William Hartnell
William Hartnell was the first actor to portray the Doctor on Doctor Who. For many, his remains the definitive portrayal of the character, and elements of said portrayal are evident in the performances of all his successors on the television series.
Biography
Early life
Hartnell was born in St Pancras, London, England in 1908, the only child of an unmarried mother, and raised primarily by his aunt Bessie (Wood, 208). Hartnell never discovered the identity of his father (whose particulars are left blank on the birth certificate) and, despite efforts made by Hartnell in later years, was never traced. Often known as Billy, he was educated at home and at Imperial Service College. After training as a jockey, and boxer, he studied acting at The Sylvia Young Theatre School and entered the theatre in 1924 working under Frank Benson. The first of more than sixty film appearances was Say It With Music in 1932. Hartnell usually played comic characters, until 1944 when he was cast in the robust role of sergeant Ned Fletcher in The Way Ahead. From then on his career was defined by playing mainly policemen, soldiers, and thugs — although he was noted for his ability to bring complexity to such roles, for example his widely praised performance as Dallow in Brighton Rock. In 1958 he topped the bill in the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant playing Sergeant Grimshaw, and in 1963 he appeared as a town councillor in the Boulting Brothers' film Heavens Above! with Peter Sellers. William Hartnell also appeared as Will Buckley in the film The Mouse That Roared in 1955 (with Peter Sellers).
His first regular role on television was in The Army Game from 1957–1961. In 1963 he appeared in a supporting role in the film version of This Sporting Life giving a sensitive performance as an ageing Rugby League talent scout known as 'Dad'.
Doctor Who
His performance in This Sporting Life was noted by Verity Lambert, the producer who was setting up a new science-fiction television series for the BBC, Doctor Who, who then offered him the title role. Although he was initially uncertain, Lambert and director Waris Hussein convinced him to take the part and it became the character for which he gained the highest profile and is now most widely remembered. Hartnell came to relish particularly the attention and affection playing the character brought him from children, and he became very fond of the role which also earned him a regular salary of £315 per episode by 1966. In comparison, his co-stars Anneke Wills and Michael Craze earned £68 and £52 per episode at the same time.
According to some colleagues on Doctor Who, he could be a difficult person to work with, although others, notably actors Peter Purves and William Russell, and producer Verity Lambert, speak glowingly of him after more than forty years. His poor health (arteriosclerosis) as well as poor relations with the new production team on the series following the departure of Lambert, ultimately led him to leave Doctor Who in 1966.
Some commentators now contend that reports of Hartnell's illness were subsequently exaggerated by Lambert's successors in the role of producer, John Wiles and Innes Lloyd, to justify a desire (ultimately successful) to remove the expensive actor from the series. Others suggest that it was a mutual decision between Hartnell and the production team that he should leave the programme. However Hartnell claimed in later life that he did not want to leave the series, writing, in an oft-quoted letter, "I didn't willingly give up the part". Suggestions that Hartnell's health was failing him are seemingly contradicted by his returning to demanding theatre work almost immediately upon leaving Doctor Who and he also made television guest appearances across the late 1960s including in No Hiding Place.
Later life
Hartnell reprised the role in the 10th Anniversary story The Three Doctors (made in 1972, broadcast 1973) with the help of cue cards but appeared only in pre-filmed inserts seen on video screens. Hartnell's health had grown progressively worse in the early 1970s and in December 1974 he was admitted to hospital permanently. In early 1975 he suffered a series of strokes brought on by cerebrovascular disease and died in his sleep of heart failure on 23 April, 1975 at the age of 67. His death was reported on the BBC News and a clip of the Doctor in the TARDIS from the end of The OK Corral, the final episode of The Gunfighters, was shown.
A clip of his scene from the end of the serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) was used as a pre-credits sequence for the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors (1983), although another actor, Richard Hurndall, played the role of the First Doctor for the rest of the episode.
Biographical information about William Hartnell is hard to substantiate because of conflicting information from various sources. Hartnell himself gave accounts of his birth and upbringing which seem to differ from verifiable facts, and the only published biography of him is by his granddaughter, Jessica Carney. Although criticised by some as a hagiography, Carney's "Who's There?" does refer to these difficulties and makes it clear that a great deal of research has been done, drawing from primary sources, as well as Hartnell's family's own extensive archive. Notwithstanding an often negative view of its subject, the family link with the author makes some critics view this work as biased.
Hartnellisms
Hartnell's occasional mistakes over his lines while in Doctor Who have been named "Hartnellisms" (or "Billy-fluffs") by Doctor Who fans. It should however be noted that the methods of television production at the time — effectively recording long takes "as live" with retakes only being undertaken in extreme circumstances — led to the inclusion of far more of these small errors than would have been apparent in any more modern production. It is also worth noting that sudden, short-term memory loss or a momentary loss of concentration are recognised symptoms of arteriosclerosis, which Hartnell was suffering from, undiagnosed. In light of this, overt mocking of this small tendency has increasingly been considered to be in poor taste, especially when it draws attention away from Hartnell's other achievements with a consequent effect on his reputation. Additionally, some so-called Hartnellisms can be looked at in the context of the character and were scripted (other characters draw attention to this tendency in dialogue). For example the Doctor frequently misspoke companion Ian Chesterton's name (calling him "Chesterfield" in one episode, "Chatterton" in another).
Examples include:
- The Doctor intends to tell a character named Maitland to stabilise his spaceship. Instead, the Doctor says, "Stabilise us, matron!" (The Sensorites)
- A Hartnellism that occurred during rehearsals of The Edge of Destruction: the Doctor was to tell Susan to check the fault-locator. Instead, he told her to check the fornicator.
- Perhaps the most famous of Hartnell's fluffs was when the Doctor warned Ian and Barbara that they could wind up as two "cinders floating around in Spain" (rather than "space") (The Chase)
It has been said that as time went on, and Hartnell's health ostensibly failed, the number of Hartnellisms increased, sometimes to the detriment of the plot. However, listening to surviving copies of his later serials, such as The Savages or The Smugglers shows this assertion to be demonstrably false.
In Hartnell's final story, The Tenth Planet, the Doctor is given far fewer lines than normal. It has been speculated that this was done to deliberately prevent such problems in his final story but there is no evidence from either the production office records or surviving members of the production team to suggest that this was the case.
References
- Wood, Tat; & Lawrence Miles (2006). About Time 1: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who 1963–1966. Illinois: Mad Norwegian Press. ISBN 0-9759446-0-6.
Trivia
Always claimed he was born in Seaton, Devon, England, but he was actually born in St. Pancras, London, England.
Grandfather of actress Jessica Carney.
At one time he shared the same agent as Nicholas Courtney, who later played Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart.
He was invalided out of the Royal Armoured Corps of the British Army during the Second World War, after suffering a nervous breakdown
