada in The Crimson Horror

Rachael Stirling is an English stage, film and television actress. She is a two-time Olivier nominee for her stage work. She played Nancy Astley in the BBC drama Tipping the Velvet, and Millie in the ITV series The Bletchley Circle.

Personal life

Stirling is the daughter of actress Diana Rigg and theatre producer Archibald Stirling. Her parents subsequently married in 1982 and divorced in 1990. Through her father, she has a long line of ancestry from the Scottish parish of Lecropt, near her namesake city of Stirling.

Stirling attended Wycombe Abbey School. She earned a BA in art history from Edinburgh University, where she performed with the Edinburgh University Theatre Company.

Stirling can speak Russian and is experienced in horse riding and jumping.

She was engaged to fellow actor Oliver Chris, whom she had been dating since 2007, until 2012.

Theatre

Stirling made her first major appearance on stage in 1996 as Desdemona in the National Youth Theatre revival of Othello at the Arts Theatre opposite Chiwetel Ejiofor in the title role. A year later, again at the Arts Theatre with the NYT, she played Olive in the female version of The Odd Couple; while in 1998, portraying Kate in Dancing at Lughnasa for NYT at the Arts, she gave what The Stage reviewer described as "a performance of exceptional promise and authority".

She continues to be active in the theatre, covering a diversity of roles in plays such as Dusty Hughes' Helpless (Donmar Warehouse, 2000); A Woman of No Importance (Theatre Royal Haymarket, 2003); Anna in the Tropics (Hampstead Theatre, 2004); and Tamburlaine (Bristol Old Vic and Barbican, 2005), and she followed in her mother's footsteps, bringing an alluring erotic charge to her performance as Miranda Lionheart in the National Theatre stage version of Theatre of Blood (2005).

In 2006, for the Peter Hall Company at the Theatre Royal, Bath, she played Helena in Peter Gill's revival of Look Back in Anger, while in 2007 at Wilton's Music Hall in London, she starred as Yelena in David Mamet's version of Uncle Vanya, and as Katharina in The Taming of the Shrew.

Stirling starred onstage in The Priory directed by Jeremy Herrin at the Royal Court Theatre in 2009. Her role as Rebecca earned her a nomination for Laurence Olivier Award for Best Performance in a Supporting Role. In 2010 she appeared as Helena in Peter Hall's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream at the Rose Theatre, Kingston.

She starred as Lady Chiltern in a 2010 production of An Ideal Husband at the Vaudeville Theatre, for which she received her second nomination for a Laurence Olivier Award. From February to April 2012, she appeared as Sylvia alongside Mark Gatiss, Tobias Menzies, and Nancy Carroll in The Recruiting Officer, the acclaimed production at the Donmar Warehouse directed by newly appointed artistic director Josie Rourke.

Film

Stirling's first screen appearance was in the 1998 British comedy film Still Crazy.

Other film appearances include Maybe Baby, Redemption Road (2001), Complicity (with her Tipping the Velvet co-star Keeley Hawes), Another Life (with Vanity Fair actress Natasha Little), The Triumph of Love (with Mira Sorvino), as Mary Jones in Salmon Fishing in the Yemen and as Anna in Snow White and the Huntsman.

Television

Stirling's first break in television was in the 2000 NBC miniseries In the Beginning, which was adapted from Genesis. Stirling played the young Rebeccah, with her mother, Diana Rigg, as the older Rebeccah.

In 2011, she starred in the BBC Four adaptation of D.H. Lawrence's Women in Love as Ursula Brangwen.

She appeared in an episode of Doctor Who titled "The Crimson Horror" alongside her mother Dame Diana Rigg, Matt Smith and Jenna-Louise Coleman. The episode had been specially written for her and her mother by Mark Gatiss (marking the very first appearance of the two actresses together professionally) and was aired 4 May 2013 as part of Series 7.

She appeared as a guest on the BBC1 cookery programme Saturday Kitchen Live which was broadcast on 1 March 2014.

