Tom Baker

This article is about actor Tom Baker. For the jazz musician, see Tom Baker (musician) .

Tom Baker

Thomas Stewart "Tom" Baker (born January 20, 1934 ) is an English actor and comedian . His best-known role is that of the fourth doctor from 1974 to 1981 in Doctor Who .

Life

Early life

Baker was born on Scotland Road, Liverpool , to Mary Jane, a cleaning lady, and John Stewart Baker, a seaman. Baker grew up in the working class. He left school at 15 and was a monk for six years . He served in the British Army Medical Corps from 1955 to 1957 . At the time, he started acting as a hobby.

Before Doctor Who

In 1971 Baker got his first role as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra . In 1972 he played in The Canterbury Tales .

Doctor Who (1974-1981)

In 1974 Baker took on the lead role in Doctor Who from Jon Pertwee . He was hired for his appearance in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad .

As a doctor, his ultra-long, colorful scarves and his “Jelly Babies” were his trademarks. Baker was the longest active Doctor - seven years in a row. It shaped many aspects of the doctor's personality. Baker is the most popular doctoral actor. In annual polls in Doctor Who Magazine , he was only twice not "Best Doctor".

In 2013, Baker made a cameo on the show's 50-year-old birthday special.

Baker is not related to Colin Baker , the sixth doctor.

In 2010 he signed a contract for three seasons of seven episodes of radio plays with Big Finish , in which he again played the doctor. The first season should be released from January 2012. The third season, in which Elisabeth Sladen should take up her role as Sarah Jane Smith again at his side, was canceled because Sladen died of cancer in early April 2011 before the start of the recording. Baker also played the role of the doctor in the BBC audiobooks Hornets' Nest (2009), Demon Quest (2010) and Serpent Crest (2011), which each consist of four parts, always in September, October, November and December of the respective year of publication.

In 2017 he worked on the completion of the episode "Shada", which was planned as the season finale in 1979, but could not be completed due to a strike. Most of the missing scenes were produced as animated sequences and only needed to be synchronized by the actors. But real scenes were also shot with the Doctor as an old man, which were already included in Douglas Adams' script at the time.

Other appearances during and after Doctor Who

In the 1980s, Baker played Captain Redbeard Rum in Blackadder , Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of Baskerville from 1982 and Father Ferguson in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1986). In 1984 he played the Interpol agent Anatole Blaylock in an episode of the Remington Steele series . In the 1990s he played a. a. the software agent in Douglas Adams ' Hyperland and the professor Geoffrey Hoyt in Medics . He played Halvarth in the 2000 movie Dungeons & Dragons . As of 2001, Baker served as the narrator for Little Britain on BBC Radio 4 and on television.

Personal life

Baker married Anna Wheatcroft in 1961. They had two sons and were divorced in 1966. In 1980 he married Lalla Ward , who played his companion Romana in Doctor Who for two years . The marriage lasted 16 months. In 1986, Baker married Sue Jerrard, a co-writer on Doctor Who . He has lived with her in Sussex since 2006.

References in pop culture

• The band The Human League published a track called Tom Baker on the B-side of their single Boys and Girls in 1980 . The track is instrumental in her album Travelogue too .
• The subscribed by Tom Baker Doctor fourth appear in the Simpsons in the consequences of Sideshow Bob's Last Gleaming and Treehouse of Horror X .
• In the television series Futurama , the fourth doctor, drawn after Tom Baker, can be seen in the episode 6x15 Möbius Dick .

Filmography (selection)

• 1971: Nikolaus and Alexandra ( Nicholas and Alexandra )
• 1973: In the snare of the devil ( The Vault of Horror )
• 1973: Sindbad's Dangerous Adventures ( The Golden Voyage of Sinbad )
• 1974: Luther (alternatively John Osborne 's Luther )
• 1974: The Laboratory of Horror - The Freakmaker ( The Mutations )
• 1974–1981: Doctor Who ( TV series )
• 1982: Hound of the Baskervilles ( The Hound of the Baskervilles , television Vierteiler )
• 2003–2006: Little Britain (TV series)
• 2013: Doctor Who : Der Tag des Doktors ( The Day of the Doctor ; Doctor Who 50th Anniversary; 3D cinema film ; cameo )

Web links

Commons : Tom Baker  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Tom Baker in the Internet Movie Database (English)
• Tom Baker Biography - British Film Institute

References and comments

1. ↑ Ann slea: Who on Earth is Tom Baker: an Autobiography - book review.
2. ↑ Alehouse rock: Laurie Taylor interviews Tom Baker . New humanist
3. ↑ TV biography
4. ↑ youtube.com
5. ↑ David Tennant named 'best Dr Who' . In: BBC News , December 6, 2006. Retrieved February 25, 2007. 
6. ↑ No title (scanned clipping). In: Daily Telegraph , December 14, 1980. Archived from the original on June 19, 2009 Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . Retrieved April 18, 2009.