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On This Day (USA) - 7 May



The Gunfighters: Don't Shoot the Pianist premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:49pm BST, watched by 6.60 million viewers.

Tensions between the Clantons and Doc Holliday continue to grow and Steven finds himself caught in the crossfire.


The Long Game premiered on BBC One in 2005 at 7:00pm BST, watched by 8.01 million viewers.

Simon Pegg guest-stars as the sinister Editor. In the future, he oversees broadcasts to the entire Earth Empire. But who is he working for?

Doctor Who Confidential follows at 7.45pm on BBC3.


The Dark Side premiered on BBC Three in 2005 at 7:45pm BST

This episode goes behind the scenes of The Long Game

The evil genius has been a feature of Doctor Who throughout the years, and he made a welcome return to the series earlier this evening, in the form of the Editor, alias Simon Pegg. Here, he discusses the role he's always wanted to play.


The Curse of the Black Spot premiered on BBC One in 2011 at 6:15pm BST, watched by 7.85 million viewers.

Ship Ahoy! premiered on BBC Three in 2011 at 7:00pm BST

This episode goes behind the scenes of The Curse of the Black Spot

Doctor Who Confidential sets sail for a behind-the-scenes journey on board the Doctor Who pirate ship.

Karen Gillan is a swinging success when she gets to grips with swash buckling and, with exclusive access to all areas of production, we find out how the crew creates a storm at sea.


 Birthdays
Hunter M Via will be 48 - credited as Film Editor for Escape to L.A.(TW)

Hunter M. Via (born in Charleston, West Virginia) is an American film and television editor

After graduating from Full Sail University with a film degree, Via entered the film industry working as an editor. He edited several early projects by fellow Full Sail graduate,Darren Lynn Bousman before landing a job as an assistant editor on the FX original series The Shield in 2002. Beginning in 2004, Via took on the role of lead editor and ended up editing seventeen episodes of the series through 2007.

In 2007, Via edited his first studio feature film,Frank Darabont's The Mist. Via went on to work on several other television shows and film, including Sons of AnarchyMother's DayThe Craigslist Killer, and Torchwood. Via edited three episodes of the popular AMC series The Walking Dead and received the 61st Annual ACE Eddie Award for Best Edited One-Hour Series for Commercial Television For his work on the pilot episode.

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


Allan Selwyn (died 2002 aged 76) would be 98 - credited as Gladiator in The Romans
Alan Selwyn was an actor and writer, known for It's Getting Harder All the Time (1976),The Sexplorer (1975) and The Casting Couch (1995)

Valentine Dyall (died 1985 aged 77) would be 116 - 6 credits, including Black Guardian in Mawdryn Undead

Valentine Dyall  was an English character actor, the son of veteran actor Franklin Dyall. Dyall was especially popular as a voice actor, due to his very distinctive sepulchral voice, he was known for many years as "The Man in Black", narrator of the BBC Radio horror series Appointment With Fear.

He portrayed the Black Guardian in several Doctor Who serials (The Armageddon Factor in 1979, and the linked trilogy of Mawdryn UndeadTerminus and Enlightenment in 1983) and also voiced the major role of Captain Slarn in the Doctor Who radio serial Slipback (1985). He also played Norl in the episode "City at the Edge of the World" in the series Blake's 7. In 1983 he attended Doctor Who's 20th Anniversary celebrations at Longleat alongside many other cast and crew from the series. 

In his early career, he appeared in one movie with his father, the spy thriller Yellow Canary (1943), which starred Anna Neagle andRichard Greene. His part was that of a German U-boat commander attempting to kidnap a British agent from a ship in the Atlantic, Franklin Dyall playing the ship's captain. He also played the Duke of Burgundy in Olivier's wartime film of Henry V and had a small role as a German officer in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.

Dyall also made guest appearances in several episodes of The Goon Show, parodying his familiar radio persona, including "The Canal" where he played "The Man in Grey" (due to a very cheap dry cleaners). Much later he worked in the radio version of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy playing Gargravarr, and on thetelevision and LP versions, where he played the voice of thecomputer Deep Thought.

He played the witch Jethrow Keane in The City of the Dead (1960). He appeared in Robert Wise's 1963 film The Haunting as Mr.Dudley, the sinister caretaker of the haunted Hill House.

Dyall played the central character Lord Fortnum, who turns into a bed-sitting room following a nuclear war, in Spike Milligan and John Antrobus' stage play The Bed-Sitting Room, which opened at the Mermaid Theatre on 31 January 1963.[1][2]

He voiced the character of evil mastermind Dr. Noah in the 1967 James Bond parody Casino Royale and appeared as Lorrimer in the BBC Miss Marple episode The Body in the Library (1984). Dyall also made regular appearances in all three seasons of the series Secret Army as Dr. Pascal Keldermans.

He co-hosted the Dusty Springfield BBC musical variety series Decidedly Dusty in 1969. The BBC wiped their archives of this and many of their 1960s musical variety programmes (allegedly in the 1970s, just before the dawn of home video) and no other video copies have surfaced, although there are bootleg-quality fan-made audio recordings that have survived.

He portrayed the Black Guardian in several Doctor Who serials (The Armageddon Factor in 1979, and the linked trilogy of Mawdryn UndeadTerminus and Enlightenment in 1983) and also voiced the major role of Captain Slarn in the Doctor Who radio serial Slipback (1985). He also played Norl in the episode "City at the Edge of the World" in the series Blake's 7. In 1983 he attended Doctor Who's 20th Anniversary celebrations at Longleat alongside many other cast and crew from the series.

Dyall's last role, in the year of his death, was as Marcade in Love's Labour's Lost, in the BBC Television Shakespeare.


John Cox (died 1972 aged 64) would be 116 - 2 credits, including Sound Supervisor for Dr Who and the Daleks(Aaru)

John Cox was sound supervisor for the Dalek feature films produced in the 1960s with Peter Cushing starring as Dr. Who.

Over 140 Film credits



 Deaths
Aubrey Woods (died 2013 aged 85) - credited as Controller in Day of the Daleks

Aubrey Woods was an English actor. 

His television credits included: Z-Cars, Up Pompeii!, Blake's 7, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Auf Wiedersehen, Pet and Ever Decreasing Circles. He also played a notable role in Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory, playing Bill the Candy Store Owner where he sang the song "The Candy Man" during some of the film's first scenes.

His first film role was as Smike in the 1947 film Nicholas Nickleby. On stage he played the role of Fagin in Lionel Bart's production of Oliver! at the New Theatre, St Martins Lane in the 1960s alongside Nicolette Roeg and Robert Bridges. He also appeared as Jacob and Potiphar in the 1991 production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at The London Palladium - the soundtrack to which topped the British Albums Chart in August 1991.


Seymour Green (died 1998 aged 85) - 2 credits, including Hargreaves in The Seeds of Doom

Actor who appeared in the 1975 story The Seeds of Doom. He returned to the series in 1984 in The Twin Dilemma