As a countdown to the upcoming 50th Anniversary of Doctor
Who, TARDIStyle will be showcasing one Doctor a day.
Colin Baker was born 8 June 1943 in Waterloo, London. Early in his life, his family moved to Rochdale. He attended St. Bede's College where he studied to become a solicitor. At age 23, he decided to change careers and enrolled at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (side note, the author hopes to take classes there once she moves to London in 2016).
One of his first professional acting jobs was in 1970 as a supporting role in a three-part BBC adaptation of Jean-Paul Sartre's The Roads to Freedom. In 1972, he returned to BBC airwaves as Anatole Kuragain in War and Peace. From 1974-76, he played one of his most prominent roles: Paul Merroney in The Brothers. He also appeared in the last episode of Fall of Eagles, was a guest star in Blake's 7, and in a BBC production of A.J. Cronin's The Citadel.
Before playing the Sixth Doctor, he appeared in Doctor Who as Commander Maxil in Arc of Infinity in 1983. Maxil was one of the few characters to actually shoot the Doctor (Peter Davidson).
Outside of acting, he became an avid supporter of awareness of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome after the death of his son, Jack, in 1984.
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And right on the tail of a post wondering if Who is a religion, we wish a very hectic birthday to Valentine Dyall, the scheming Black Guardian and the ultimate Devil figure of the Whoniverse (well, until they decided Satan actually existed, in any case), who would be turning 105 today had he not died in 1985. His character is kinda responsible for two of my favorite things in Who--thanks to being the driving motivator in the search for the Key to Time, he's inadvertantly responsible for the presence of Romana on board the TARDIS as well as one of the finest stretches of episodes Who ever got, and he recruited Turlough, my favorite Fifth Doctor companion, to kill the guy. So, yeah, without him--no Romana. No Turlough. No Key to Time. And he's played in this delightfully hammy way, too, a way only the most powerful Who villains can really get away with these days.
But that's not the only fantastically nerdy thing he's done. He's been both the upkeeper of the Total Pespective Vortex and Deep Thought in a combined three versions of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, which was created by Douglas Adams, who wrote part of the Key to Time Saga. And he guest starred with Colin Baker in Series C of Blake's 7, and in that very same episode is John J. Carney, who played one-off character Bloodaxe in the Doctor Who serial The Time Warrior--which means he was guest starring in a show created by Terry Nation in an episode with the Sixth Doctor and a Robert Holmes character...the latter of whom also means that he's still tied back to the Key to Time. Kevin Bacon's got nothing on this guy!
For more information on his life and whatnot, see here.