
William Hartnell's performance in This Sporting Life was noted by Verity Lambert, the producer who was setting up a new science-fiction television series for the BBC, Doctor Who. Lambert offered Hartnell the title role. Although he was initially uncertain, Lambert and director Waris Hussein convinced him to take the part and it became the character for which he gained the highest profile and is now most widely remembered. Hartnell later revealed he took the role as it led him away from the gruff, military roles in which he was becoming increasingly typecast, and came to particularly relish the attention and affection playing the character brought him from children. Doctor Who earned Hartnell a regular salary of £315 per episode by 1966 (equivalent to £4050.90 in modern currency[4]). In comparison, his co-stars Anneke Wills and Michael Craze earned £68 and £52 per episode at the same time.[5] Hartnell suffered a bereavement in 1965 whilst working on The Myth Makers: his aunt, Bessie Hartnell, who had looked after him during his troubled childhood, died. The tight production schedules prevented him from taking time off to attend her funeral. According to some colleagues on Doctor Who, he could be a difficult person to work with, although others, notably actors Peter Purves and William Russell, and producer Verity Lambert, speak glowingly of him after more than forty years. Among the more caustic accounts, Nicholas Courtney, in his audio memoirs, recalled that during the <b>...</b>
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