1. Early life

2. Career

3. Doctor Who (1963–66)
    Portrayals in fiction 

4. Later life and death

5. Filmography
    Film  Television 

6. References
    Bibliography 

7. External links

William Henry Hartnell (8 January 1908 – 23 April 1975) was an English actor. Hartnell played the first incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, from 1963 to 1966. He was also well known for his roles as Sergeant Grimshaw, the title character of the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant in 1958, and as Company Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in the sitcom The Army Game from 1957 until 1958, and again in 1960.

Early life

William Hartnell, known as Billy to family and friends, was born in St Pancras, London, England, the only child of Lucy Hartnell, an unmarried mother. Hartnell never discovered the identity of his father, whose particulars were left blank on his birth certificate, despite his efforts to trace him.

He was brought up partly by a foster mother, and also spent many holidays in Devon with his mother's family of farmers, from whom he learned to ride horses.^[1] He was a second cousin of the fashion designer Norman Hartnell.^[2]

He left school without prospects and dabbled in petty crime.^[3] Through a boys' boxing club, at the age of 14^[4] Hartnell met the art collector Hugh Blaker, who later became his unofficial guardian, arranged for him to train as a jockey and helped him to enter the Italia Conti Academy.^[5] Theatre being a passion of Blaker's, he paid for Hartnell to receive some "polish" at the Imperial Service College, though Hartnell found the strictures too much and ran away.^[1]

Career

Hartnell entered the theatre in 1925^[1] working under Frank Benson as a general stagehand.^[3][6] He appeared in numerous Shakespearian plays, including The Merchant of Venice (1926), Julius Caesar (1926), As You Like It (1926), Hamlet (1926), The Tempest (1926) and Macbeth (1926). He also appeared in She Stoops to Conquer (1926), School for Scandal (1926) and Good Morning, Bill (1927), before performing in Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner (1928). This play was written by Robert Neilson Stephens and E. Lyall Swete. It featured the actress Heather McIntyre,^[7] whom he married during the following year.^[5] His first of more than 60 film appearances was in Say It With Music (1932).

Radio work also featured in his career, with his earliest known performance – in a production of Chinese Moon Party – being broadcast by the BBC on 11 May 1931.^[8]

From the outbreak of the Second World War Hartnell served in the British Army in the Tank Corps, but he was invalided out after 18 months as the result of suffering a nervous breakdown and returned to acting.^[5] In 1942 he was cast as Albert Fosdike in Noël Coward's film In Which We Serve. He turned up late for his first day of shooting, and Coward berated him in front of the cast and crew for his unprofessionalism, made him personally apologise to everyone and then sacked him. Michael Anderson, who was the first assistant director, took over the part (and was credited as "Mickey Anderson").^[9]

Hartnell continued to play comic characters until he was cast in the robust role of Sergeant Ned Fletcher in The Way Ahead (1944).^[6] From then on his career was defined by playing mainly policemen, soldiers and thugs. This typecasting bothered him, for even when he was cast in comedies he found he invariably played the "heavy". In 1958 he played the sergeant in the first Carry On comedy film, Carry On Sergeant. He appeared as Will Buckley, another military character, in the film The Mouse That Roared (1959), which starred Peter Sellers, and he played a town councillor in the Boulting brothers' film Heavens Above! (1963), again with Sellers.

His first regular role on television was as Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in The Army Game from 1957 to 1961. Again, although it was a comedy series, he found himself cast in a "tough guy" role. He also appeared in a supporting role in the film version of This Sporting Life (1963), giving a sensitive performance as an ageing rugby league talent scout known as "Dad".^[6]

Doctor Who (1963–66)

Hartnell's 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 entitled Doctor Who; mainly on the strength of that performance, Lambert offered him the title role. Although Hartnell was initially uncertain about accepting a part in what was pitched to him as a children's series, in part due to his success in films,^[10] 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 remembered. Hartnell later revealed that he took the role because it led him away from the gruff, military parts in which he had become typecast, and, having two grandchildren of his own, he came to relish particularly the attention and affection that playing the character brought him from children. His first episode of Doctor Who was aired on 23 November 1963.^[11]

According to some of his colleagues on Doctor Who, he could be a difficult person to work with. Others, though, such as the actors William Russell and Peter Purves, and the producer Verity Lambert, spoke glowingly of him after more than 40 years. Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, has said that she and Hartnell "got on terribly well", saying "It upsets me when I hear people saying he was difficult to work with, he was very sweet".^[14] Hartnell also adored Verity Lambert and had great respect for Waris Hussein.^[1][15] Hartnell also admired singer Paul Robeson. In his Desert Island Discs interview, Hartnell stated that Paul Robeson was his hero and described him as having a voice like crushed velvet.^[16]

Hartnell's deteriorating health (he suffered from arteriosclerosis began to affect his ability to learn his lines), and he had a poor relationship with a new production team on the series following the departure of Verity Lambert. He left Doctor Who in 1966.^[13][17] When he departed the producer of the show came up with the idea that, since the Doctor is an alien, he can transform himself physically, thereby renewing himself. William Hartnell himself suggested the new Doctor, stating that "There's only one man in England who can take over, and that's Patrick Troughton."^[18] In the fourth episode of the serial The Tenth Planet the First Doctor regenerates into Troughton's Second Doctor.^[19]

Many of Hartnell's episodes are missing from the BBC archives as a result of the BBC's purge of old shows during the early 1970s.

