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On This Day (USA) - 14 May



The Gunfighters: Johnny Ringo premiered on BBC One in 1966 at 5:55pm BST, watched by 6.20 million viewers.

Events in Tombstone take a turn for the worse when gunslinger Johnny Ringo is hired by the Clantons and shots are fired in the jailhouse.


The TV Movie premiered on FOX in 1996 at 8:00pm EDT, watched by 5.60 million viewers.

Father's Day premiered on BBC One in 2005 at 7:01pm BST, watched by 8.06 million viewers.

When Rose travels back to the day of her father's death, her meddling in the course of events has terrible consequences for the human race - in the form of the fiendish Reapers.

Doctor Who Confidential is at 7.45pm on BBC3.


Time Trouble premiered on BBC Three in 2005 at 7:45pm BST

This episode goes behind the scenes of Father's Day

Rose has broken the golden rule of time travel - do not meddle with the past. The latest in the behind-the-scenes glimpses hears from Christopher Eccleston and Billie Piper on how her tampering has tested the relationship with the Doctor to the very limit.


The Doctor's Wife premiered on BBC One in 2011 at 6:30pm BST, watched by 7.97 million viewers.

Bigger on the Inside premiered on BBC Three in 2011 at 7:20pm BST

This episode goes behind the scenes of The Doctor's Wife

Acclaimed fantasy author Neil Gaiman takes us on a personal tour of the Doctor's magical machine, and Confidential goes behind the scenes to find out what life is like on a junkyard planet.


 Birthdays
Indira Varma was 51 - 6 credits, including Duchess of Pemberton in Rogue

Indira Anne Varma is an English actress. Her first major role was in Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love. She has gone on to appear in the television series The Canterbury Tales, Rome, Luther, Human Target, and Game of Thrones.

Early life

Varma was born in Bath, Somerset, the only child of an Indian father and a Swiss mother who was of part Genoese Italian descent. She was a member of Musical Youth Theatre Company. She graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London in 1995.

Career

Varma has had a number of television and film roles, including Kama Sutra: A Tale of Love in 1997 and Bride and Prejudice in 2004, and the young Roman wife Niobe during the first season of BBC/HBO's historical drama series Rome. Her character appeared briefly in the second season of the award-winning series when it aired on Sunday, 14 January 2007.

In 2006, she played Suzie Costello in the first and eighth episodes, "Everything Changes" and "They Keep Killing Suzie", of BBC Three's science-fiction drama series Torchwood. She appeared as Dr. Adrienne Holland in the CBS medical drama 3 lbs which premiered on 14 November 2006 and was cancelled on 30 November 2006 due to poor ratings. Varma guest starred in the fourth season premier of hit US detective drama Bones as Scotland Yard Inspector Cate Pritchard. She also played the role of Zoe Luther in the first series of the BBC drama Luther.

Varma played the role of Ilsa Pucci in the second season of the Fox television series Human Target until the show was cancelled on 10 May 2011.

Varma played the role of Ellaria Sand, the paramour of Oberyn Martell in season 4 of the HBO show Game of Thrones, and is set to reprise the role in season 5.

She lent her voice to the Circle mage, Vivienne, in the critically acclaimed 2014 RPG, Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Theatre

In 1997, Varma played Bianca in Shakespeare's Othello at the National Theatre (NT), London. In 2000 to 2001, she appeared in Harold Pinter and Di Trevis's NT stage adaptation of Pinter's The Proust Screenplay, Remembrance of Things Past, based on À la recherche du temps perdu, by Marcel Proust. In the summer of 2001, she played Gila in One for the Road, by Harold Pinter, at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in New York City.

In 2002, she played Sasha Lebedieff in Ivanov by Anton Chekhov at the National Theatre, London and Bunty Mainwaring in The Vortex by Noël Coward at the Donmar Theatre, London. In 2004, she played Sabina in The Skin of Our Teeth by Thornton Wilder at the Young Vic Theatre Theatre, London. In 2008, she played Nadia Baliye in The Vertical Hour by David Hare at the Royal Court Theatre London. In 2009, she played Olivia in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night with Donmar West End at Wyndham's Theatre, London. In 2012, she played Jessica in Terry Johnson's Hysteria at the Theatre Royal, Bath. In 2013 she played Miss Cutts in The Hothouse by Harold Pinter in the Trafalgar Transformed season at Trafalgar Studios.

In 2014, Varma played Tamora, Queen of the Goths, in Lucy Bailey's "gore-fest" production of Titus Andronicus at Shakespeare's Globe. In 2015, she appeared alongside Ralph Fiennes in Bernard Shaw's Man and Superman at the National Theatre.

Personal life

Varma lives in Hornsey, London with her husband, Colin Tierney, and their daughter Evelyn.

