Trivia: British actor William Hartnell once billed himself as "Billy," befitting his previous life as an apprentice jockey and flyweight boxer. Yearning to be a comedian like his idol Charlie Chaplin, Hartnell went on the stage at age 16 with Sir Frank Benson's Shakespeare company. In films from 1933, he spent several frustrating years playing minor villains and nondescript walk-ons. Hartnell rose to prominence in British films of the 1940s; ironically, he played an Army sergeant in his starmaking film, 1944's The Way Ahead. His film assignments diminished in importance in the 1950s, though he gained a new following in the supporting role of Sergeant Major Bullimore on the BBC TV series The Army Game. On the strength of his performance as a crusty sports agent in the 1963 film This Sporting Life, Hartnell was cast as the first of eight actors to portray TV's Doctor Who. This internationally popular sci-fi series made Hartnell a star all over again; alas, multiple sclerosis forced him to relinquish the role to Patrick Troughton in 1966. William Hartnell was long married to actress/playwright Heather McIntyre.

Trivia: Though he regularly worked on screen, stage, and television, veteran British actor Jon Pertwee may best be remembered for playing the third Dr. Who in the long-running British sci-fi television series of the same name from 1970 to 1974. The son of actor Roland Pertwee, he started out on-stage and then made his feature film debut in A Yank at Oxford (1937). A string of popular films followed, but Pertwee temporarily abandoned movies to serve with the British Navy during WWII. Upon his return, he reestablished his film career and subsequently proved himself a gifted and multi-talented artist; while appearing in a series of Carry On films, he was compared to Danny Kaye. After leaving the Dr. Who series, Pertwee appeared in several London West End musicals and also returned to feature films such as One of Our Dinosaurs Is Missing and The House That Dripped Blood (1971). In 1978, Pertwee became the homeless but lovable bum Worzel Gummedge on the children's show Worzel Gummedge. Up until the time of his death on May 20, 1996, Pertwee enjoyed making guest appearances at Dr. Who conventions.

Trivia: British stage actor Patrick Troughton made the transition to films in 1948's Escape. His movie credits included the Laurence Olivier Shakespearean productions Hamlet (1948) and Richard III (1955), Disney's Treasure Island (1950), Hammer Films' Curse of Frankenstein (1957), and the Ray Harryhausen special effects banquets Jason and the Argonauts (1963) and Sinbad and the Eye of the Tiger. From 1966 through 1968, Troughton played the eccentric time traveler Doctor Who in the BBC TV series of the same name, succeeding the first Who William Hartnell. Patrick Troughton's association with this series assured him a standing ovation whenever he appeared at science fiction conventions in the 1970s and 1980s; it was while appearing at a Who convention in Georgia that the 67-year-old Troughton died of a heart attack.

Trivia: Very well-known for her performance as Jo Grant during Jon Pertwee's run on Doctor Who, Katy Manning later caused a sensation when posing nude with a Dalek from that series, for a series of photographs that have since been widely bootlegged. Manning appeared in several movies, though she tends to stick more to stage and television work. She lived for a time in Australia, but eventually moved to the United States. She has very much been in demand for science fiction convention appearances.

Trivia: Nicholas Courtney was a longtime working actor in England, portraying dozens of leading and supporting roles in theater, television, and movies -- but he was most well known around the world, as well as in England, for playing Brigadier Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart on the long-running BBC series Doctor Who. The son of a British diplomat, he was born in Cairo, Egypt. His father had been a career military man before entering the diplomatic service, and one of his uncles was an Air Chief Marshall in the Royal Air Force -- and although Courtney never aspired to a military career, he did observe their respective behavior, which served him well later in life. Courtney turned to acting after 18 months in the British army. With extensive stage experience behind him, he made his television debut in 1957, and quickly moved into motion pictures as well. He was busy in film and, especially, television over the next decade, including a role in a 1965 episode of Doctor Who as Space Security Agent Bret Vyon, working alongside original series star William Hartnell. That performance impressed the producers sufficiently so that, when planning the series' 1968 run, as a result of a last-minute shift in another actor's availability, Courtney inherited the part of Colonel (later Brigadier) Lethbridge-Stewart. This proved to be the role of a lifetime, as the co-star of one of the BBC's most popular series. Courtney brought his acting experience, as well as his recollections of his father's and uncle's approaches to their respective careers to his portrayal. The brigadier is the head of a top-secret military division known as UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce), organized to investigate and deal with threats that fall outside of the range and experience of the conventional military and intelligence services. Courtney symbolized cool British professionalism and efficiency, bringing a good deal of humanity to the portrayal and never letting the character of the brigadier turn into caricature. He proved extremely popular with both the viewers and the producers, and went on to portray the UNIT leader in dozens upon dozens of episodes of the series across the next decade or more. Courtney ultimately played hundreds of roles in a career of nearly 50 years on the stage, in films, and on television -- including regular work in such popular series as The Two Ronnies, and appearances during the 1960s on The Champions and The Avengers -- but it would be Lethbridge-Stewart by which he would be best known around the world. And his fame was sufficient to justify his writing an autobiography, Five Rounds Rapid (1998), which he updated in 2005 as Still Getting Away With It. He passed away in 2011 after a long illness.