Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography

ARC Sand Pits at Gallows Hill, Dorset, was our quarry of choice – masquerading as the planet Exxilon – for five November days and, I have to say, despite the cold weather it was a fun time. One of the first people I met when I arrived was Jon. As usual, he couldn’t wait to show off the team, even before I’d caught my breath.

‘Lis, come and meet our Daleks.’

Bloody hell, Jon, can’t I just get my bearings first?

Then he did this weird thing of looking like he was going to put his arm around my shoulders, but actually he just grabbed my neck. It was like he was steering me! There was no hint of menace, and it didn’t hurt, but he needed to be in control.

I’ve met a lot of men like that over the years. They want to impose themselves physically on smaller women. You see them in bars, leading their partners in with firm hands. I’m always amazed at the things I’ve put up with in the past. If someone touched me like that now I’d break their fingers but when you’re young, you don’t want to rock the boat, you just go with the flow.

A lot of people think Daleks are controlled by wires. There were actually men working them from the inside. They weren’t midgets or anything, just actors who were not particularly big. (Russell’s Daleks are bigger and, I believe, Steven Moffat’s are larger still, so I imagine the same restrictions don’t apply.) Our main Dalek operator was John Scott Martin – he was the one who tended to roll out first. We got on famously, actually. John was another Liverpool lad, so we had that in common, and it was a terrible shame when he died from Parkinson’s in 2009.

The other two operators were Murphy Grumbar and Cy Town, who played Baby Dalek. Murphy looks like a munchkin from The Wizard of Oz, but larger and grumpy with it, although nice enough when you got to know him. Michael Wisher supplied those terrifying electronic voices, as he had on the last Dalek story. He was a dear man and, like Terry Walsh, a jack of many trades. Later, he would get his moment in the sun as Davros but also cropped up as Morelli in Planet of Evil, Magrik in Revenge of the Cybermen, as well as making several appearances before my time.

You can make new friends in any walk of life but on Who I was spoilt by the number of amazing older actors who crossed my path. I’m such a glutton for tales of yesteryear – I love the old tradition of passing stories from one generation to the next. You can learn so much, although sometimes it’s just a pleasure to become immersed in that other world. For me it’s as romantic as the tales of knights and maidens.

The thing I always forgot is how delighted they are to be in Doctor Who! These great thespians arrive, rubbing their hands with glee, genuinely thrilled to be involved for a couple of months.

On Death to the Daleks we had Duncan Lamont, who played Dan Campbell. He was a joy. Duncan was married to Patricia Driscoll, who had played Maid Marian in Robin Hood, so there was a connection to my childhood right there. I could have listened to stories about their work all day. Actually, though, Duncan paid me a huge compliment. He was worried about offending me, I think.

‘Do you know what you remind me of?’

Oh here we go, I thought.

‘The way you do things – it’s that old Hollywood style of acting.’

I could have hugged him. All those films I used to love as a child, the silent ones and the early talkies, they’re still my favourites. I particularly loved the body language in those pictures, the way the actors could achieve so much without words. Lillian Gish in Broken Blossoms is an absolute masterclass – that scene where she goes down rapids on a raft should be in drama textbooks. All actors then were trying to add another dimension to the piece. Maybe that’s why I love doing action myself. And the reason they managed it was so simple – a lot of the actors had other lives before they found the movies. So many people, like Joseph Cotton in Orson Welles’ company, had backgrounds in vaudeville or radio that they arrived in Hollywood as all-round entertainers with an armoury of tricks they could apply to film. Cary Grant started out being a juggler and an acrobat and it’s there onscreen in the way he moves. There’s one film where he’s sitting by a side table and he knocks the table and his hat goes down. He just reaches out and catches it so effortlessly. It’s so clever, so understated and light and funny. I’m not that good with props so I do admire anyone else who is – I’m all right on the rehearsal and then it comes to the take and I become really cack-handed.

There were more new faces behind the scenes as well. L. Rowland Warne was in charge of costumes – and boy did we have fun with this one! – while Magdalen Gaffney was my third makeup supervisor in as many serials. Obviously Magdalen had a lot of other people to tend to and those requiring most makeup, like the alien Exxilons themselves, dominated her time, so an assistant was assigned to do me.

We were chatting away while the slap went on and then proudly she showed me a mirror. God, my face was so shiny it was almost silver!

‘What have you done?’

The girl bristled. ‘This is a space programme, isn’t it?’

‘Yes – but I come from Earth!’

Magdalen just fell about. ‘What’s she done to you? You’re luminous!’

For the rest of the week she did me herself.

Coincidentally, it was while I was in makeup the next day that I got a shout to nip outside. Obviously Daleks can’t easily negotiate sand dunes so a network of train track had been laid for them to roll around some rocks and down a little hill. Why have I been called out for this? I wondered.

But I was so glad I went.

The director called ‘Action!’ and the three Daleks, led as usual by John Scott Martin, started gliding along this track, as smooth as if they were in a studio. They’d only been going a second or two, though, when they began to pick up speed. Suddenly we heard this almighty ‘Wheeeeee!’ coming from them as they realised they were going too fast – and with the corner approaching. The next thing I knew, there was a pile of Daleks on their sides, rolling around like skittles!

Everyone rushed over to get the poor guys upright again but we couldn’t do it for laughing. Forget the joke about the most terrifying force in the universe having a problem with stairs – they can’t even handle bends.

Watching the Exxilons navigate the terrain was just as funny. In fact, considering it was their planet, they were hysterical. Exxilons were these sack-like creatures who crept around the hills, taking pot shots at the rest of us. Not