Who On Earth Is Tom Baker ?

[Guest rohale]

A few weeks ago I was in Fort Wayne, Indiana with one of my best friends who I have known virtually all of my life. He was visiting the United States for a few days. We were walking around and we came across this store that was selling European goods. We went inside just to browse and needed to buy something for his son. We were just casually walking around and we got to the magazine section. I noticed there was a magazine with an article about Wayne Gretsky that I had to read. My friend was looking at the lower shelf of the magazine rack and he picks up this magazine. The periodical that caught his attention was a Doctor Who magazine special edition of the complete Fourth Doctor Volume 1. The actor who played the fourth doctor was Tom Baker. My friend Phillip asked me if I remembered watching Doctor Who as a telvision programme on BBC1 every Saturday early evenings when we were kids growing up in Great Britain. I told him it was a life time ago for me now. I read the periodical just to pass time on the flight back to the west coast and I absolutely was reading with great intent. It brought back lots of memories and in the process I realised that both Tom Baker and Peter Davision were our heroes as children and as young teenagers. Im not sure but I think he mentioned the cricket player that Peter's costume was based upon in those days.

 

In recent years, every once in a while someone will ask what ever happened to our everyday heroes, not unlike the characters from the Marvel Comic books. Nowadays heroes reflect the world that we live in, that level of darkness. Too many small children heroes come from comic books, sports personalities and sometimes film and television stars. When I was growing up my heros were football ( soccer ) players like Gary Linnekar, Ian Rush, Norman Whiteside and Kevin Keegan. Cricket players that I liked were Ian Botham and Alan J Lamb. David Jason, Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker that I found solace on television.

 

I mention Pertwee and Baker in particular because both actors played Doctor Who. The programme itself was never taken seriously and it was and continues to an outsider in the mainstream of British television. To give a brief history, Doctor Who premiered in 1963 on BBC1 with William Hartnell playing the lead. He was the original guv of the programme and he did it for three years. By the time he decided to leave, Doctor Who had become somewhat successful through the sales of merchandising at Who conventions and it proved to be profitable for the BBC. To those who are unaware the BBC itself is funded by the government through licence fees. In other words, you own a tv set and want to use it, then you have to pay the fee for viewing pleasures. Anyways the BBC realising that money was being made decided to take a risk by introducing a regeneration sequence from one actor to another playing the same role. Since it was a sci-fi show, the concept was a bold idea. For the television viewers, it's sad that the old actor is leaving but at the same time a level of excitement as to who the next Doctor Who is going to be. The role was given to Patrick Troughton, he was very good and he took over from Bill Hartnell as he paved the way for the next twenty four years of Doctor Who. He convinced the audience that he could take over from Hartnell and be successful. After three years Pat left and was replaced by Jon Pertwee who had a very successful five year run. At the end, the BBC told him that he would be getting the usual increment in fees and he was furious. He threatened to leave the show thinking that that the BBC could not carry on the show without his presence. He got it wrong, he was replaced by none other than Tom Baker and by god this man had enormous with the programme. Jon Pertwee himself would have success as a scare crow in Worzel Gummige that aired on London Weekend Television and he proved to be quite popular and I loved the programme when I was a child.

 

Tom Baker was born in 1934, he became Doctor Who in 1974 and ceased being the doctor in January 1981. I always felt his personna and physical appearance is what made him successful. The eyes were very expressive, he came across as very accessible, the voice, the eyes, the charm. He was a much more sort of open human being in a way as an actor and I'm sure that is why there was this terrific bond and communication with his audience. Robert Holmes wrote these wonderful stories like " Pyramids Of Mars " and " Talons Of Weng Chiang ". He was also script editor and he wrote these marvelous speeches with great depth for the character of Tom's doctor. Now with all due respect to Jon Pertwee whom I admired very much in the way he played the doctor, he could not have delivered the speeches in the way that Tom delivered them. Neither could a lot of other doctors who preceeded him and came hence forth. There was a kind of wonderful power in Tom's character which was largely carried by the voice and at the same time he had a vulnerable quality.

