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On This Day (USA) - 20 October



City of Death: Part Four premiered on BBC One in 1979 at 6:16pm BST, watched by 16.10 million viewers.

The Girl in the Fireplace premiered on SyFy (East Coast Feed) in 2006 at 8:00pm EDT

TMi - Series 2 Episode 7 (featuring the SJA cast) premiered on BBC2 in 2007 at 9:00am BST

The cast of The Sarah Jane Adventures join Sam, Mark and Caroline for the children's show, with an exciting mix of competitions, celebrity guests and the latest music videos, plus TWF and Hedz.


Secrets of the Stars: Episode One premiered on CBBC in 2008 at 5:15pm BST

Doctor Who Greatest Moments: The Master premiered on BBC Three in 2009 at 7:47pm BST, watched by 0.32 million viewers.
A fellow Gallifreyan, The Master has been a thorn in the Doctor's side throughout his history. David Tennant, John Simm, Derek Jacobi and other cast members talk through their favourite Master moments and pinpoint some of their finest showdowns. Narrated by Jo Whiley.

 Birthdays
Christoper Bowen was 65 - credited as Mordred in Battlefield

Christopher Bowen is a British actor. He trained at the Old Vic Theatre School in Bristol and spent three years with the RSC in the 1980s. Other theatre credits include the title role in "Macbeth" at theSouthwark Playhouse, Laertes in "Hamlet" at the Young Vic, Veit Kunz in "Franziska" at the Gate Theatre, Oberon in "A Midsummer Night's Dream" for the City of London Festival, Maecenas in "Antony and Cleopatra" at the Haymarket Theatre.

He played played Mordred in the 1989 story Battlefield.

His television credits include: Mr Briggs in "Jane Eyre" for the BBC, Alastair Campbell in "Why We Went to War" for C4, Ant Johnson in "Holby City",Richard Carey in "Murder in Mesopotamia" (Poirot), Dempsey & MakepeaceKnights of GodTanamera - Lion of SingaporeLittle Lord FauntleroyWaiting for GodCastlesPeak PracticeHeartbeatDoctors and Rosemary & Thyme.

His film credits include: Commander Day in the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies, Charles in "Cold Comfort Farm" directed by John Schlesinger, the Prince of Wales in "Richard III", Hamilton in "Gaudi Afternoon" director: Susan Seidelman.

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


Sandra Dickinson was 76 - credited as Maggie in The Ghosts of N Space(Misc)

Sandra Dickinson  is an American-British actress.

She is the mother of Georgia Moffett, the former wife of Peter Davison, and the mother-in-law of David Tennant.

In 1996, she appeared as Maggie in the audio serial The Ghosts of N-Space.

She is best known for playing Trillian in the TV series adaptation of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.


Anneke Wills was 83 - 42 credits, including Polly in The War Machines

Anneke Wills, born in Berkshire, played the part of Polly alongside William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton. 

Her parents Anna and Alaric Willys (she later changed her name to Wills) had planned to buy a house in the South of France but World War II ended that idea. Alaric was a gambler whose debts forced Anna to take on a string of jobs while he became a captain in the British army and an absent figure. Anna worked as a companion to a blind aristocrat, gardener, teacher - moving Anneke and her brother Robin around the country several times. Anneke won her first role at the age of 11 while she was living on a houseboat in Bray, Berkshire. The film was called Child's Play and she gave the �9 fee to her mother. Deciding she wanted to be an actress she then studied drama at the Arts Educational School in London and quickly became one of the busiest actresses of her generation, early roles included an appearance as Roberta in the first TV version ofThe Railway Children in 1957.

She appeared in the show from 1966 to 1967 alongside William Hartnell and Patrick Troughton as the Doctor - the first in a long line of glamorous Doctor Who girls. Other television credits include appearances in The Avengers and as Evelyn in Strange Report. However she left the latter series when it was planned to switch filming to Hollywood.

