Elisabeth Sladen

**Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen** (1 February 1946, Liverpool, England – 19 April 2011) played Sarah Jane Smith. She appeared as a regular on *Doctor Who* with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. She also appeared in the pilot for the spin-off series, *K9 and Company*.

## Profile

### Early career

An only child, Sladen developed an interest in performing at an early age, beginning dance lessons when she was five and dancing in one production with the Royal Ballet. She turned to acting and after finishing grammar school, attended drama school for two years.

She began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager. Her first stage appearance was as a corpse. She was scolded for giggling on stage, thanks to a young actor, Brian Miller, whispering the words, "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear while he was playing a doctor. Sladen was so good as an ASM that she did not get many acting roles, a problem she solved by deliberately making mistakes. This got her told off again, but she started to get more on-stage roles.

Sladen moved into weekly repertory work, travelling around England. Sladen and Miller married on 8th June 1968, after moving to Manchester, spending three years there. Her most notable role in this time was Desdemona in *Othello*, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the odd part on Leeds Radio and Granada Television, appearing in 1970 as Anita Reynolds, barmaid of The Flying Horse, in six episodes of *Coronation Street*.

In 1972, Miller was appearing in a play that moved down to London and they moved along with it. Sladen found city life a change, but adapted. Her first television role in London was as a female terrorist in an episode of *Doomwatch*. This was followed by guest roles in *Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em* and *Z-Cars*.

### *Doctor Who*

In 1973, Katy Manning, who was playing the Third Doctor's assistant, Jo Grant opposite Jon Pertwee, was leaving the series. Producer Barry Letts was growing increasingly desperate in his search for a replacement when *Z-Cars* producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen an enthusiastic recommendation. Sladen arrived at the audition not knowing it was for the new companion role and was amazed at Letts's thoroughness. She was introduced to Pertwee, whom she found intimidating. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each gave the other a thumbs-up when her back was turned. She was offered and accepted the part of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith.

Sladen stayed on *Doctor Who* from the start of season 11 to midway through season 14. She worked with Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor, receiving popular and critical acclaim. When she left the series in 1976, it made front page news — previously only a change of Doctors had received such attention. Bob Baker and Dave Martin intentionally left Sarah's departure scene in *The Hand of Fear* unwritten; Sladen and Tom Baker co-wrote it themselves. Sladen was sad to be leaving *Doctor Who* and cried on her last day.

Sladen was heartbroken upon hearing of Jon Pertwee's death in 1996 and cried for weeks afterwards. In a later interview, Sladen stated that Pertwee was "her" Doctor. (BBC interview 1997)

In October 2009, Sladen paid tribute to her boss and friend, Barry Letts, who had died that month, calling him one of her best friends.

### Later career

Sladen returned to Liverpool with her husband and did a series of plays. Notable appearances following that include a two-year stint as a presenter for the children's programme *Stepping Stones*, a role as a stand-up comic's spouse in *Take My Wife* and a small part in the movie *Silver Dream Racer* as a bank secretary in 1980, her only motion picture appearance. The new decade also marked her first appearance at a *Doctor Who* convention, Who 1, in March 1980 with Ian Marter, who had played companion Harry Sullivan on the programme. In 1981, Letts cast her as the female lead in the BBC Classics production of *Gulliver in Lilliput*. She continued to appear in advertisements and in another Letts production, *Alice in Wonderland* (in which she played the Dormouse) and attended *Doctor Who* conventions in the United States. After the birth of her daughter Sadie Miller in February 1985, Sladen went into semi-retirement, placing her family first. She appeared only occasionally on television.

### Reprising Sarah

Sladen's last television appearance as Sarah had been in the 1993 30th anniversary special *Destiny*. Prior to this, new *Doctor Who* producer John Nathan-Turner had asked her to return to the series to ease the transition between Tom Baker and new Doctor Peter Davison. She declined, but accepted his second offer of a pilot for a spin-off series called *K9 and Company*, co-starring with K9, the popular robot dog from *Doctor Who*. The pilot was not picked up for a series. Sladen would reprise the role of Sarah in 1983 for the twentieth anniversary special, *The Five Doctors*.

Sladen played Sarah in many audio stories. Two were produced for BBC Radio: *The Paradise of Death* (1993), and *The Ghosts of N-Space* (1996), with Pertwee as the Doctor and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier.

Elisabeth Sladen died on Tuesday 19 April 2011 from cancer. She was sixty-five years old. Many people paid tribute to Sladen, including: Russell T Davies, Colin Baker, Nicola Bryant, Damian Kavanagh, Keith Jones, Roger Carey, Stephen Fry, Steven Moffat and Tom Baker. The *Doctor Who* story which went to air the following Saturday, was dedicated to her memory. Due to an editing mistake in the beginning of her career, the date listed for her birth on the dedication was incorrect - she was actually born in 1946.

Sladen had begun working on her autobiography and had completed the final draft before she was diagnosed with cancer, when she put the project aside. Following her death, it was decided (with the support of Sladen's family) that the autobiography would be published posthumously. *Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography* was published on 7 November 2011, with a foreword by David Tennant and an epilogue by Brian and Sadie Miller. The audiobook version was released on 1 December 2011 narrated by Caroline John, with Tennant and Brian and Sadie Miller reading their contributions.

## Credits

### *Doctor Who*

* *The Time Warrior*
* *Invasion of the Dinosaurs*
* *Death to the Daleks*
* *The Monster of Peladon*
* *Planet of the Spiders*
* *Robot*
* *The Ark in Space*
* *The Sontaran Experiment*
* *Genesis of the Daleks*
* *Revenge of the Cybermen*
* *Terror of the Zygons*
* *Planet of Evil*
* *Pyramids of Mars*
* *The Android Invasion*
* *The Brain of Morbius*
* *The Seeds of Doom*
* *The Masque of Mandragora*
* *The Hand of Fear*
* *The Five Doctors*
* *Destiny*

### Audio dramas

#### BBC Audio *Doctor Who*

* *Glorious Goodwood*
* *Doctor Who and the Pescatons*
* *Exploration Earth: The Time Machine*
* *The Paradise of Death*
* *The Ghosts of N-Space*