Elisabeth Sladen

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Elisabeth Heath-Sladen (1 February 1946 – 19 April 2011) was an English actress best known for her appearance in the British television series Doctor Who.

She appeared on stage from 1973 to 1976, as well as Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker, and reprised the role several times in subsequent decades, including Doctor Who and its spin-offs, K-9 and Company, and Sarah Jane Adventures.

She went to London in 1970 and was chosen for a role in Doctor Who after an appearance in the police drama Z-Cars.

She remained a regular cast member with Pertwee and Baker until 1976.

She appeared on television and radio before semi-retiring to raise a family in the mid-1980s. With more Doctor Who appearances in the 2000s, she returned to the public eye, culminating in her appearance in The Sarah Jane Adventures as a leading character.

The show received the Royal Television Society Award for Best Children's Drama in 2010.

She has also appeared on television as a regular guest commentator and has provided voice-over commentary for the company's DVD debuts. Sladen died of cancer on April 19, 2011.

Early life

Elisabeth Clara (or Claira) Heath-Sladen was born in Liverpool, England, on February 1, 1946. Sladen was the only child of Tom Sladen (1900-1904), who served in the Home Guard during the Second World War, and Gladys (1902–1978) (née Trainer).

She began to perform at an early age, began dancing when she was five, and appeared in one production with the Royal Ballet. She appeared in at least one school production with her as the future politician Edwina Currie. She moved to secondary school and attended Aigburth Vale High School for Girls.

Personal life

On June 8, 1968 in Liverpool, Sladen married actor Brian Miller. Sadie Miller, the couple's daughter, appeared alongside Sladen in the 1993 film Thirty Years in the TARDIS, wearing a recreation of the Andy Pandy overalls Sladen wore in The Hand of Fear.

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Career

Slade was a student at the Elliott-Clarke Drama School. She made her first film appearance in Ferry Cross the Mersey in 1965 as an uncredited extra. Sladen joined the Hillbark Players in an open-air performance of Much Ado About Nothing, a playing Hero.

Sladen began working at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager after two years at drama school. In Twelfth Night, the maid appeared in the Playhouse for the first time as a maid. She was a dead body in The Physicists a few months ago. However, she was disciplined for giggling on stage due to her future husband Brian Miller's whispering the word "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear when he was playing a doctor. Sladen was such a good assistant stage manager that she did not get many acting roles, a problem that was solvable when she mistakenly made a mistake on one occasion. In a previous interview, she confessed to making mistakes on several occasions. As a result, she began appearing on stage again. She eventually moved to weekly repertory service, travelling to various places in the United Kingdom. Sladen and Miller immigrated to Manchester in 1966, where they spent three years there. They married on June 8, 1968, the eighth child in the family's history. She appeared in a variety of roles, most notable as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She appeared on Radio Leeds and Granada Television occasionally, before being portrayed as barmaid Anita Reynolds in 1970 in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street.

In 1969, she and her husband appeared in the film How the Other Half Loves; in the fall of 1970, the couple relocating to London. In a two-part story of Z-Cars, her first television appearance in London was included. These two episodes of Z-Cars have since been wiped out and are now listed as missing episodes by the BBC's archive library. In an episode of Doomwatch, she appeared as a terrorist, followed by guest appearances in further episodes of Z-Cars, Public Eye, Some Mothers Do 'Aver'Em and Special Branch.'

Katy Manning, the Third Doctor's assistant, was leaving the series in 1973; Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen a glowing recommendation, according to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts. Letts' thoroughness stunned them at the audition, even though it was for the new companion role. Pertwee was introduced to her, who at the time was feared. Each time she turned to look at one of them, she'd get a thumbs-up. Sarah Jane Smith was initially written to comedienne April Walker, but during rehearsals for her debut story The Time Warrior, rumors about the pairing of Walker and Pertwee surfaced, and the role was recast with Sladen.

She appeared on Doctor Who for three and a half seasons, with Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth. Sarah Jane Smith appeared in the role of Sarah Jane Smith on several occasions. John Nathan-Turner, the new Doctor Who producer, asked her to return to the series in 1981 to help with Tom Baker's switch to new Doctor Peter Davison. She turned down his second bid for a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring K-9, Doctor Who's robot dog. Despite winning viewing figures of 8.4 million and a warm reception from BBC executives, the pilot was not selected for a series due to "logistics and shifts in BBC governance." In the role of The Five Doctors, Sladen's next appearance in the role was in 1983.

She starred in the 1993 Children in Need special Dimensions in Time, and in the 1995 independently produced Downtime film Downtime with former co-star Nicholas Courtney as Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart and Deborah Watling as Victoria Waterfield. This was Sarah Jane Smith's last on-screen appearance before 2006.