At 17 she began a relationship with Anthony Newley while working on the TV series The Strange World of Gurney Slade. Later, she married Michael Gough, the distinguished actor who played The Celestial Toymaker inDoctor Who. During the sixties Anneke spent much of her time at the famous Troubadour Coffee Shop and The Establishment, and was part of the so-called Chelsea Set, counting among her close friends Peter Cook and Dudley Moore, The Alberts, Sammy Davis Junior, Angela Douglas and Kenneth More, Mary Quant, Sarah Miles and many more leading lights of the Sixties.

In 1966 she was offered her role in Doctor Who and life seemed perfect for the young actress. In 1970 Anneke gave up acting and moved to Norfolk, throwing herself into motherhood and gardening. During this time she travelled to Vietnam and Laos, and spent a lot of time at Poona, India, at the ashram of Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh. She and her son Jasper visited the ashram many times in the 1970s and early 80s.

Her mariage to Michael Gough ended in the late 1970s. She remarried twice and lived in California and in an artists colony on Hornby Island in Canada before returning to the UK in the mid 1990s. She is still involved in the worlds of Doctor Who, being a popular guest at conventions, and being employed by the BBC and Big Finish to record various Doctor Who related audio and DVD projects.

Official Website


Jack Shepherd was 84 - credited as Self in The Women of Doctor Who(Factual)

Jack Shepherd  is an English actor, playwright, theatre director, saxophone player and jazz pianist, who made his film debut in 1969 with All Neat in Black Stockings and The Virgin Soldiers. 

He is perhaps best known for his television roles, most notably the title role in detective drama Wycliffe. 


Ian Cullen (died 2019 aged 80) would have been 85 - 4 credits, including Ixta in The Aztecs

Ian Cullen played Ixta in the Doctor Who story The Aztecs. 

He later played Nadeyan in AUDIO: Dark Eyes. This appearance came 48 years after The Aztecs, the longest gap for any actor in the Doctor Who franchise.

Ian Cullen first trod the boards in a village pantomime at the age of four and has been an actor ever since. He became a household name when he played PC Joe Skinner in "Z Cars" (1962), first appearing in 1969, the character was later promoted to Detective and stayed with the show for 6 years, until he was gunned down in the line of duty in one of TV's biggest shocks in the mid 70s.

Other recurring roles include the classic 60s hospital drama "Emergency-Ward 10" (1957), where he played Warren Kent (1966-67), "When the Boat Comes In" (1976), as Geordie Watson (1977-81) and as Angus Hart, the original lead of the Channel 5 soap opera "Family Affairs" (1997). Ian's character, Angus Hart, was also killed in a shock storyline when the entire Hart family were killed in a boat explosion. He has also guest starred in many British television series, including "The Bill" (1984), "Blakes 7" (1978) and "Sorry!" (1981).

Ian's stage work is extensive and has seen him perform all over the Country, with 8 West End productions to his name and 2 years with the Royal Shakespeare Company. He won rave reviews for his performance as Jay in 'Road to the Sea' at the Orange Tree Theatre, in 2003.

In 2008 he won a Gold Award for his narration of the feature length documentary The Destiny of Britain (2007). Constantly busy, Ian also runs the Surrey Heath Youth Actors Company with his wife, actress Yvonne Quenet. They have been married for over 30 years and have three daughters.


Mary Peach was 90 - credited as Astrid in The Enemy of the World

Mary Peach is a British film and television actress, who was married to the screenwriter and director Jimmy Sangster until his death in 2011.

She played Astrid in the 1967 story The Enemy of the World.

She is best known for playing in several BBC television programmes including Disraeli. She starred opposite Rock Hudson in the film A Gathering of Eagles. She appeared in the TV series Doctor Who in the Second Doctor's story The Enemy of the World. When Diana Rigg left The Avengers in 1968, she was one of the actresses considered for the role of Steed's new assistant. In 1970 she appeared in the film Scrooge, a musical version of Dickens A Christmas Carol starring Albert Finney.


Colin Jeavons was 95 - 2 credits, including Damon in The Underwater Menace

Colin Jeavons (born 20 October 1929, NewportMonmouthshire) is a Welsh television actor.

