 Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor Thomas Stewart Baker (born January 20, 1934) is a British actor, mainly associated with the role of the Doctor in the long-running science fiction television series Doctor Who, whom he played from 1974 to 1981.
Early Life
Baker was born in Liverpool. His father, Thomas, was a sailor who was rarely at home resulting in Tom being raised largely by his mother, Mary Jane, in her Roman Catholic faith. He left school at 15 to become a novice monk and remained in the monastic life for six years, but left and went into the Merchant Navy, at the same time taking up acting, at first as a hobby. In 1971, he got his first big break with the role of Rasputin in the film Nicholas and Alexandra.
Major Achievements
In 1974, Baker took on the role of the Doctor from Jon Pertwee, and quickly made it his own. His eccentric style of dress and speech, particularly his trademark long scarf, made him an immediately recognisable figure, and the viewing public quickly forgot his predecessors. His decision to move on after seven years, in 1981, was regretted by many of the programme's fans, and his incarnation is generally regarded as the most popular of the Doctors.
Baker played the Doctor for seven consecutive seasons over an eight year period, making him the longest serving actor to take the part on screen. However, Sylvester McCoy is considered by some to be the longest serving Doctor, on and off screen, having assumed the role in 1987 and, despite the series' cancellation in 1989, only relinquishing it to Paul McGann in 1996.
Other Work
Baker's subsequent career was relatively unremarkable. He played character parts on television and radio (including an Elizabethan sea captain in Blackadder and Puddleglum in the BBC's production of The Chronicles of Narnia), and also hosted the children's literature show The Book Tower. He became mostly known, however, for doing advertising voiceovers. In the late 1990s he had a recurring role in the Vic Reeves and Bob Mortimer revival of Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased). He had a part in the 2001 BBC Radio 4 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps as Sir Walter Bullivant. He also narrated the BBC radio comedy series Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World and later Little Britain and continues to narrate the television series of the same name.
More recently, Baker completed filming a season of Monarch of the Glen, a popular BBC drama series. He plays Donald McDonald, an eccentric former race car champion who, having been away since early childhood, returns home after hearing of the death of his brother Hector (who was played by Richard Briers until his departure at the end of the previous season).
Baker had a brief foray into the world of music, providing the monologue to the track Witness to a Murder (Part Two) on the album Six by Mansun.
Also a talented writer, Baker created a short fairytale-style novel titled The Boy Who Kicked Pigs (ISBN 057119771X), which has been described as "A Grotesque Masterpiece". He has also written an autobiography, entitled Who on Earth is Tom Baker? (ISBN 000638854X).
Biographical Notes
His distinctive voice has become a gift for impressionists, and he is regularly impersonated in the popular comedy series Dead Ringers.
Several reference books published in the late 1980s erroneously reported that Baker died of a drug overdose in 1982. Baker does have a reputation, acknowledged in his autobiography, of being a heavy drinker like fellow Doctor actor William Hartnell, and sometimes makes humourous reference to it. In response to the numerous inquiries he gets about his time as the Doctor he often replies 'You will have to excuse me but I was drunk at the time.'
In 1981 he married Lalla Ward who had co-starred in Doctor Who with him for two years - their marriage lasted only 16 months. In 1987, Baker married Sue Jerrard, who had been an assistant editor on Doctor Who. They moved to a converted school in Maidstone, Kent where they kept lots of cats before emigrating to France in 2002. Tom sold his school house to his Randall and Hopkirk co-star Vic Reeves.
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