39 Facts About Sydney Newman

Sydney Cecil Newman was a Canadian producer and screenwriter who played a pioneering role in British television drama from the late 1950s to the late 1960s.

Sydney Newman occupied senior positions at the Canadian Film Development Corporation and Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, and acted as an advisor to the Secretary of State.

Sydney Newman Cecil Nudelman was born in Toronto on April 1,1917, the son of a Russian-Jewish immigrant father who ran a shoe shop.

Sydney Newman initially attempted to follow a career as a stills photographer and an artist, specialising in drawing film posters.

In 1938, Sydney Newman travelled to Hollywood, where he was offered a role with the Walt Disney Company on the strength of his graphic design work.

Sydney Newman was eventually to work on over 350 films while an editor for the NFB.

Sydney Newman was nonetheless able to persuade his superiors at CBC to make him Supervisor of Drama Production in 1954.

Sydney Newman felt that Newman "came to fulfil the role of the drama impresario with the vision to push people to develop a high-quality and popular style of drama".

Sydney Newman was somewhat disparaging of the state in which he found British television drama.

Sydney Newman's principal tool for shaking up this established order was a programme which had been initiated before he had arrived at ABC, Armchair Theatre.

Sydney Newman used the strand to present plays by writers such as Alun Owen, Harold Pinter and Clive Exton, bringing over associates from Canada such as Charles Jarrott and Ted Kotcheff.

In 1960 Sydney Newman devised a thriller series for ABC called Police Surgeon, starring Ian Hendry.

In 1961 the BBC's Director of Television, Kenneth Adam, met with Sydney Newman and offered him the position of Head of Drama at the BBC.

Sydney Newman accepted the position, eager for a new challenge, although he was obliged to remain with ABC until the expiration of his contract in December 1962, after which he immediately began work with the BBC.

However, it was the newness and innovation which Sydney Newman encouraged in his drama output that is most significant: his concentration on the potential of television as television, for a mass not a middlebrow audience.

Also relevant to the mythology that has sprung up around Sydney Newman is the fact that his favoured dramatic material was interpreted by some as being rather less radical than it seemed.

Webber and others, it was Sydney Newman who created the idea of the TARDIS, a time machine larger on the inside, and the character of the mysterious "Doctor", both of which remain at the heart of the programme.

Sydney Newman then decided on his former production assistant at ABC, Verity Lambert, who had never produced, written or directed, but she readily accepted his offer.

Sydney Newman had not wanted any "bug-eyed monsters" in the show but he was placated when the creatures became a great success.

Sydney Newman had success with more traditional BBC fare such as the costume drama The Forsyte Saga in 1967, a Donald Wilson project on which Sydney Newman had not initially been keen.

Sydney Newman returned to the film industry, taking a job as a producer with Associated British Picture Corporation.

The British film industry was entering a period of decline and none of Sydney Newman's projects went into production.

ABPC was taken over by EMI and at the end of June 1969, Sydney Newman was dismissed from the company, later describing his eighteen months there as "a futile waste".

Sydney Newman left the UK on January 3,1970, leading The Sunday Times to comment that "British television will never be the same again".

Sydney Newman's first post upon returning to his home country was an advisory position with the Canadian Radio and Television Commission in Ottawa, where he battled Canada's private broadcasters, especially CTV, over new Canadian content regulations.

Some staff members felt that he had been away from the NFB for too long, while the filmmaker Denys Arcand felt that Sydney Newman did not understand Quebec culture.

Sydney Newman was able to improve the NFB's relations with broadcaster CBC, securing prime-time television slots for several productions, although he was criticised by some filmmakers for allowing the CBC to screen NFB films with commercial interruptions.

Sydney Newman moved the NFB entirely over to color film production.

However, the Toronto Stars Martin Knelman felt that Sydney Newman was "mired in political warfare and administrative chaos".

Sydney Newman was responsible for censoring or banning several productions, including Arcand's On est au coton and Gilles Groulx's 24 heures ou plus.

Such censorship or banning resulted in some critics attacking Sydney Newman for being anti-working-class and pro-capitalist.

Sydney Newman was concerned about the idea of releasing films with Quebec nationalist themes, such as Groulx's 24 heures ou plus, at such a tense political time, worried about what the Canadian public would think.

Sydney Newman went on to become a Special Advisor on Film to the Secretary of State, and from 1978 until 1984 he was Chief Creative Consultant to the Canadian Film Development Corporation.

Sydney Newman was awarded the Order of Canada in 1981, the country's highest civilian honour.

On October 6,1986, Sydney Newman wrote back to Grade with a suggestion that he take direct control of the series as executive producer, that Patrick Troughton should return to the role of the Doctor for a season, and then regenerate into a female, with Sydney Newman suggesting either Joanna Lumley, Dawn French or Frances de la Tour to succeed Troughton.

Grade then suggested that Sydney Newman meet the current Head of Drama, Jonathan Powell, for lunch to discuss the Canadian's ideas.

Sydney Newman was unsuccessful in an attempt to have his name added to the end credits of the show as its creator.

Sydney Newman returned to Canada again in the 1990s, where he died of a heart attack in Toronto in 1997, aged 80.

In September 2003, a version of Sydney Newman played by actor Ian Brooker appeared in the straight-to-CD Doctor Who Unbound radio play Deadline, written by Rob Shearman and released by Big Finish Productions.