 

I remember when I was growing up one of the things we did was on weekends, my friends Phillip, Kevin and myself would take a trip to the BBC studios in Ealing and later in North Acton and watch from the gallery as they rehearsed Doctor Who. In those days because we were young Phil's dad was one of the few people that I knew owned a car. So it was convenient for us as we only lived about twenty minutes away from North Acton by car. He would drop us off and head out to Central London. When he came back to pick us, he would join us and start telling jokes about radio and television shows that he grew up with. He was and still is a barrels of laughs. As youngsters we spent more time watching Peter Davison than Tom, simply because we grew up more with Pete than Tom. We also other shows in rehearsals and as part of the live audience like Are You Being Served, Only Fools And Horses, Blankety Blank, Basil Brush, Dads Army, The Two Ronnies, Morcame And Wise, Paul Daniels Magic Show, Ken Dodd's Summer Specials, It's a Knockout, Mastermind, Top Of the Pops, Multi Coloured Swap Shop and others too numerous too mention. It was a really exciting time to be able to grow up with these shows in their original run. Doctor Who for us as kids Doctor Who was definitely the pinnacle of what we liked in those days. We also got to go to Thames Television and London Weekend Television. This all changed as we became teenagers, we were more into football, cricket, rugby and most importantly girls

 

There was also a time when we knew that Tom Baker would move on to other projects. I remember being in my first year in Primary School when Tom left Doctor Who and my teacher asked us as to what we felt about Tom. I don't think anyone was bothered by Tom quitting. Four years at the end of my first year in secondary school, Colin Baker had taken over the part of the doctor from Peter. I remeber being in school and our form room teacher Mr Cliff was running very late. He was stuck on the A3 bypass in rush hour traffic near Tolworth. A fellow classmate of mine Darren Altman literally took register and as always provided the entertainment before the bell rang and we headed to first class. I think he posed the question as to whether we liked Peter as opposed to Colin as the Doctor. There was a mixed reaction until someone shouted out the preference for Tom Baker. There was a hush in the classroom, quite an extraordinary feeling. It made me think as how much time had passed since Tom left the programme.

 

I think when Tom left the show. Blithely thinking unlike anyone who played the doctor, he could vault over the areas of typecasting. He thought everybody at the BBC, Thames Television, Granada, LWT knew him and he thought he knew them. In no time, he would be able to demonstrate his versatility as an actor. It wasn't to be so, his only success as Doctor Who damaged his prospects for the future. Perhaps until this year almost a quarter of a century later in a new role for Monarch Of The Glen. He had carefully cultivated the image of a childrens hero. He did his stint for the BBC and if nothing grand ever happens to Tom's career, once dare I say he was absolutely adored worldwide. Yeah adored.

 

" And Finally It's a farewell to Doctor Who in his present manifestation. Tom Baker who has been playing the time lord for seven years is leaving the long running tv programme. His predessors include the late William Hartnell, who was followed by Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee. A new doctor who will be announced shortly, but for now here's how millions will remember Tom Baker. Tom Baker now but who next".

 

I was watching the news after Grandstand when BBC newscaster Jan Leeming uttered these words in October of 1980. I felt sad at the time because as a child Tom was my hero. When he left, I felt in someway it marked the end of an era in British television history. As I look back, life outside my parents home was really fantastic for the most part whenever my mum and my dad allowed me to watch televsiison Tom Baker and Doctor Who were defintitely part of my viewing habits every Saturday evenings after Grandstand and World Of Sport. Thank you Tom for the memories and thanks to you guys for enduring such a long read. I apoligise for the length, it's just for me these are wonderful memories, probably for most this piece of writing means nothing but still this represents a good part of my life, warts and all.

 

Thank You

 

Rohale

[Guest skrubber]

Tom Baker was always my favorite Doctor.

[londonbear]

Tom Baker's is probably the definitive Doctor. His own re-emergence really came about as a result of a BBC radio comedy proramme "Dead Ringers". This featured a series of very talented mimics in various sketches, some topical to that week's news and some longer scripted.

 

Some of the most timesless sketches involved members of the public. The mimic would phone various stores and other services in the guise of the Doctor (Baker version) and get some hilarious reactions. Classics included an auto parts shop asking for spares for the TARDIS and a cab company ("Can you take me to Galifrey?") [apologies to any readers not familiar with Dr Who, they will have no idea what I am referring to!] They then discovered to their surprise that Tom Baker was still alive and phoned him and he immediately went into character. The reulting conversation between the two Doctors is a radio classsic. Although the series has now transfered to TV, the mimic is not visually close enough to maintain the character with the public face-to-face and they have now dropped the Dr Who character in favour of other personalities. This is a link to a clip from the TV show with the Doctor visiting a tanning shop. The Bush clips linked from that page will amuse American readers.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/guide/articles/d/video_clips/deadringers_66601180_10.shtml

 

Tom himself now does the voice-over introductions and narrations to another TV sketch comedy series "Little Britain", which is just about to start a new series and which also started on radio. http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/tv/littlebritain/about_the_show.shtml

