Deborah Watling (2 January 1948[1][2]-21 July 2017[3]) portrayed Victoria Waterfield, a companion of the Second Doctor, from The Evil of the Daleks to Fury from the Deep.
She played that part from 1967 to 1968 and appeared in Dimensions in Time (1993) and Downtime (1995). She also appeared as herself in the mockumentary, Lust in Space. Her father Jack Watling appeared in Doctor Who as Professor Edward Travers in the serials The Abominable Snowmen and The Web of Fear, and Deborah remembered having a great deal of difficulty focusing when working opposite her father — frequently collapsing in a fit of the giggles. This was especially the case in the latter serial when he was in old-age makeup. She also voiced Queen Victoria in the BBV Productions audio story The Barnacled Baby.
Notable television performances outside Doctor Who include: the title character Peter Brady's niece Sally in the ITC film series H.G. Wells' Invisible Man (1958-59); Alice Liddel in a 1965 BBC Wednesday Play story on the girl who inspired Alice in Wonderland; as Sarah Richards in "The World in Silence", an episode of the BBC science-fiction anthology series Out of the Unknown (1966); as Lorna in "Hello Young Lovers", an episode of the ITV sitcom Rising Damp (1978); and as Norma in the ITV film series Danger UXB (1979). She also appeared in the 1972 feature film That'll Be the Day.
Watling was asked to reprise the role of Victoria in The Five Doctors in 1983, but turned it down in favour of The Dave Allen Show which she felt was a better offer. However, recording on The Dave Allen Show was cancelled for reasons that remain unclear to this day (either due to industrial action, or because Allen himself was in ill-health), so she lost out on both.
She voiced Victoria in several Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories: The Great Space Elevator, The Emperor of Eternity, Power Play, The Black Hole and The Story of Extinction. Deborah also voiced Auntie in Three's a Crowd.
In 2010, Watling published her autobiography, Daddy's Girl, in which she discusses her upbringing and her Doctor Who experiences. Among the book's revelations is the fact that she received her first kiss as a teenager from fellow young actor Michael Craze.
A long-term smoker, she passed away on 21 July 2017, after a short battle with lung cancer[4][5].
Credits
Television
Doctor Who
- The Evil of the Daleks
- The Tomb of the Cybermen
- The Abominable Snowmen
- The Ice Warriors
- The Enemy of the World
- The Web of Fear
- Fury from the Deep
Mini-episodes
Direct-to-video
Audio dramas
BBV Zygon
- The Barnacled Baby as Queen Victoria
Big Finish Doctor Who audio stories
- Three's a Crowd as Auntie
- The Great Space Elevator
- Power Play
- The Emperor of Eternity
- The Black Hole
- The Story of Extinction
Documentary
- 30 Years in the TARDIS
- Lust in Space
- The Missing Years
- Tombwatch
- Evolution of The Invasion
- Girls! Girls! Girls!
- Second Time Around
- Doctor Who Live: The Afterparty