In autumn 2014 she appeared in the BBC4 comedy drama Detectorists as Becky, the girlfriend of Andy (played by Mackenzie Crook).

Other work

Stirling is an occasional interviewer on the Radio Four chat-show Loose Ends. She also wrote a restaurant column for Diplomat magazine.

She took part in Occupy London's reading of Dickens' A Christmas Carol on the steps of St Paul's Cathedral, London in December 2011.

Presented Stage Door, BBC Radio Four, December 2012.

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


Jamie Adams will be 44 - credited as Assistant Editor for The Empty Child / The Doctor Dances

Assistant Editor whose works include American Interior, The Machine and Carrie's War.


David Dukas (died 2021 aged 51) would be 54 - credited as Elias Griffin Jr in Rosa

David Dukas was a South African actor, born in the small mining town of Virginia.

After graduating from high school in 1988, David went on to complete the National Higher Diploma:Acting at Tswane University of Technology(Former Pretoria Technikon's school of Performing Arts).

He began his career on the stage as an ad-hoc player for the former PACT (Performing Arts Council of Transvaal). In 1994 he made his television debut in South Africa's longest running soap, Egoli - Place of Gold and subsequently acted in numerous local as well as International co-productions.


Mark Sheppard will be 60 - 3 credits, including Canton Delaware in The Impossible Astronaut / Day of the Moon
Mark Sheppard is a British actor and musician, born in London of an Irish-German background.

At 15, he became a professional musician and enjoyed many years as a recording and touring artist with bands including Robyn Hitchcock, Television Personalities and the Irish group Light a Big Fire.

His television work includes the "Fire" episode of The X-Files, a year on the Jerry Bruckheimer action series Soldier of Fortune, guest-starring and recurring roles on The Practice, The Invisible Man, Special Unit 2, JAG, Star Trek: Voyager, The Chronicle, Monk, Las Vegas, CSI: NY, Chuck and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, among others. He played Badger, a semi-comical cockney-style crime boss in the short-lived Joss Whedon show Firefly and later cast again in another Joss Whedon show, Dollhouse as Paul Ballard's dismissive FBI superior. Most recently, he appeared in the SyFy series Warehouse 13 as Regent Benedict Valda.

His film credits include the Jim Sheridan film In the Name of the Father, starring opposite Daniel Day-Lewis and Emma Thompson as Guildford Four member Patrick Armstrong; the romantic comedy Lover's Knot; the Russian historical drama Out of the Cold; the thriller Unstoppable; and with Heather Graham and Jeremy Sisto in the dark independent, Broken. He also starred in Megalodon, and New Alcatraz.

Tracey Childs will be 61 - 13 credits, including Metella in The Fires of Pompeii

Tracey Childs is an English actress, best known for playing Lynne Howard in the 1980s drama series Howards' Way. More recently, she has appeared in Born and Bred as Linda Cosgrove and as Patty Cornwell in Hollyoaks.

Her first on-screen role was in the Upstairs, Downstairs episode, Wanted - a Good Home. She also appeared in The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie as Rose Stanley, Sense and Sensibility, The Scarlet Pimpernel and the 1982 Bergerac episode "A Perfect Recapture". She appeared as Pompeiian citizen Caecilius's wife Metella in "The Fires of Pompeii", in the fourth season of the BBC's relaunched Doctor Who.

Childs was married to her Howards' Way co-star Tony Anholt, from 1990 to 1998 and toured with him, Marc Sinden and Gemma Craven in Noël Coward's Private Lives throughout 1991 and into 1992.

She is a regular performer (and part of the original cast) of the international touring play Seven Deadly Sins Four Deadly Sinners and in November 2007, appeared at the Théâtre Princesse Grace, Monte Carlo, directed by Marc Sinden, as part of his British Theatre Season, Monaco.

She starred opposite Matthew Kelly in Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? at the Trafalgar Studios in London in March 2009.

In 2010 and 2012, she appeared in BBC One's afternoon drama series Doctors.

