In 1958, Hartnell played the title role in Carry on Sergeant, the film that spawned the popular comedy series. It was a role not unlike Sgt Major Bullimore that Hartnell played in the ITV comedy The Army Game between 1957 and 1961. It was this role and that of a sports agent in the film This Sporting Life (1963) that brought Hartnell to the attention of a young BBC producer, Verity Lambert, who was casting the lead in a new family drama series in 1963.
William Hartnell defined Doctor Who, and Doctor Who defined his career away from the hard men he had been known for. He was a hero to a generation of children and over three years he laid the foundations for his ten successors.
Ill health ultimately forced Hartnell to give up the role he loved so much in 1966. Appropriately enough, his final TV work would see him return to Doctor Who in 1973 to celebrate the series’ 10th anniversary in The Three Doctors, alongside Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee.
Until the broadcast of The Snowmen, the First Doctor was the incarnation that boasted the most televised stories set in the past. In 2013, the Eleventh Doctor will take the lead. Just.
Full Name: Patrick George Troughton
Born: 25 March, 1920, Mill Hill, London
Died: 28 March 1987, Columbus, Georgia, USA
First Screen Appearance: Hamlet (1947)
First regular Doctor Who appearance: The Tenth Planet Episode 4 (1966)
Final regular Doctor Who appearance: The War Games Episode 10 (1969)
Final guest Doctor Who appearance: The Two Doctors Part 3 (1985) Performing in a production of JB Priestley’s Bees on the Boat Deck while a pupil at Mill Hill School gave a young Patrick Troughton his passion for acting. He attended the Embassy School of Acting, which ultimately led to a scholarship in New York.
Troughton returned to Britain at the outbreak of the Second World War, briefly entering theatre rep before joining the Royal Navy. After the war, the actor wasted no time getting back to the theatre, before film and television roles appeared on his CV. Television was his first love, and he had the distinction in 1953 to be the first actor to play Robin Hood on TV.
In 1966, he was offered the chance to take over from William Hartnell in Doctor Who. Troughton possibly had the most difficult task of any incoming Doctor, being the first to follow the original and much-loved first Doctor. It was a huge success and the concept of regenerating the Doctor was established.
Troughton remained in the role for three years, but his fear of typecasting and the punishing schedule influenced his decision to leave in 1969. Just as he had before Doctor Who, the actor worked tirelessly, for example clocking up roles in the children’s drama The Feathered Serpent (1976), as Father Brennan in The Omen (1976) and as Cole Hawkins in The Box of Delights (1984).
Always a private man, Troughton largely shied away from the publicity that Doctor Who brought, although he reprised the Doctor a total of three times. He passed away in 1987 while attending a Doctor Who convention in America.
Full Name: John Devon Roland Pertwee
Born: 7 July 1919, Chelsea, London
Died: 20 May 1996, Timber Lake, Connecticut, USA
First Screen Appearance: A Yank at Oxford (1938)
First regular Doctor Who appearance: Spearhead from Space Episode 1 (1970)
Final regular Doctor Who appearance: Planet of the Spiders, Part 6 (1974)
Final guest Doctor Who appearance: Dimensions in Time, Part 2 (1993) Jon Pertwee was expelled from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts (RADA), but that didn’t stop him becoming a huge star of stage, screen and radio before Doctor Who. Following time in the Royal Navy during the Second World War, Pertwee made a name for himself as a comedy actor in the radio series Waterlogged Spa and as Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in The Navy Lark, also on radio between 1959 and 1977.
In 1963, Pertwee appeared on stage with Frankie Howerd in A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and would appear in the big screen version of the musical, as well as four appearances in the Carry On series.
It was Pertwee himself who asked his agent to go after the role of the Doctor when it became known that Patrick Troughton was leaving in 1969. To his surprise, he was already high on the shortlist and was ultimately successful. Doctor Who relaunched – in colour – in 1970, with Pertwee at the helm as a debonair man of action.
Throughout Pertwee’s five years in the TARDIS, Doctor Who would see its popularity soar and, despite a tough schedule, the actor found time for other work, and would continue in The Navy Lark at the same time as Doctor Who. In 1974, he took over as host of the ITV quiz programme Whodunnit?
Leaving Doctor Who in 1974, Pertwee gave life to another popular children’s character, Worzel Gummidge, between 1979 and 1981, with a brief revival in 1987.
The actor never cut his ties to Doctor Who, returning for the series’ 20th-anniversary special, The Five Doctors, in 1983 and the Children in Need charity special, Dimensions in Time in 1993. He also reprised the role on stage for The Ultimate Adventure in 1996 and in two BBC radio series broadcast in 1993 and 1996.
If the UNIT stories are set in the near future (which seems to have been the intention of the production team at the time) then, other than the Eighth, the Third is the only Doctor never to have had a televised story set in the present day.
Full Name: Thomas Stewart Baker
Born: 20 January 1934, Liverpool
First Screen Appearance: The Winter’s Tale (1967)
First regular Doctor Who appearance: Planet of the Spiders Part 6 (1974)
Final regular Doctor Who appearance: Logopolis Part 4 (1981)
Final guest Doctor Who appearance: Dimensions in Time Part 2 (1993) Tom Baker followed a spiritual road in his early life, leaving school to become a novice monk in the Catholic faith at the age of 15. After six years, Baker turned his back on his training and served his National Service with the Royal Army Medical Corps, where he first developed a love for performing. After a brief stint in the Merchant Navy, the future Time Lord attended Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, and eventually found himself in Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre company in the late 1960s.
Olivier was instrumental in Baker landing his first major film role, as the monk Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra in 1971. His performance earned him a Golden Globe nomination for Best Supporting Actor.
Baker hit hard times in 1973, and worked as a labourer on a London building site. In desperation, he wrote to BBC Head of Serials Bill Slater, enquiring about work opportunities. It happened that Slater was due to meet with Doctor Who producer Barry Letts about casting Jon Pertwee’s successor. After Letts viewed the actor’s performance in 1973’s The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, and several meetings, Tom Baker was unveiled as the new Doctor in early 1974.