Lalla Ward

**Lalla Ward** (born **Sarah Ward** on 28 June 1951) played Romana II from *Destiny of the Daleks* to *Warriors' Gate*, later again returning to the role for various stories during the early and mid-1990s.

She previously played Princess Astra in *The Armageddon Factor*. Lalla Ward is also a noted illustrator and audio book narrator and the former wife of Fourth Doctor actor, Tom Baker.

## Profile

Lalla is the daughter of Edward Ward, the 7th Viscount Bangor, and his fourth wife, Marjorie Alice Banks. She has a brother, Edward Nicholas Ward, two years her junior, and a half-brother, William Maxwell David Ward, who is three years her senior and the 8th Viscount Bangor. Lalla Ward is herself more properly addressed as the Honourable Sarah Ward.

She is descended from George Plantagenet, 1st Duke of Clarence, brother of Edward IV, via John Mordaunt, 1st Earl of Peterborough, John, 1st Viscount Mordaunt, and Bernard Ward, 1st Viscount Bangor.

She attended the Central School of Speech and Drama in London. Her stage name, "Lalla", comes from her attempts as a toddler to pronounce her own name. She began her acting career in the Hammer horror film *Vampire Circus*, and played the teenage daughter of *The Duchess of Duke Street* in the popular BBC drama series of the 1970s. In 1980, she played Ophelia to Derek Jacobi's Hamlet in the BBC television production. She was the second actress to play the Time Lady Romana. She was chosen to replace Mary Tamm in the part, after a guest appearance in another role in the *Doctor Who* story *The Armageddon Factor* in 1979.

Following her exit from the series in 1981, she married her co-star, actor Tom Baker, that December, but the marriage lasted only sixteen months. (Once, when asked what her favourite monster on *Doctor Who* was, she quipped, "Tom Baker.")

Later, Douglas Adams, who had worked with her on *Doctor Who*, introduced her to his friend Richard Dawkins, biologist and author of such books as *The Selfish Gene* and *The Blind Watchmaker*, whom he had met after Dawkins sent him a fan letter. They met at Adams' fortieth birthday party in 1992 and married the same year. They then separated in 2016.

Ward illustrates Dawkins' books. She also wrote two books on knitting in the 1980s, and one on embroidery (in one of these books, Louise Jameson models some of Ward's creations). She created the 1985 Shell Calendar, with embroidered pictures of sea birds.

Ward has seldom appeared on screen since her marriage to Dawkins. However, she reprised the character of Romana in the 1991 serial *Lungbarrow*, and the 1994 serial *Goth Opera*.

She has also recorded audio books, including Steven Pinker's *The Language Instinct* and Dawkins' *The Ancestor's Tale*, *The God Delusion*, and *The Greatest Show on Earth*.

Asteroid 8347 Lallaward is named after her.

## Credits

### *Doctor Who*

#### As Romana

* *Destiny of the Daleks*
* *City of Death*
* *The Creature from the Pit*
* *Nightmare of Eden*
* *The Horns of Nimon*
* *Shada*
* *The Leisure Hive*
* *Meglos*
* *Full Circle*
* *State of Decay*
* *Warriors' Gate*
* *Lungbarrow*
* *Goth Opera*
* *Mind Games*
* *The Eyes of Madmen*

#### Other Roles

* *The Armageddon Factor* - Astra of Atrios