Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker
- Publication: Sunday Express
- Date: 2003-11-23
- Author: Marshall Julius
- Page: 67
- Language: English
Marshall Julius is charmed by his childhood hero
ECCENTRIC: Tom Baker today and, inset below, in his more familiar guise as Dr Who, with one his exterminating enemies — a Dalek
TOM BAKER is everything you'd expect him to be: endearingly eccentric, enthusiastic, honest, funny and quite mad. Meeting him is like travelling back in time. As a child I loved his Dr Who and today, as a thirtysomething, I feel equally charmed and disarmed by television's largest larger-than-life hero.
I'm asking questions but I don't think Baker can hear me. He's on an oblivious roll, talking a mile a minute about life, death, fame, sport, art, literature, TV and the stage. Frankly, who would want it any other way?
Within a minute of our meeting he flashes a familiar mischievous glance, smiles broadly and exclaims: "When old ladies see me, their bosoms tingle at the emotional memory of hugging their children in front of Dr Who." And we're off...
Forty years since Dr Who began, Baker still has a powerful effect on people and he knows it. "A man stopped me last year and said: 'Tom Baker?' I said: 'Yes.' He said: 'Look, I just want to tell you... you don't mind do you?' I said: No.' He said: 'When I was young I was brought up in care in North Wales. It was terrible and er...'"
Baker lowers his voice to a hushed, choked tone and continues: "And, er... you helped on Saturday nights.' He couldn't say any more and quickly vanished. He'd made a pretty speech and couldn't go a step further or he would have broken down. He just wanted to thank me. It was deeply, deeply touching."
Some fans still believe that Baker has a touch of magic about him. "This young, homeless man asked me for some spare change. I was wondering whether perhaps he was a producer, so I pulled out a pound. He looked at me and said: 'Christ, Dr Who!' I was terribly thrilled even though he smelled a bit, so I took another pound out of my pocket.
Then he said: 'You were my hero.'
"By now I had £3 ready to give him. So there I was, money in hand, waiting for him to take it but he didn't. He kept looking from the money to my face and eventually said: 'It's not the money; can you get me out of here?' Wasn't that sad? There I was, his great hero, and all I was doing was offering him my spare change."
As Baker says "spare change", a tangent presents itself for him to veer along. "What's so boring about beggars is they have such lousy scriptwriters. They don't have agents and they copy each other as well. They all say: 'Got any small change?' I've tried to improve the standards of begging but they won't listen."
Shifting mental gears again, Baker reveals how to best avoid reality, a subject in which he's clearly well versed. "Whether you read terrible stuff like Jeffrey
Archer or marvellous comic stuff by Charles Dickens, you're moving into other worlds. TV is also very good for taking your mind
off things but what is the ultimate escape from reality? Dying—and we escape from dying through the fantasy of religion, which denies death. I read the Bible a lot, especially the Old Testament, and it really does make me laugh. I adore it."
I have no idea what to say at this stage but it doesn't matter. Baker carries on regardless, insisting
that playing the Doctor was the easiest gig he ever had. "It was entirely me; there was no acting involved. I was just Tom saying those lines."
Would he like to revisit the role that made him famous when the BBC brings the Doctor back to life? "I'd like to come back as The Master. Don't you think that would be a master stroke?"
WITH OR without Dr Who, Baker's role as the King of Voiceovers keeps him as busy as he wants to be. Check out Little Britain on BBC3 and wait impatiently for his turn as the evil ZeBadDee in the forthcoming Magic Roundabout Movie. "I'd also like to be in Coronation Street as a Tom Baker character who spends most of his time in the bar. He's some kind of therapist. The men don't know what he does while the women will only say: 'He's very helpful'.
"These women go to his office looking stressed and depressed and when the camera pans up to his window you see the curtains closing. Later they open up and the women leave his office looking happy and relaxed."
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.: Julius, Marshall (2003-11-23). Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker. Sunday Express p. 67.
- MLA 7th ed.: Julius, Marshall. "Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker." Sunday Express [add city] 2003-11-23, 67. Print.
- Chicago 15th ed.: Julius, Marshall. "Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker." Sunday Express, edition, sec., 2003-11-23
- Turabian: Julius, Marshall. "Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker." Sunday Express, 2003-11-23, section, 67 edition.
- Wikipedia (this article): <ref>{{cite news| title=Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Who_was_the_real_me-and_how,_says_Tom_Baker | work=Sunday Express | pages=67 | date=2003-11-23 | via=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025 }}</ref>
- Wikipedia (this page): <ref>{{cite web | title=Who was the real me-and how, says Tom Baker | url=http://cuttingsarchive.org/index.php/Who_was_the_real_me-and_how,_says_Tom_Baker | work=Doctor Who Cuttings Archive | accessdate=31 March 2025}}</ref>