Sarah Jane was played by Sladen in several audio plays. Two of them were produced for BBC Radio, The Paradise of Death (Radio 5, 1993), and The Ghosts of N-Space (Radio 2, 1996), together with Jon Pertwee and Nicholas Courtney. In 1997, Sladen was named a Hall of Fame Actress in the Cult TV Awards. In the present day, Big Finish Productions produced two series of Sarah Jane Smith audio adventures set in the present day, which were released in 2002 and 2006. Brian Miller, her husband, appeared in the story Ghost Town. Sadie's daughter appeared in the recordings. Sladen appeared in many of the classic Doctor Who serials she co-starred in as a host of interviews and DVD commentaries.

Sladen guest appeared in "School Reunion," an episode of the 2006 series, as Sarah Jane following the popular revival of Doctor Who in 2005. David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor. Sladen was a large part of the characterisation process herself, appearing in the Daily Mirror as "Sarah Jane used to be a little bit of a cardboard cut-out." Every week, it used to be, 'Yes Doctor, No Doctor,' and you had to flesh your character out in your mind, because if you didn't, no one else would." In the latest film, she also spoke highly of the characterization. In the annual Cult TV Awards, Sladen received the best guest appearance.

Sladen starred in The Sarah Jane Adventures, a Doctor Who spin-off focusing on Sarah Jane, which was produced by BBC Wales for CBBC and directed by Russell T. Davies following her success in the series. On New Year's Day 2007, a 60-minute special premiere debuted in September 2007, followed by a second 12-episode series in late 2008, which retained the same format for the show's third and fourth series up until November 2010. A fifth series containing 12 episodes was ordered for a late 2011 broadcast, with six of the episodes being shot alongside the show's fourth season, but the latter half never reached production, effectively ending the series due to Sladen's unexpected death in April 2011. In October 2011, the first 6 episodes were released as originally intended in honor of Sladen. The programme received the National Television Society's 2010 award for Best Children's Drama. Sladen also read original audio clips from The Sarah Jane Adventures, which were released in November 2007: The Glittering Storm and The Thirteenth Stone. This was the first time that BBC Audiobooks had ordered new content for exclusive release on audio. Every year until 2010, several pairs of audio books were published, and Sladen read them again.

In the show's fourth series of "The Stolen Earth" and "Journey's Conclusion," Sladen appeared in the episode's title sequence. Her last appearance in Doctor Who was a scene in Tennant's last episode as the Doctor. Sladen had already expressed an interest in being involved in the Doctor Who Fourth Doctor Big Finish series right before her death.

Although Sladen was in Doctor Who, she attended numerous public functions to spread the word about the programme. Following her departure, she largely stopped attending related functions because she felt it would be seen as rude to the new cast.

She and her partner went back to Liverpool with her husband and appeared in a number of plays after her initial appearance in Doctor Who ended in 1976. In Mooney, there was a two-hander with Miller as well as his Caravans. A two-year stint as a host for Stepping Stones, a lead role in Miller's ITV drama Send in the Girls, a BBC Play for Today, a small part in the film Silver Dream Racer as a bank secretary in 1980, only her second film appearance.

In 1981, former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts played her as the female lead in Gulliput's BBC Classics film Gulliver. Lady Flimnap's character was written for Sladen, and she said it was her favorite part. Alice in Wonderland, a Letts production, continued to appear in numerous television advertisements and in another Letts film (playing the Dormouse).

Sladen went into semi-retirement following her daughter Sadie's birth in 1985, placing her family first, but she did manage to get some time for the occasional television appearance.

In 1991, she appeared as Alexa in The Stranger audio adventure The Last Mission for BBV Audio. Sladen appeared in Kate Orman's Walking to Babylon, a Bernice Summerfield audio drama. Sladen revived her public appearances in the United Kingdom after the recording of The Paradise of Death in 1993. In 1995, she appeared in four episodes of Peak Practice as Dr. Pat Hewland. Sophie in Faith in the Future, a 1996 actress who appeared in 15 episodes of the BBC schools program Numbertime, which was repeated every ten years. This was her last television appearance before the 2006 Doctor Who episode "School Reunion," according to the artist. Sladen appeared in a pantomime performance of Peter Pan at the Theatre Royal Windsor Windsor in 2008 and 2009. He portrayed Mrs. Darling and a beautiful mermaid.

Sladen's last fan festival was held at the British Film Institute on October 12, 2010, where a special screening of The Death of the Doctor was held immediately after a Q&A session. On October 28, 2010, she made her last public appearance at the EA British Academy Children's Awards.

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