Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak
- Publication: Liverpool Echo
- Date: 1973-12-12
- Author: Beth Saunders
- Page:
- Language: English
Dr. Who - of the most successful television science fiction series - returns to the little screen on Saturday. It will also mark the debut of his girl assistant of Elisabeth Sladen (a pint-sized redhead with a bubbly personality) who was born at Moseley Hill, Liverpool. She replaces Katy Manning who was left after a three-year spell.
But the main subject of this article is Jon Pertwee - the Dr. Who. In his flowing cloak, velvet jacket and frilly-fronted shirts, Jon has become an international television hero. Beth Saunders finds that Pertwee is the sort of man who fits into any era (just like Dr. Who) and, in many ways, but the similarities don't stop there.
The walls of the elegant, Regency house are lined with paintings and a set of antique brass scales shares pride of place with an 11th century chest carved from an piece of solid oak.
Yet, probably Jon Pertwee's favorite possession is the vast oak table which he reckons is the oldest piece of furniture in Britain outside of a museum.
It is most certainly wasn't the domestic environment in which I expected to find the actor was become a television space-age folk hero as the redoubtable Doctor Who.
Jon Pertwee, however, is the sort of man who fits into any era: leanly handsome and lankily elegant, he is as much at home wearing trendy sweaters and denim suits as it is in the flamboyant garb of Doctor Who.
And that's by now familiar flowing cloak, velvet jacket and frilly fronted shirt, Jon explains, were his own idea for dressing Up the time defining hero from somewhere in the voids of time
"I dug them out of an old trunk I had at home," he explains. "I believe they belonged to my grandfather, but they seem to just write for the character that I had in mind."
Two other actors had already played the part with immense success and the close were part of the Pertwee plan for Jon to place his own stamp on the character.
Now - five years later - there's no doubt at all that he has succeeded in that.
The series was originally created with children in mind - it remains a children's programme - but has also become compulsive viewing for millions of fathers, too.
Yet, despite the monsters - and the hair raising escapades - Jon is very conscious of the influence of such a program has on young children.
As a father himself he has strong views about television violence.
"Television violence can be dangerous, I'm certain of that," he says. "But I am sure Dr. Who's not violent in that sense.
"Nobody ever sees anybody being stabbed with a spear, or anything like that. You just see somebody throwing the spear - and that's a lot less messy, bloody, and explicit, then the violence that scene in so many films to-day.
Doctor Who is pure fantasy; children love fantasy and if some of the monsters scare them - well, it's only in the short term."
Recently, Jon was one of the judges in the children's art contest and some of the monsters which the children themselves drew were "quite horrific."
"The stories that accompanied them were absolutely hair raising, too," he added, "but then children do have that sort of imagination, don't they? "
Jon likes to talk about one letter here recently received from the mother of a difficult and disturbed child, who had become one of his fans.
"I wrote to the child personally - and sent her a photograph," he explained. "Later I heard from the mother that she carries the picture about everywhere she goes and she seems to have changed for the better.
"It's probably an exceptional case, of course," Jon says realistically, "but I'm against anything in the program that could harm children. I wouldn't play the part if I thought it was anything more than fantasy."
Jon lives in Barnes, London, with his German-born wife Ingeborg and their two children, eight-years-old Sean and Deriel, who is ten.
His own children's favorite television programs include Star Trek - and, of course, Dr. Who. Though when Sean watched his father in action against the Daleks he liked to have Jon sitting beside him.
"I suppose," Jon smiled, "he likes to be certain that I'm not really coming to any harm."
Each Dr. Who series is packed with super sophisticated gadgetry - super fast cars, time machines, mind machines, jet powered boats, or hover crafts - all of which are very much to Jon's personal tastes.
For a start, he's very gadget conscious himself - one of Jon's latest acquisitions is "a machine in the kitchen that pours out in instant cold drinks ..."
His hobbies include racing cars, speedboats, ski-ing both on ice and water and undersea exploration, the latter pursuit almost cost him his life a few years ago.
He was skin diving off Ibiza from a boat, when the anchor fluke trapped him by jamming between the aqua lung tanks and his back. His struggling ripped the airline off the return valve ... and he began to breathe water.
Two of his friends freed him and dragged him back safely to the boat.
If some of the escapades that his hobbies have brought to the intrepid Pertwee smack virtually of Dr. Who himself, then it's not at all that surprising.
For as Jon explains: "I may leave Dr. Who behind me in the studio after work, but in a curious way Dr. Who is me.
"I feel that he's become an extension of myself - and, therefore, a completely believable character.
"Just about the only thing I don't do as arrive home in a blue police box."
Caption: But Dr. Who Jon Pertwee with his new assistant - Liverpool-born Elisabeth Sladen
Caption: Dr. Who and one of his main opponents - the Daleks
Disclaimer: These citations are created on-the-fly using primitive parsing techniques. You should double-check all citations. Send feedback to whovian@cuttingsarchive.org
- APA 6th ed.: Saunders, Beth (1973-12-12). Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak. Liverpool Echo .
- MLA 7th ed.: Saunders, Beth. "Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak." Liverpool Echo [add city] 1973-12-12. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Saunders, Beth. "Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak." Liverpool Echo, edition, sec., 1973-12-12
- Turabian: Saunders, Beth. "Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak." Liverpool Echo, 1973-12-12, section, edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr._Who_-_a_spaceman_in_his_granddad%27s_cloak | work=Liverpool Echo | pages= | date=1973-12-12 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=11 May 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Dr. Who - a spaceman in his granddad's cloak | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Dr._Who_-_a_spaceman_in_his_granddad%27s_cloak | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=11 May 2025}}</ref>
