Vworp Vworp! Magazine, 2023 (text-only version available below images)
ARTICLE TEXT:
Sixty years after she began her role as the Doctor’s first travelling companion, Carole Ann Ford’s eyes still gleam with vivacity, though the depth of her experience also shines through.
The original cast and crew of Doctor Who all had their own versions of the early days, and with a cheerful smile Carole chuckles that those stories “change every time.”
Her own memory of being cast as the Doctor’s granddaughter Susan Foreman begins with Rex Tucker, the interim producer for the show. After Verity Lambert took over, Rex invited Verity and Doctor Who director Waris Hussein to take a look at Carole on a project they were both involved in, an episode of the BBC’s Suspense TV series called The Man on the Bicycle (18 March 1964).
“This particular thing I did involved a lot of screaming – [Rex] thought obviously my screaming was up to the mark. So they were up in the control room without my knowledge, and they were… spying on me. They did see me acting, but they were watching me just wandering around the studio, looking at the odd monitor, etc, completely off guard.”
It wasn’t until over 40 years later that Carole found out why she’d been cast as Susan, when she convinced Verity Lambert to take part in a floating convention on a cruise ship in the Caribbean. She and Verity were lounging poolside, and Carole finally asked why she’d been chosen for the role.
“She said, ‘Well, you were strange!’ And I said, ‘Do you mean unique, original?’ She said ‘No, strange.’ So there you are, strange Susan.
“But then they didn’t want me to be strange! I was trying to put in some strangeness, because I thought, after all, I was an alien,” Carole explains.
But then the BBC Head of Drama and Doctor Who co-creator Sydney Newman “told me to cut all that funny stuff out. And I said, but I thought you wanted funny stuff, weird stuff.” He wanted the girl-next-door, someone for the young audience to identify with.
“So I had to downsize it, which was a shame, because for me that was part of the thrill of doing the part, where I could exhibit my weirdness, my strangeness.”
It’s no secret that Carole felt she’d been pitched an Avengers-like action role and ended up with something very different, though she doesn’t believe it was a deliberate bait-and-switch.
“I don’t honestly think they knew what they wanted. I really don’t. I obviously fulfilled some of the things they had in mind, but I could have given them so much more, because at that time I was very, very fit. I was an ex-dancer and acrobat and horse rider and swimmer… I could have done all sorts of wonderful things for them, much more interesting than just twisting my ankle.”
She adds: “The monsters could have slung me around a bit, I wouldn’t have minded.”
Once filming began, the actors were often left to fill in logistical gaps in the show. For example, the TARDIS console was a complete mystery to everyone involved when it was first unveiled.
“I hadn’t a clue what all the various bits and bobs and buttons and switches were, so Bill [Hartnell] and I made it up, what they were supposed to be.”
Carole says Hartnell had trouble remembering which controls they’d assigned to what operation, so he labeled some of them during rehearsals, for consistency on which switch to hit when, for example. they opened the door.
Occasionally the crew “forgot to wipe [the labels] off… so you can actually see them in some of the episodes.”
For viewers, the low-budget nature of the show can be one of the charms of classic Doctor Who, but it was a constant challenge for the cast and crew, “from doors not opening and closing when they should and bits of scenery falling down when they obviously shouldn’t have done.”
For instance, Carole recounts “being bitten to death” by whatever hitched a ride into the studio on the real animal skins used in 100,000 BC.
And in The Daleks, “I had to pretend that I was running through this endless forest which was only a few metres big, so I had to make my way round and round and give the impression that I was carrying on and exhausted because I’d been going for miles, plus I was supposed to be suffering from the effects of radiation, so I was a bit hyperventilated by the end.”
After the set had been dressed with live foliage for one of the jungle episodes, Carole once found a lizard friend hiding amongst the leaves. “He was suffering under the studio lights, so I took him into my dressing room, and I put him into my wash basin and gave him some water. He was very grateful and I took him home.”
Of course, Carole’s lizard wasn’t the only meaningful relationship she formed while filming the show. She was very close with many of her colleagues.
“It was like a family,” Carole says. Bill Hartnell, Jackie Hill, William Russell and Carole would regularly chum around after shoot days over drinks with their producer Verity Lambert and director Waris Hussein. Sometimes those evenings would end at Verity or Waris’ homes.
