72 Facts About Tom Baker

1.

Thomas Stewart Baker was born on 20 January 1934 and is an English actor and writer.

2.

Tom Baker played the fourth incarnation of the Doctor in the science fiction television series Doctor Who from 1974 to 1981.

3.

Tom Baker provided narration for the television comedy series Little Britain and Little Britain USA.

4.

Thomas Stewart Tom Baker was born on Scotland Road in the Vauxhall area of Liverpool on 20 January 1934.

5.

Tom Baker's mother, Mary Jane, was a cleaner and devout Catholic.

6.

Tom Baker's father, John Stewart Baker, was a seaman and was largely absent from the family due to being away at sea.

7.

Tom Baker left the monastery six years later after losing his faith.

8.

Tom Baker undertook his national service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, serving from 1955 until 1957.

9.

Tom Baker took up acting around 1956, joining the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Sidcup.

10.

Tom Baker became a professional actor in the late 1960s.

11.

Tom Baker was in his thirties when his professional acting career began and he worked in provincial rep theatre.

12.

Tom Baker had his first break whilst performing in a late-night pub revue for the 1968 York Festival.

13.

Tom Baker's performance was seen by someone with the Royal National Theatre who encouraged him to audition for the company, which was headed at the time by Laurence Olivier.

14.

Tom Baker was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards for his performance, one for Best Actor in a Supporting Role and another for Best Newcomer.

15.

Tom Baker appeared as Moore, an artist whose paintings are imbued with voodoo power, in The Vault of Horror, and as Koura, the villainous sorcerer, in Ray Harryhausen's The Golden Voyage of Sinbad.

16.

Tom Baker appeared in Pier Paolo Pasolini's 1972 film version of Geoffrey Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales, as the younger husband of the Wife of Bath.

17.

In 1974, Tom Baker took over the role of the Doctor from Jon Pertwee to become the Fourth Doctor in the BBC TV series.

18.

Tom Baker had been recommended to producer Barry Letts by the BBC's Head of Serials, Bill Slater, who had directed Baker in a Play of the Month production of Shaw's play The Millionairess.

19.

Letts was impressed by Tom Baker upon meeting him, and then, after seeing his performance in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, became convinced he was right for the part.

20.

Tom Baker was working on a construction site at the time, as acting jobs were scarce.

21.

Tom Baker quickly made the part his own, and audience-viewing figures for his first few years returned to a level not seen since the height of 'Dalekmania' a decade earlier.

22.

Tom Baker contributed ideas for many aspects of his Doctor's personality; he became known for making "frequent and often comedic scripting suggestions and ad-libs", but the idea of wearing a scarf had been created by accident.

23.

Tom Baker played the Doctor for seven consecutive seasons, making him the longest-serving actor in the part, and his incarnation is often regarded as the most popular of the Doctors.

24.

Tom Baker described Hinchcliffe's successor, Graham Williams, as "absolutely devoted" but said he lacked his predecessor's flair and had "let me get away with murder".

25.

Tom Baker acknowledged that his final producer on the series, John Nathan-Turner, had made changes he did not agree with and that they "did not see eye-to-eye really about very much"; however, according to Baker, the two became good friends afterwards and forgot their disagreements.

26.

Tom Baker additionally criticised season 18, his last on the show and Nathan-Turner's first as producer, for the decision to increase the number of actors in the regular cast, which Tom Baker felt resulted in stories that relied too much on the Doctor to drive the plot forward.

27.

Tom Baker continued to be associated with the Doctor, appearing on documentaries such as the 40th anniversary BBC television retrospective The Story of Doctor Who and giving other interviews about his time on the programme, including for documentaries on the extras of Doctor Who DVD releases from his era as the Doctor, and he has recorded DVD commentaries for many of the stories.

28.

Tom Baker was involved in the reading of old Target novelisations in the BBC Audio range of talking books, "Doctor Who ".

29.

Doctor Who and the Giant Robot was the first release in the range read by Tom Baker, released on 5 November 2007, followed by Tom Baker reading Doctor Who and the Brain of Morbius, Doctor Who and the Creature from the Pit and Doctor Who and the Pyramids of Mars.

30.

In October 2009, Tom Baker was interviewed for BBC Radio 4's Last Word to pay tribute to the deceased former Doctor Who producer Barry Letts.

31.

Tom Baker described Letts, who originally cast him in the role, as "the big link in changing my entire life".

32.

Baker filmed inserts in 1992 for a video release of the unfinished Douglas Adams Doctor Who serial Shada, originally begun in 1979 but abandoned due to strike action, and presented the video release The Tom Baker Years, which was a look back at his time on the series with Baker watching short clips from his episodes.

33.

In November 2017, Tom Baker returned to the Doctor role by completing Shada.

34.

Tom Baker filmed one new scene for inclusion in the final episode.

35.

Tom Baker returned with a sequel to Hornets' Nest called Demon Quest.

36.

Tom Baker recently recorded several Big Finish audio stories with Matthew Waterhouse, who played Adric, and Lalla Ward, who played Romana II.

37.

Tom Baker returned to the role of the Curator for Big Finish, joining the casts of The Eighth Doctor Adventures and UNIT: The New Series.