 

A new series of Dr Who is in producction with Christopher Eccleston playing the Doctor. The 13 x 45 minute episodes (translating to a one hour show in the US) will be shown sometime in 2005 or 1783. The production is under the auspices of BBC Wales so I presume the interiors will be shot and the editing and post-production done in the Cardiff production centre. They also make the BBC's longest running TV soap "Pobol y cwm" (People of the valley) which is shown now on the Welsh language Channel 4, S4C. (Just to confuse, this stands for "Sianel Pedwar Cymru")

 

In the intervening 10 years plus since the last series there has been a one off episode made around 2000 to demonstrate a 3-D system which depended on one eye being half closed (eg by wearing a dark lens over one eye) with the scene being recorded with strong left-to-right tracking and foreground props. The theory works because the brain "fills in" the information from the darked eye and produces the 3-D effect.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/doctorwho/

[Guest zipperzone]

Wow - Rohale:

 

You must have a lot of time on your hands to write such a long post on a subject that probably has a very limited appeal. Have you ever considered volunteer work?

[Barry]

Now Now You might be surprised at just how many Dr. Who fans are out there. :-)

 

Barry

[Guest zipperzone]

>Now Now You might be surprised at just how many Dr. Who

>fans are out there. :-)

>

>Barry

 

Guess I probably would be - my education must be sorely lacking as I had never heard of him until now. Am I missing much?

[Guest rohale]

>>Now Now You might be surprised at just how many Dr. Who

>>fans are out there. :-)

>>

>>Barry

>

>Guess I probably would be - my education must be sorely

>lacking as I had never heard of him until now. Am I missing

>much?

>

 

I don't think you're missing anything at all. Simply for one reason, you didn't grow up watching Doctor Who in it's original run, or even get to view the programme on Public Television or the Sci-Fi in the U.S. It's natural but at least you have a certain amount of curiousity to want to know who Tom Baker is.

 

To answer your first question in your previous post. No, I have never considered doing volunteer work. I've got bills to pay, I have to make a living somehow. The only time I got close to working as a volunteer in the entertainment world was for Douglas Adams who was a really good writer. He had huge success about twenty years with an idea called " Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy ". His idea was later made into a sci-fi short lived comedy series for BBC2 I think. It proved to be very popular and it has developed a cult following ever since. In 1990, I worked for his production company for about six weeks. I got to know you him pretty well. He turned out to be a really nice guy, very genuine and very classy, tremendous boundless energy. I never thought of him as my employer in that sense, it was a lot of fun to be around him. He treated his workers like family. He was that sort of person. About seven years ago, he moved to the United States to spend time in Santa Barbara, California to begin writing for a film version of his original concept. When I found out that he was living in California, I wanted to work with him again. Unfortunately before I had the chance to throw my hat into the ring, he sadly passed away. He's still missed by his fans.

 

It only took me twenty minutes to write the original post, I had a lot to do last night. Londonbear mentioned the 3D show in 2000. If memory serves me correctly, I think the late John Nathan-Turner did something similar in 1993 for Children In Need. I think they used as many actors from Doctor Who in all of it's incarnations as much as possible. Also with the help of Wendy Richards, they even managed to get some actors and actresses from Eastenders to participate in the special as well. It turned to be a real treat for the British public and Doctor Who as well.

 

I also saw Deadringers and I thought it was very funny. I know Tom Baker in the late 1990's was being used in Northern England for advertisments on used cars and I think at one point they even had Tom in his costume from his last season in Doctor Who, that lovely purple outfit. I think Tom also did a programme called " Deceased ". I'm not entirely sure. One of the interesting aspects about Tom that I find fascinating is when he does television interviews. He somehow manages to intimidate the interviewer, he literally does a role reversal of which explains why Terry Wogan doesn't like him at all. Still at least Tom is still going and he doesn't seem to show any signgs of slowing down, certainly not anytime soon to say the least. Alistair Cooke used to say that Rowan Atkinson was one of Britain's best treasures and I'd like to say that from my point of view, Tom Baker is one of Britain's best kept secrets.

 

I too found out about two months ago that Chris Eccleston was going to be the new doctor who. I'm glad that Russel T. Davies chose him, what a great find he is. The BBC recently sent out pictures to the press to give a flavor of what the new doctor who's costume will be. I must say, it'll be nice to see a more contemporary doctor who for a change. The audience has changed from twenty five years ago and now people are much more sophisticated and having street cred in doctor who is not such a bad thing, it's just my opinion and only mine to say the least.

 

Rohale