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


Greg Davies was 56 - credited as King Hydroflax in The Husbands of River Song

Greg Davies is a British stand-up comedian and actor known for his roles as Greg in We Are Klang, Mr Gilbert in The Inbetweeners and Ken Thompson in Cuckoo as well as for his guest appearances in Mock the Week, Would I Lie to You? and Fast and Loose.

 


Paul Tomany (died 1992 aged 35) would have been 67 - credited as Major Husak in Battlefield

Paul Tomany played Major Husak in the 1989 Doctor Who television story Battlefield.


Prentis Hancock was 82 - 5 credits, including Vaber in Planet of the Daleks

Prentis Hancock is a British actor, best known for his television roles.

He was a regular cast member of the first season of science fiction series Space: 1999 as Paul Morrow,.

He appeared in a number of Doctor Who stories throughout the 1970s - Spearhead from Space and Planet of the Daleks with Jon Pertwee and Planet of Evil and The Ribos Operation with Tom Baker.

Other appearances include Z Cars, Colditz, Survivors, The New Avengers, Secret Army, Return of the Saint, Minder, Chocky's Children, The Professionals and The Bill.


Dame Siân Phillips was 91 - 7 credits, including The Director in Fourth Doctor - Series 10: Volume 1

Siân Phillips is a British actress from Gwaun-Cae-Gurwen, Glamorgan, Wales.

Her early career consisted primarily of stage roles, including the title roles in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler and George Bernard Shaw's Saint Joan. In the 1960s, she started taking on more roles in television and film.

She is particularly known for her performance as Livia in the 1976 BBC television series I, Claudius, for which she was awarded a BAFTA and a Royal Television Society award.


Dennis Chinnery (died 2012 aged 84) would have been 97 - 3 credits, including Gharman in Genesis of the Daleks

Chinnery trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, after which he took on roles in the West End, including understudying Paul Scofield in Ring Round The Moon and alongsider Margeret Rutherford in Time Remembered. After some five years he then entered repertory for two years at The Old Vic, which included him playing "Macbeth" opposite Beatrix Lehmann as "Lady Macbeth".

He appeared in a number of films in small roles, such as Constable Christian in The Plague of the Zombies (whose cast included Jacqueline Pearce), and in All The Way Up (playing chauffeur to Bill Fraser's Makepiece). On television, he played roles in series like Hancock's Half Hour, Dixon of Dock Green, Z-Cars, Softly, Softly, and also appeared fantasy series like The Avengers, The Saint and The Prisoner.

His first appearance in Doctor Who was as Albert C Richardson in The Chase; however, he took on a much more prominent role as Kaled scientist Gharman in Genesis of the Daleks. Later, he appeared in The Twin Dilemma as Professor Sylvest, the hard-pressed father of the eponymous twins.

In later life, Chinnery devoted his time to his other passion, painting, based at his home in Headley Down that overlooked the green fields of East Hampshire, Southern England.


Ysanne Churchman (died 2024 aged 99) would have been 99 - 4 credits, including Voice of Alpha Centauri in The Monster of Peladon

Ysanne Churchman worked as an actress and narrator on British radio, TV and film for over 50 years (1938–1993). She achieved national fame as 'Grace Archer' in the long-running BBC drama series, when Grace died in a fire on the night when ITV launched in 1955.

Ysanne Churchman was born on 14 May 1925 in Sutton Coldfield, Warwickshire, to Andrew Churchman and Gladys Dale, well-known stage and radio performers in London.

In 1938 Churchman appeared on both BBC Radio Children's Hour and in a BBC TV play Gallows Glorious. She trained as a dancer at Cone-Ripman College. After learning repertory and theatre she specialised in radio and voice work for film and television. This led to national fame as Grace in the long-running radio series The Archers when Grace suffered grievous injuries in a fire on the night of the ITV launch in 1955; the character died in the following day's episode. (She strongly suspected the producer was glad to be rid of her at the time as she had discovered that some of her cast members in this regional, Birmingham, production, were not being paid Equity minimum rates and raised the matter). She went on to voice five other Archers characters over the years, most recently Mary Pound in 1983.

Along with many story-telling and reading roles on the BBC she also performed as: Sara in the series Sara and Hoppity, Marla and Cassie in Space Patrol, the voice of Alpha Centauri in the series Doctor Who, and Soo the computer in Dominick Hyde. She was the first actress employed by Capital Radio, reading a serial book.

She married Tony Pilgrim MBE a senior BBC engineer, in 1951 and they celebrated their Diamond Wedding anniversary in 2011. He died in January 2015 after 63 years of marriage. She retired in 1993, but still does occasional voice-over and television appearances.