38.

Tom Baker made an appearance in Blackadder II, in the episode "Potato", as the sea captain "Redbeard Rum".

39.

Tom Baker was cast in the 2004 series Strange, as a blind priest who possessed knowledge of the Devil.

40.

Tom Baker later returned to Have I Got News For You as a guest host in 2008.

41.

Tom Baker played the role of the Captain in the Challenge version of Fort Boyard, and has hosted the children's literature series, The Book Tower.

42.

Tom Baker has since stated that he was only approached for "a role" in the film, and turned down the offer when told that it would mean spending months away in New Zealand.

43.

Tom Baker has suggested that he was chosen for the part in Little Britain due to his popularity with creators Matt Lucas and David Walliams, part of the generation for whom he is the favourite Doctor.

44.

The scripts were written by Lucas and Walliams; Tom Baker assumed his Little Britain persona.

45.

Tom Baker has appeared in various radio productions, including a role as "Britain's most celebrated criminal barrister", Sir Edward Marshall-Hall in John Mortimer Presents the Trials of Marshall Hall, "Josiah Bounderby" in Charles Dickens' Hard Times and a part in the 2001 BBC Radio 4 version of The Thirty-Nine Steps as Sir Walter Bullivant.

46.

Tom Baker guest starred in The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in the 2002 episode "The Saviour of Cripplegate Square".

47.

From 2000 to 2005 Tom Baker voiced the character Max Bear in the Channel 4 Max Bear Productions animated series.

48.

Tom Baker voiced the role of the villain ZeeBad in the 2005 computer-animated film version of The Magic Roundabout.

49.

Tom Baker starred as the Fourth Doctor in the 1997 video game Destiny of the Doctors where he provided the voice.

50.

Tom Baker's voice has been featured in Ecco the Dolphin: Defender of the Future, Warhammer 40,000: Fire Warrior, Sudeki, Cold Winter, MediEvil: Resurrection, Hostile Waters: Antaeus Rising, and Little Britain: The Video Game.

51.

Tom Baker is a prolific voiceover artist and his voice was voted as the fourth most recognisable in the UK in 2006 after the Queen, Tony Blair and Margaret Thatcher.

52.

In 1992 and 1993, Tom Baker narrated BBC radio comedy series Lionel Nimrod's Inexplicable World.

53.

Tom Baker voiced both the narrator and the god "Tetsu" in the role-playing game Sudeki, but was uncredited.

54.

Tom Baker recorded 11,593 phrases, containing every sound in the English language, for use by the text-to-speech service.

55.

Tom Baker provides narrative at two British tourist attractions: the Nemesis roller coaster at Alton Towers, Staffordshire; and the London Dungeon, a museum depicting gory and macabre events in the capital, narrating the events leading up to and comprising the Great Fire of London.

56.

Tom Baker voiced the character "Max Bear", a series of animated stories broadcast on Channel 4 from 2000 to 2005.

57.

Tom Baker narrated Australian cartoonist Bruce Petty's 2006 film about world politics, Global Haywire.

58.

Tom Baker has written a short fairytale-style novel called The Boy Who Kicked Pigs.

59.

In 2019 Tom Baker released a Doctor Who novel called Scratchman.

60.

In 1966 Tom Baker became a member of Frank Dunlop's Pop Theatre Company production of Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale, which was performed at that year's Edinburgh International Festival and in the Cambridge Theatre, London.

61.

Tom Baker joined the National Theatre in 1968 as an understudy for Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead followed by small parts in The National Health by Peter Nichols.

62.

The play was directed by Jonathan Miller, with Tom Baker appearing alongside Olivier as Shylock.

63.

Still under contract at the National, Tom Baker played a Russian in The Idiot, Sir Frances Acton in A Woman Killed With Kindness, opposite Anthony Hopkins, and Filippo in The Rules of the Game.

64.

Also in 1982, Tom Baker played Dr Frank Bryant in a Royal Shakespeare Company production of Educating Rita, alongside Kate Fitzgerald as Rita.

65.

Tom Baker returned to the National Theatre in 1984 to play Mr Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer in the Olivier Theatre and on a later tour.

66.

In 1987 Tom Baker played Inspector Goole in a revival production of An Inspector Calls directed by Peter Dews.

67.

In 1998, Tom Baker provided narration on the track Witness to a Murder on the album Six by the English alternative rockband Mansun.

68.

On 13 May 2020, Dutch producer and songwriter Arjen Anthony Lucassen announced that Tom Baker would provide spoken vocals for the character of "The Storyteller" on Ayreon's album, Transitus.

69.

Tom Baker lost contact with his sons until a chance meeting with Piers in a New Zealand pub allowed them to renew their relationship.

70.

Tom Baker married for a third time on 1 April 1986, to Sue Jerrard, who had been an assistant editor on Doctor Who.

71.

In November 2006, Tom Baker bought a house in Royal Tunbridge Wells, Kent, before later moving to Rye, East Sussex.

72.

Tom Baker is critical of religion and describes himself as irreligious, or occasionally as Buddhist, but not anti-religious.