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: Danced with the Royal Ballet at the age of 5. Co-starred with future British Member of Parliament Edwina Currie in a primary-school production of Alice Through the Looking Glass. Worked so well as a stage assistant at Liverpool Playhouse that she would make intentional mistakes to better her chances at acting. Met husband Brian while performing in the role of a corpse in a 1966 stage production of The Physicists. Held her wedding reception on famed Penny Lane and often attended Liverpool football (soccer) matches at Anfield. Played companion Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who opposite Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker in the 1970s; later reprised the role for The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2007.

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.

Trivia: Best known for sustaining the role of Mike Gambit in the hit television spy drama The New Avengers, British actor Gareth Hunt also attained popularity on his home side of the Atlantic as Frederick Norton on the popular weekly BBC drama Upstairs, Downstairs. Born on February 7, 1943, in London, Hunt joined the merchant navy at age 15 and, after a half-decade at sea, returned to England, where he trained with the infamous Royal Shakespeare Company. For at least ten years, Gareth's popularity remained confined to the U.K. theatrical circuit, but he started expanding his horizons in the early '70s with appearances on such British television programs as Bless This House and Doctor Who. Hunt's contributions to Upstairs -- a drama about the lives of servants and masters in a turn-of-the-century London home -- arrived fairly late in the series (he didn't join the cast until the program's final year of 1975) but helped it retain a sizeable audience through the very end of its run.In 1976, Britain's LWT (or "London Weekend Television," a weekend division of its ITV network) launched The New Avengers, a sequel to the popular '60s spy series The Avengers. Hunt and Joanna Lumley joined original series cast member Patrick Macnee (who reprised his role as John Steed) as a coterie of clandestine English spies who traveled the world outwitting insane, conquer-hungry villains. Hunt's turn as Norton on The New Avengers also represented his first transatlantic success; CBS acquired the rights to this 26-episode series and aired on its CBS Late Movie (as it would with Return of the Saint), alternating between this and reruns of Quincy, M.E. The program ran from November 1978 through the end of 1980.In his later years, Hunt also appeared on such British series as Castle of Adventure (1990) and Harry and the Wrinklies (2001-2002). He died of pancreatic cancer, at age 65, on March 14, 2007.