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Doctor Who’s Elisabeth Sladen dies
Actress played Sarah Jane Smith – widely regarded as the best Companion – in the 1970s
Doctor Who actress Elisabeth Sladen has died of cancer at the age of 63. Sladen joined the BBC's premiere sci-fi series in 1973, playing the role of the Companion, Sarah Jane Smith, opposite the third and fourth Doctors - Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker (pictured above with Sladen).
Liverpool-born Sladen made the character - an investigative journalist - her own and, by the time of her departure from Doctor Who three years later, Sarah Jane Smith was among the most popular female sci-fi characters.
It is a testament to that popularity that Sladen's character was resurrected in 2007 - 30 years after she departed Doctor Who – for the children's spin-off TV series The Sarah Jane Adventures. Slade reprised the title role and appeared with two more Doctors, David Tennant and Matt Smith.
The show won this year's Royal Television Society award for the best children's drama. Its creator Russell T Davies said: "I absolutely loved Lis. She was funny and cheeky and clever and just simply wonderful. The universe was lucky to have Sarah Jane Smith, the world was lucky to have Lis."
As Entertainment Weekly writes: "Whenever Doctor Who fans gather together, it usually doesn't take long before the question arises over the identity of the best Doctor of all-time. Far less often do followers of the BBC sci-fi show debate the identity of the best Doctor's companion. Why? Largely because it is widely agreed that the best ever actor to play [her was] Elisabeth Sladen." ·