Doctor Who audio plays

In October 2001, Tracey appeared in the Big Finish Doctor Who audiobook Colditz. This audiobook introduced Childs as the character of Klein. In the story the Seventh Doctor and Ace are caught intruding in Colditz Castle in October 1944; where they meet Klein, a Nazi scientist.

Childs then returned to the part of Klein a further three times. In January 2010 for a trilogy of stories featuring the Seventh Doctor. Followed in October 2012 for Unit: Dominion and finally in July 2013 for another trilogy of tales.

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


Christopher Robbie will be 86 - 4 credits, including Cyberleader in Revenge of the Cybermen

Christopher Robbie is a British actortelevision announcertheatre directorand designerplaywright and photographer. He trained as an actor at RADA in London, and has had a distinguished theatrical career, playing the title role in King Lear when a member of theRoyal Shakespeare Company. He has also performed a one-man play about the life of Charles Darwin. Under the pseudonym James Alan he wrote the play The Sirens of Eroc. As a television actor he has appeared in the Doctor Who stories The Mind Robber and Revenge of the Cybermen, as well as in The AvengersUFODempsey & Makepeace and One Foot in the Grave, among much else. As a photographer he has held exhibitions of his work.

He is also well-remembered as an in-vision announcer for Southern Television, where his polite, restrained, gentlemanly style seemed to sum up the company's ethos. He announced on the company's final day of broadcasting (31 December 1981) and presented its final programmeAnd It's Goodbye From Us .... He also announced, although less often, for TVS in the 1980s, and had stints in the announcer's chair atAssociated-RediffusionThames Television and Anglia Television.

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


 Deaths
Don Harper (died 1999 aged 78) - credited as Incidental Music for The Invasion

Don Harper was an Australian composer.

Born in Melbourne in 1921, Don Harper showed an interest in music from an early age, learning to play the violin as a child. His formal study began at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music. In later years he would become the successful conductor of one of Australia's most popular big bands as well as being a prolific film and television composer. In 1963 he emigrated to England, and found himself much in demand for television scores. During his seven-year stay in the country he provided music for World of Sport and Sexton Blake amongst other popular series. Returning to Australia in 1970, Don Harper would regularly be seen performing on Australian television and on radio as well as in many jazz clubs across the country. He also toured with the Dave Brubeck Quartet. In 1983 Harper took up the position of Head of Jazz Studies at Wollongong University's School of Creative Arts, a position he held until 1990. He died in 1999, aged 78.

In 2005, MF DOOM and Danger Mouse, in their collaborative project DangerDoom, sample Don Harper's "Chamber Pop" and "Thoughtful Popper". Elements of "Dark Earth" from theDawn of the Dead soundtrack were sampled on "Intro" by Gorillaz from Demon Days, which was also produced by Danger Mouse.His most popular recording was "The Hot Canary". 

However he is probably best remembered for providing music for the classic 1968 Doctor Who serial The Invasion.

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


Mervyn Pinfield (died 1966 aged 54) - 13 credits, including Associate Producer for An Unearthly Child

Mervyn Pinfield was a British Television producer and director working for the BBC during the 1950s and 1960s. 

He was a key member of the team recruited to launch Doctor Who in the early sixties. He was appointed associate producer on the series, to aid the inexperienced producer Verity Lambert, because of his vast technical knowledge of how television was made.

Pinfield was a highly experienced producer and director. Before joining the BBC early in the 1950s to work on live drama at Alexandra Palace, he spent over four years in 'weekly rep' as Director/Theatre Manager at the Royalty Theatre, Morecambe. 

He also directed Episodes 1 to 4 of The SensoritesThe Space Museum and Episodes 1 & 2 of Planet of Giants for the series, and worked as director on other BBC series such as Compact (Day Of Deliverance and Fare Thee Well For I Must Leave Thee)The Monsters, and The Franchise Affair.

Pinfield was also known as the inventor of an early type of Teleprompter, or Autocue, which he called the Piniprompter.

The producer is played by Jeff Rawle in the 50th Anniversary drama An Adventure In Space And Time.