Jeavons is known for portraying Inspector Lestrade in the Granada television serials The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or the part of the undertaker, Shadrack, in the television situation comedy written by Keith Waterhouse and Willis Hallfrom Waterhouse's novel Billy Liar. He narrated the series Barnaby the Bear and sang the theme tune.

Pete Stampede and Alan Hayes wrote of Jeavons in The Avengers Guest Biography page as "one of those under-rated, ever-present supporting actors who never turn in a bad performance." and as a recurring UFO-obsessed character in the sci-fi comedy Kinvig, "frankly stole the show each and every week."

His most critically acclaimed role was as the neglected and abused child, Donald, in Dennis Potter's Blue Remembered Hills (1979). He also featured prominently in the 1990 dramatisation for television of House of Cards by Michael Dobbs, as Tim Stamper, Tory Whip and ally of Ian Richardson's Francis Urquhart. The character returned - promoted initially to Chief Whip, then to Party Chairman - in the sequel, To Play the King. He was already a well-known character in the sixties following his definitive portrayal of Uriah Heep in the BBC TV's first television adaptation of Charles DickensDavid Copperfield in 1965. He had roles in other Dickens adaptations including The Old Curiosity ShopGreat Expectationsand Bleak House.

In 1963 he played the extremely reluctant hero Vadassy forced into espionage in Epitaph For a Spy for BBC Television.[2] He is known as a regular character actor on television classical adaptations; he hosted Play School for a time. He played "with chilling authority" in the words of writer David Stuart DaviesProfessor Moriarty in The Baker Street Boys (1982), and "with great panache" Inspector Lestrade in the Granada Television series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes(featuring Jeremy Brett as Holmes). Producer Michael Cox of the Granada Television series for Sherlock Holmes stated frankly that they were given the best Lestrade of his generation.[3]

In 1978 he played the part of Mr Johnston, a schoolteacher in the BBC supernatural drama Tarry Dan, Tarry Dan, Scary old Spooky Man.

In 1984, he played the existentialist philosopher Soren Kierkegaard in the "Prometheus Unbound" episode of Don Cupitt's Sea of Faith (TV series) for BBC.

In 1986 he was seen in Paradise Postponed. In 1985, he played Adolf Hitler in Hitler's SS: Portrait in Evil. He also appeared in Doctor Who in the 1966 story The Underwater Menace and the 1981 spin-off K-9 and Company; as Briggs, the lawyer who halts the marriage between Jane and Rochester in the 1983 BBC version of Jane Eyre, twice in cult TV series The Avengers (in "A Touch of Brimstone" and "The Winged Avenger")and once in Adam Adamant Lives! as a murderous fashion designer.

His elder son, Barney Jeavons, managed the British rock band Reuben. In 2007 he emerged from retirement and, heavily bearded, starred as the enigmatic General in Reuben's pop video "Blood, Bunny, Larkhall". In the behind-the-scenes short, Jeavons explained briefly some of the highlights of his acting career.

 

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

 


Anton Diffring (died 1989 aged 70) would have been 106 - credited as De Flores in Silver Nemesis

Anton Diffring was a German character actor known for his portrayal of German officers and aristocrats in many film and TV appearances.

Diffring was born in Koblenz. He studied acting in Berlin and Vienna but there is some conjecture about when he left Germany prior to World War II. 

With numerous British war films being produced in the 1950s, Diffring's blonde hair, blue eyes and the chiseled features saw him feature often as villainous German officers - such as in Albert R.N. (1953) and The Colditz Story (1955). Some of his more notable roles as German characters were in The Heroes of Telemark (1965), The Blue Max (1966), Where Eagles Dare (1968),Operation Daybreak (1975) (as SS officer Reinhard Heydrich) and the match commentator in Escape to Victory (1981). In 1983 he played Hitler's foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the American mini-series The Winds of War.

He also starred in a number of horror films, such as The Man Who Could Cheat Death (1959) and Circus of Horrors (1960). He also worked in quite a number of international films, such asFahrenheit 451 (1966) directed by François Truffaut.

