Movies, Radio, and Television: 250 Anecdotes

A Sample: Tom Baker was the actor who played the Doctor Who with the absurdly long scarf — the result of a woman who was given lots of wool to knit and who was so excited to be working on Doctor Who's costume that she did not stop knitting until she ran out of wool. The budget for Doctor Who was small, with the result that sometimes scenes had to be filmed again because the scenery shook. Mr. Baker said in a Guardian (UK) interview, "As an actor, walking through a door naturally is an art, and someone once told me that they'd never seen anyone do it as well as me. I didn't like to say that it was because the BBC sets shook, and the doors had to be closed gently." In one Doctor Who adventure, "The Deadly Assassin," the good doctor nearly drowned. This was an episode that Mr. Baker really wanted to see when it was broadcast — no video or DVD recorders existed back then. He remembers, "I was on a signing tour of the country at the time, and I knocked on the door of a house in Preston, just as a father was settling down to watch it with his two five-year-old sons. He said nothing and just beckoned me inside. I crept into the room and sat quietly in a chair and, as my face came up on screen, you could see the stupefaction on the kids' faces as they noticed me. How could one person be in two places at once? It was just ecstasy. But the whole process of making Doctor Who was a joy."