Pauline Collins, OBE (born 3 September 1940[1]) played Samantha Briggs in The Faceless Ones and Queen Victoria in Tooth and Claw. Her image was used for a painting of Queen Victoria in Empress of Mars.
She was heavily solicited to convert Samantha into a regular companion to replace Polly. Despite personal appeals by Innes Lloyd and even Patrick Troughton and Frazer Hines, however, she declined the offer.
According to David Tennant on the DVD commentary for The Idiot's Lantern, she held the record for the greatest length of time between appearances on Doctor Who, narrowly edging Margaret John. This has since been eclipsed by Arthur Cox, who had 42 years between playing Cully in 1968's The Dominators and Mr Henderson in 2010's The Eleventh Hour; Donald Sumpter, who had 43 years between playing Ridgeway in 1972's The Sea Devils and Rassilon in 2015's Hell Bent; Ysanne Churchman, whose reappearance as Alpha Centauri in Empress of Mars came 43 years after her last, in 1974's Planet of the Spiders, as the voice of one of the Eight Legs; and William Russell, who had a cameo appearance as Ian Chesterton in 2022's The Power of the Doctor 57 years after his departure in The Chase.
Career[[edit] | [edit source]]
She is one of the few Oscar-nominated actresses to appear in Doctor Who.
Outside of Doctor Who, Collins is arguably best known for her re-occurring role as Sarah in Upstairs, Downstairs alongside Jean Marsh and Simon Williams. In 2002 she appeared in the film Mrs Caldicott's Cabbage War alongside Peter Capaldi.
As documentary subject[[edit] | [edit source]]
Collins' views on her time in The Faceless Ones, as well as her memories of being invited to become a companion, were a part of the audio documentary Doctor Who - The Lost Episodes.