His final performance was again as a Nazi character, for the BBC in the 1988 Doctor Who serial Silver Nemesis, in which he agreed to appear because the recording coincided with the Wimbledon Championships which he wanted to watch. Working up to his death, he died in his home at Châteauneuf-Grasse in the south of France in 1989

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


 Deaths
Sheelagh Wells (died 2024) - 14 credits, including Make-up Designer for The Christmas Invasion

Sheelagh Wells is one of a very few people to have worked behind-the-scenes on both the classic and new versions of Doctor Who

She was a make-up artist on Mawdryn Undead and then came to lead the make-up department on series 2. She was the make-up designer for every episode from The Christmas Invasion to Doomsday.

She has worked on many iconic British science fiction programmes, including Blake's 7 with Paul Darrow (later writing a book on the show), and married its star Gareth Thomas though they later divorced. Other shows include Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere with Paterson Joseph, and The Strangerers, with Darrow and Mark Williams.


John Ringham (died 2008 aged 80) - 5 credits, including Ashe in Colony In Space

John Ringham was a British character actor of both television and stage who appeared in over a hundred screen appearances in a wide variety of roles.

He is best remembered for his leading role in the 1980s sitcom Just Good Friends as Norman Warrender.

He appeared throughout BBC Television's Shakespeare adaptation An Age of Kings in 1960, most prominently as Humphrey Duke of Gloucester, the brother of Henry the Fifth.

Other appearances over the years include several parts in Z Cars; Softly, Softly, and Barlow at Large; Flambards; Poldark; the War and Peace dramatisation in 1972; Birds of a Feather; The Bill; Taggart; Bergerac; Yes Minister; The Tripods; Juliet Bravo; Minder; All Creatures Great and Small; Dixon of Dock Green; Are You Being Served?; Catweazle; Up Pompeii!; The Avengers; The Piglet Files, When the Boat Comes In and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em.

In Dad's Army he played two different characters � Private Bracewell in the pilot (he was set to become a major recurring character, but this was later dropped), then Captain Bailey in four later episodes.


Hubert Rees (died 2009 aged 81) - 3 credits, including Chief Engineer in Fury From the Deep

Hubert Rees (1928 � 20 October 2009) was a Welsh character actor who had supporting roles in British television shows throughout the 1970s and 1980s.

Rees' early career in television series and shows in character and bit parts, often playing a police officer. In 1968 Rees made his first appearance in Doctor Who. He played the part of Chief Engineer in all six parts of "Fury from the Deep". The next year he appeared in another episode of Doctor Who, playing the role of Captain Ransom in "The War Games". In 1971 he appeared in the film thriller Unman, Wittering and Zigo. This was followed in 1972 when he was part of the Welsh ensemble cast in the adaptation of Dylan ThomasUnder Milk Wood; he played the part of Butcher Beynon.

Rees continued his career throughout the 1970s appearing in popular television shows, including Softly, Softly: TaskforceThe Sweeney and Van der Valk. He also made his final appearance for Doctor Who when he appeared in "The Seeds of Doom" alongside Tom Baker. He was to appear with Baker again in 1982 when he took the part of Inspector Lestrade in the television mini-series of Sherlock Holmes classic "The Hound of the Baskervilles". In 1983 Rees was back in another Sherlock Holmes series, this time as Doctor Watson in The Baker Street Boys. The 1980s saw Rees taking character roles in more popular television shows including BergeracHowards' Way and Auf Wiedersehen, Pet. Rees also appeared in Welsh films The Angry Earth (1989) and Darklands (1996).

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


Ron Tarr (died 1997 aged 60) - 2 credits, including Slave in Destiny of the Daleks

Ron Tarr appeared as an extra in a number of television shows, but it is best known for his frequent appearances as a background character in Eastenders (and was the first actor to appear in the show for its premiere in 1985).


Brian Badcoe (died 1992 aged 67) - credited as Adam in Invasion of the Dinosaurs

Actor who played Adam in the 1974 story Invasion of the Dinosaurs.