Following the death of Dorothy-Rose Gribble on 1st October 2014, Churchman is currently the oldest-living Doctor Who actress, followed by Honor Blackman and June Whitfield.

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


Gordon Gostelow (died 2007 aged 82) would have been 99 - credited as Milo Clancey in The Space Pirates

Gordon Gostelow  was a New Zealand actor. He was educated in Australia at North Sydney Boys High School and Sydney University where he graduated in Economics.

Gostelow went to England in the mid-1950s and worked in the theatre (pantomime and comedy), including the Royal Shakespeare Company and various roles on British television. He played the part of Perks in the 1968 TV serial of The Railway Children. He played the character of Milo Clancey in the Doctor Who serial The Space Pirates in 1969, and the Duke of Medina Sidoniain Elizabeth R. In 1984, he took the part of Alf Battle in the supermarket sitcom Tripper's Day. He appeared in a 1999 episode of Midsomer Murders, entitled "Death's Shadow".

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


Tristram Cary (died 2008 aged 82) would have been 99 - 9 credits, including Incidental Music for The Daleks

Tristram CaryOAM was a pioneering English-Australian composer.

Cary was born in OxfordEngland, and educated at the Dragon School in Oxford and Westminster School in London. He was the son of a pianist and the novelist, Joyce Cary, author of Mister Johnson. While working as a radar engineer for the Royal Navy during World War II, he independently developed his own conception of electronic and tape music, and is regarded as amongst the earliest pioneers of these musical forms.

Following WWII, he created one of the first electronic music studios, later travelling around Europe to meet the small numbers of other early pioneers of electronic music and composition.

With Peter Zinovieff and David Cockerell, he founded Electronic Music Studios (London) Ltd, which created the first commercially available portable synthesiser, the EMS VCS 3, and was then involved in production of such distinctive EMS products as the EMS Synthi 1000

His concert works of note include a Sonata for guitar (1959), Continuum for tape (1969), a cantata Peccata Mundi (1972), Contours and Densities at First Hill for orchestra (1972), a Nonet (1979), String Quartet No. 2 (1985) and The Dancing Girls for orchestra (1991).

Cary is also particularly well known for his film and television music. He has written music for Doctor Who (including the first Dalek story), as well as the score for the Ealing comedy The Ladykillers (1955). Later film scores includedQuatermass and the Pit (1967) and Blood from the Mummy's Tomb (1971), both for Hammer. He also composed the score for the ABC TV animated version of A Christmas Carol.

Cary was one of the first British composers to work in musique concr�te. In 1967 he created the first electronic music studio of theRoyal College of Music. He built another at his home in Suffolk, which he transported to Australia when he emigrated there, and incorporated it into the University of Adelaide where he worked as a lecturer until 1986.

He provided the visual design for the EMS VCS3 synthesizer

Cary died in AdelaideSouth Australia on 24 April 2008, aged 82.

Cary won the 1977 Albert H. Maggs Composition Award. He was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1991 in recognition of service to music. He also received the 2005 lifetime achievement award from the Adelaide Critics' Circle for his contribution to music in England and Australia.

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


 Deaths
Shaun Sutton (died 2004 aged 84) - credited as BBC Head of Drama for Ongoing Production (1963-1989)

Shaun Sutton joined the BBC Drama department in 1952 where he carved an early career in writing and directing, especially with productions aimed at children. By the 1960s he had moved onto adult drama, being one of the early directors for the successful police series Z-Cars and follow-up series Softly, Softly. In 1963, Sydney Newman offered him the position of producer on a developing series called Doctor Who, but he declined this to focus on his other projects. In 1966 he accepted the position of Head of Serials, succeeding Gerald Savory, and then a year later took over from Newman as temporary Head of Drama, which became permanent in 1969.

He occupied this position throughout the 1970s, a period which is often now referred to as the 'golden age' of drama, with productions such as The Forsyte Saga, I Claudius, The Onedin Line, Poldark, The Six Wives of Henry VIII to name but a few. He also oversaw the casting of three Doctors, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison.

In 1981 he resigned from the position to return to producing, including some thirteen of The Complete Dramatic Works of William Shakespeare. His last work was Merlin of the Crystal Cave in 1991.

In 1982 he published The Largest Theatre in the World, an autobiography of his time working in the drama department of the BBC.

He was married to Barbara Leslie and the father of four children, and after retirement lived in Norfolk.

He was made an OBE in 1979.


William Lindsay (died 1986 aged 40) - credited as Zargo in State of Decay

William Lindsay played Zargo in the 1980 Doctor Who story State of Decay.

Also worked on LifeforceDramaramaKeep It in the FamilyBlakes 7AngelsEnemy at the DoorColditz