Julius Silverstein
Emil Julius Silverstein was a wealthy Jewish businessman and collector of rare artefacts. As something of an insult, Edward Travers habitually called Silverstein by his middle name "Julius".
Silverstein spent forty years in the art world as a dealer, collector and connoisseur. He created the Hall of Curiosities, a private museum in his South Kensington house. (PROSE: Fear of the Web) Taking up pride of place was a deactivated robot Yeti from Tibet, which he purchased off Edward Travers in 1939, (TV: The Web of Fear) though Travers had tried to buy it back several times. Julius displayed the robot as a "life size" Yeti model. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear)
He married outside the Jewish faith, and with his wife Edith he had a son Malachi. Over the years, through frequent visits, Malachi and Anne Travers became friends. (PROSE: The Lost Skin, Fear of the Web)
After reactivating a Yeti control sphere, which later vanished, Travers went to Silverstein on 4th February 1969 and requested that he return the Yeti, warning him of the danger. However, Silverstein refused to listen and sent for Travers' daughter Anne to take her father away.
After Travers left with Anne, Silverstein started to blow out the candles in the museum, but heard a window break in the room where the Yeti was displayed. Silverstein thought it was Travers, but unknown to him, it was the reactivated control sphere. He went to investigate, but was attacked and killed by the reactivated Yeti. (TV: The Web of Fear) Travers was briefly suspected of murdering him to get the yeti back. ((PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear)
Appearance
By one account, Emil Julius was tall and had white hair. (PROSE: Doctor Who and the Web of Fear) By another account, he was short with dark hair and was balding. (TV: The Web of Fear)
Behind the scenes
- The character was named Emil Julius in the novelisation in order to remove the offensive stereotype of the duplicitous money grubbing Jew. The Lethbridge-Stewart series merged the two names together into Emil Julius Silverstein, restoring the offensive stereotype by explicit confirmation of Judaism, as well as fixing the inconsistency by explaining that Travers used the middle name as an insult.