“[Waris’] sister, who was a brilliant cook, used to cook the most wonderful Indian meals for us.” Carole recalls they’d put on some music and bang pots and pans together in time with the beat. Those occasions were “gently wild, I’d say.”
Then there was the man himself.
“Bill [Hartnell] gave me a hard time about most things,” Carole laughs fondly. “He took his grandfatherly duties very seriously. He thought he was there to guide me with his wisdom.”
For instance, Hartnell would give her a finger-wagging at the BBC Television Centre bar.
“I loved champagne… and Bill used to get very upset about it and say, ‘You shouldn’t be drinking champagne at your age!’ I’m sure he thought that I was actually 15.”
Twenty-three-year-old Carole was charged by the energy of the mid-60s, to the chagrin of Hartnell. “The whole scene in London at that time was exploding in all directions: art, fashion. We had [fashion designer and fashion icon] Mary Quant, we had [London fashion store] Biba, and it was just eye candy everywhere you went.
“Because I was earning a regular wage, and every week I came into rehearsals wearing something new, Bill used to say, ‘Oh, something else you’ve bought! Don’t you think you should start saving up your money? You’re an actress, you won’t always get a regular wage! You’d better think about the future!’
“I did get a bit peeved about that, and I said, ‘Bill, excuse me, I’m not your granddaughter. I’m a married woman with a child… Thank you for your advice, but no thank you, and please just back off. No more comments about my drinking and no more comments about my spending.’
“He was obviously very upset. He was much more sensitive than people gave him credit for. The next time I saw him at rehearsal, he [had] an enormous [three-litre] Jeroboam of champagne and a bunch of flowers, saying sorry. He was really sweet.”
The BBC kept Carole and her colleagues hard at work on weekends plugging the show, from grand openings and ribbon-cuttings to fetes a-plenty.
“It could be as little as a fete on a village green… or it could be thousands and thousands of people,” Carole says.
At one fete, Carole was convinced to climb inside a Dalek. “They closed me into it, I think I even paddled my way along with it going EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! for a bit.” After that day, “I really appreciated what the Dalek operators were doing [on the show] because it was very, very cramped, and very airless, and I’m quite claustrophobic, so I was quite glad to get out of it.”
“I had a small daughter at that time, a little four-year-old girl, and I hardly ever saw her, so I tried to take her with me every time, and of course she got very spoiled… I got a picture of her inside a Dalek too.”
With the wild success of the show, the fandom could be quite intense, even in those early days.
“There was one such fete where it was overwhelming, and the people were reaching out to me. Some fans have this thing that they’ve got… take a bit of you home, sometimes a bit of your hair… And this particular occasion it got so bad they had to call the army out, and I think the boy scouts too,” she says with a little laugh. “They picked me up and they lifted me up above the heads of the crowd… and then they helicoptered me away. It was very dramatic.”
The amount of attention the role brought her was “not something I really welcomed, but once I got used to it it was really nice,” and she’s continued to enjoy conventions and appearances since.
Recently Carole appeared at the Day at Devil’s End event in The Daemons town of Aldbourne. “Funny enough that was on a village green… and I got to sit in Bessie, so that was good fun. And honking that horn,” Carole mimics Bessie’s trademark toot before continuing, “was lovely.”
A highlight for Carole in her Doctor Who career was at the Royal Albert Hall during the 2013 Doctor Who at the Proms concert with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for the show’s 50th anniversary.
“They asked me to make an appearance onstage, which I did, and lots of other Doctor Who actors as well, but I was their surprise. I wasn’t sure whether they’d even know who I was without being introduced… and I came on and whoa! – it was like a football reaction. I was so overwhelmed I could hardly speak, it was very emotional… I was totally surprised, it was marvelous! I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”
Carole wishes dearly that more of her colleagues were still here to share these experiences with her. “It’s terribly sad for me that so many have gone.”
“I know Bill [Hartnell] would have loved the conventions. He would have adored it… To see the enthusiasm, especially of the children,” Carole says wistfully.
“He would have loved to have been proven right! A lot of people didn’t think [Doctor Who] was going to last very long, but Bill said, ‘No, you’re mad. It’s going to last forever.’ And he was right!”