Portrayals in fiction

Hartnell appears as a character in the Doctor Who audio drama Pier Pressure, which stars Colin Baker as the Sixth Doctor.

For the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who in 2013 the BBC broadcast An Adventure in Space and Time, a dramatisation of the events surrounding the creation of the series. David Bradley portrayed Hartnell.^[20][21][22]

Later life and death

Hartnell reprised the role of the Doctor in Doctor Who during the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors (1972–73). When Hartnell's wife Heather found out about his planned involvement she informed the crew of the show that his failing memory and weakening health prevented him from starring in the special. An agreement was made between the crew and Heather that Hartnell would sit down during the shoot and read his lines from cue cards.^[23] His appearance in this story was his final piece of work as an actor. His health had worsened during 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 he died in his sleep of heart failure on 23 April 1975, at the age of 67.^[24] He was cremated and his ashes are buried at the Kent and Sussex Crematorium and Cemetery.

A clip of a scene starring Hartnell from the end of the Doctor Who serial The Dalek Invasion of Earth (1964) was used as a pre-credits sequence for the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors (1983); Richard Hurndall portrayed the First Doctor for the remainder of the story, in Hartnell's absence.^[25] Colourised footage of Hartnell in The Aztecs was meshed with new footage of actress Jenna-Louise Coleman, and with body doubles for the First Doctor and Susan, to create a new scene in 2013's "The Name of the Doctor". The following story and the 50th anniversary special of the show, "The Day of the Doctor", featured two new pieces of dialogue for Hartnell's Doctor, recorded by John Guilor, who had previously voiced the actor in a reconstruction of Planet of Giants. Hartnell's Doctor also made a silent cameo appearance in the Series 9 episode "The Witch's Familiar" (2015) again played by a body double. David Bradley, who portrayed Hartnell in the biopic An Adventure in Space and Time, played the First Doctor in the Series 10 episode "The Doctor Falls", and the 2017 Christmas special, "Twice Upon a Time", which also served as Twelfth Doctor actor Peter Capaldi's final story.

Hartnell was married to Heather McIntyre from 9 May 1929 until his death. They had one child, a daughter, Heather Anne,^[3] and two grandchildren.^[12] After living at 51 Church Street, Isleworth, next door to Hugh Blaker, the Hartnells lived on Thames Ditton Island{{Citation needed|reason=this is a rumour among islanders but no information exists to substantiate|date=December 2018}}. Then in the 1960s they moved to a cottage in Mayfield, Sussex. They lived in later life at Sheephurst Lane in Marden, Kent. Heather Hartnell died in 1984.

The only published biography of him is by his granddaughter, Judith "Jessica" Carney, entitled Who's There? The Life and Career of William Hartnell. It was first published in 1996 by Virgin Publishing. To mark the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who Carney, with Fantom Publishing, revised and republished the book in 2013.^[26]

A blue plaque marking Hartnell's work in film and television was unveiled at Ealing Studios by his granddaughter, Jessica Carney, on 14 October 2018.^[27]

Filmography

Hartnell acted in numerous British films, as well as having many stage and television appearances, though he is best known for his role in Doctor Who.^[3]

Film

Television

References

Bibliography

• {{cite book |last = Wood |first = Tat |authorlink = Tat Wood |author2=Lawrence Miles |year = 2006 |title = About Time 1: The Unauthorized Guide to Doctor Who 1963–1966 |publisher = Mad Norwegian Press |location = Illinois |isbn = 978-0-9759446-0-8 |ref=Wood }}
• {{cite book |last = Carney |first = Jessica |year = 1996 |title = Who's There? The Life and Career of William Hartnell |publisher = Virgin Publishing |isbn = 978-1-85227-514-3 |ref=Carney }}
• {{cite book |last = Howe |first = David J. |author2=Stammers, Mark |author3=Walker, Stephen James |year = 1993 |title = Doctor Who: The Sixties |publisher = Virgin Publishing |location = London |isbn = 978-0-86369-707-4 |ref=Howe }}
• {{cite book |last=Haining |first=Peter |authorlink=Peter Haining (author) |title=Doctor Who: A Celebration |year=1983 |publisher=W.H. Allen and Co. |location=London |isbn=978-0-491-03351-0 |ref=Haining }}

External links

• {{IMDb name|0367156}}
• {{Screenonline name|id=544973}}

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