Elisabeth Sladen
Elisabeth Sladen (born 1st February 1948, Liverpool, England) played Sarah Jane Smith. She appeared as a regular on Doctor Who with both Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and also appeared in the pilot for the spin-off series, K-9 and Company. Most recently, she reprised her role as Sarah Jane for the new series story, "School Reunion", and a spin-off series called The Sarah Jane Adventures.
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 eventually turned to acting, and after finishing grammar school, attended drama school for two years.
Following this, she began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager. Her first stage appearance was as a corpse. However, 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 the doctor. Sladen was so good as an ASM that she did not get many acting roles, a problem she solved by deliberately making mistakes on several occasions. This got her told off again, but she started to get more on-stage roles.
Sladen eventually moved into weekly repertory work, traveling around to various locations in England. Sladen and Miller, now married, moved to Manchester, spending three years there. She appeared in numerous roles, most notably as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the odd part on Leeds Radio and Granada Television, eventually appearing as a barmaid in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street.
In 1972, Miller was appearing in a play that moved down to London, and they had to move along with it. Sladen found city life a bit of an adjustment, but eventually 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 actress 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 at the time. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each time she turned to look at one of them the other would signal a thumbs-up. She was offered and accepted the part of investigative journalist Sarah Jane Smith.
Sladen stayed on Doctor Who for three and a half seasons, alongside both Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth, receiving both popular and critical acclaim for her role as Sarah. When she left the series in 1976, it made front page news, where previously only a change of Doctors had received such attention.
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 program 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 to date.
The new decade also marked her first appearance at a Doctor Who convention, Who 1 in March 1980, along 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.
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 the offer, but accepted his second offer of doing a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring with K-9, the popular robot dog from Doctor Who. However, the pilot was not picked up for a series. Sladen would reprise the role of Sarah in 1983 for the 20th anniversary special The Five Doctors.
She continued to appear in various advertisements and in another Letts production, Alice in Wonderland (playing the Dormouse), as well as attending 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, but still finding time to appear occasionally on television. Until School Reunion, Sladen's last on screen appearance as Sarah was in the 1993 charity special Dimensions in Time.
Sladen returned to the role of Sarah once again in several audio dramas. Two of them were produced for BBC Radio, The Paradise of Death (BBC Radio 5, 1993), and The Ghosts of N-Space (BBC Radio 2, 1996), together with Pertwee as the Doctor and Nicholas Courtney as the Brigadier. Big Finish Productions has also produced a series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day, of which five have been released and a second series has been announced. Her daughter Sadie has also appeared in the Sarah Jane Smith audios. Sladen was very sad and heartbroken when she learned that her dear friend, Jon Pertwee (The Third Doctor), died in May of 1996. She cried for weeks after that, but continued with her life and professional acting career.
On 25 July, 2005, the BBC confirmed that Sladen would indeed be appearing as Sarah Jane Smith in the second series of the revived Doctor Who, featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. The BBC subsequently announced that John Leeson would also be returning as the voice of the robot dog K-9.
The series The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted on BBC One with a 60-minute special on 1st January 2007. The show is a spin-off series, produced by BBC Wales for CBBC, starring Sladen and created by Russell T. Davies. The programme focuses on the adventures of Sarah Jane Smith.
