1. Mary Tamm was a British actress who appeared in many British TV drama series and serials.
18 Facts About Mary Tamm
1. 2.
Mary Tamm's parents had fled Estonia after four of her father's brothers had died in Stalin's gulag labour camps.
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Mary Tamm spoke only Estonian at home, and attended Estonian-language school on Saturdays.
4.
Mary Tamm did not begin learning English until she was enrolled in primary school.
5.
Mary Tamm was a graduate and an associate member of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she studied from 1969 to 1971.
6.
Mary Tamm began acting on the stage with the Birmingham Repertory Company in 1971.
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Mary Tamm moved to London in 1972 and appeared in the musical Mother Earth.
8.
Mary Tamm was not initially interested in playing a companion to the Doctor, believing that the role was merely that of the "damsel in distress", but she changed her mind when assured by the producers that Romana would be a member of the Doctor's own race and therefore as capable as he.
9.
Mary Tamm left the programme after only one season because she felt that the character had reverted to the traditional assistant role and could not be developed further.
10.
One source states that pregnancy was the reason that she was not asked to return, which Mary Tamm denied as a false rumour invented by producer John Nathan-Turner.
11.
Mary Tamm subsequently appeared in Barry Letts' production of Jane Eyre on BBC1 in 1983, opposite Timothy Dalton.
12.
Mary Tamm had a leading role in the sitcom The Hello, Goodbye Man opposite Ian Lavender in 1984 for BBC 2, around the same time as a guest appearance in Bergerac.
13.
Subsequently, Mary Tamm played the characters of Penny Crosbie in the soap opera Brookside from 1993 to 1996, and Yvonne Edwards in the BBC drama Paradise Heights, as well as guest roles in many other television programmes, including Crime Traveller on BBC1, another time travel drama.
14.
Mary Tamm returned as Pandora in the second series of the Gallifrey audio plays produced by Big Finish Productions.
15.
Mary Tamm appeared in a special feature in the 2007 DVD boxed set release of The Key to Time, discussing her experiences on the programme.
16.
Mary Tamm was married to Marcus Ringrose, an insurance executive, from 1978 until her death from cancer on 26 July 2012.
17.
Mary Tamm had been diagnosed with cancer in 2010 but, as revealed by her agent Barry Langford, had kept her illness secret from all but a handful of her closest friends.
18.
Mary Tamm's autobiography, entitled First Generation, was published in September 2009 by Fantom Films.