Patrick Troughton - biography

1920-1987

Biography

Patrick Troughton is best-known for the following films:

A Hitch in Time (1978)

Patrick Troughton Quotes

“I don’t like acting on the stage, because I like to work during the day and go home during the evening and put my feet up and watch telly.”

“I’ve done a lot of swashbuckling in my time - ever since Joy Harington gave me my first real television chance in Kidnapped.”

“I’ve played so many different parts in the last 40 years.”

“My favourite role, I think, was Mr Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop - but Doctor Who comes a very good second!”

“After a rather stop-start beginning... I settled down and had the best three years of my life.”

“Doctor Who gave me a chance to indulge my passion for dressing up and being able to have some sly fun as well as a bit of clowning.”

“How did I feel about taking on the role? To begin with, I thought it would last about six weeks after Billy Hartnell had finished. My children and I had been fans of the programme and I loved the way he had played the Doctor. But I knew I couldn’t possibly do it like that.”

“I acted with Frazer [Hines] when he was twelve, a boy actor, so I’ve known him a long time. We just hit it off on the set. He’s a very good listener.”

“I believed totally in the possibilities implied in the series. I never thought of it as fantasy. Far from it.”

“I didn’t think it was a particularly good idea of the BBC to replace Billy [Hartnell]. I thought it was pretty silly, really! I didn’t see how anyone could follow him.”

“I don’t think [the second Doctor] was a goody. He was a bit naughty, wasn’t he? If you’re going to be totally moral, it’s boring, so you have to colour it a bit.”

“I had a whale of a time [playing the Doctor]!”

“I have been asked what impact the part of the Doctor had on my career and I can honestly say none. For luckily I got out in time before I was too typecast.”

“I stood under the Gravitron [on the set of The Moonbase], had a good look and thought, ‘Yes, that looks very nice.’ I took two steps off the set and the whole thing, which must have weighed about two tons, crashed down. I’d have been flattened!”

“It seems so long ago that I played the part of the Doctor.”

“It was the happiest time of my professional life.”

“It was wonderful! I had a young family at the time and it meant lots of pennies for them.”

“My original idea [for the part of the second Doctor] was to black up, wear a big turban and brass earrings with a big grey beard, doing it like the Arabian Nights. The idea was that, when I’d finished, I could shave the beard off and no one would know who I was and I wouldn’t be type-cast.”

“Oh my giddy aunt!”

“On a couple of occasions, standing in the TARDIS waiting for a cue to come on the studio floor, Frazer Hines and I at a given signal would whip down Debbie Watling’s pants, just before we got the cue, and then open the doors and go out on the set!”

“The Two Doctors is a beauty. The Sontarans I’d never met on screen before and they’re splendid. Colin Baker is super too. And Seville was fantastic.”

“The first idea was this windjammer captain with a sort of Victorian naval hat and brass buttons, but the Head of Drama, Sydney Newman, took one look at this costume and said, ‘Whatever happened to the cosmic hobo?’”

“The problem was fatigue, really. In the end, you got the giggles, you were so fatigued. That can get very distressing. The directors get a bit annoyed.”

“The producer, Innes Lloyd, was super too. Couldn’t have a better producer than that - diplomatic, friendly and enthusiastic.”

“The second [season] was the best, because I got into my stride and was working with two marvellous producers, Innes Lloyd and Peter Bryant, as well as the super team of Frazer [Hines] and Debbie [Watling]. The year after wasn’t so good, because we got so tired doing it week in, week out.”

“Three years was long enough and I didn’t want to get ‘typed’ and one had to get out while the going was good.”

“We used to have four weeks off every August, and starting again was like jumping on a running bus.”

“We watched Billy [Hartnell] as a family, and saw every single Doctor Who story through his three years. We used to enjoy the ones where he went to the future and he met all kinds of creature.”

“When I say ‘run’, run. Run!”

“With Doctor Who, like a lot of work, you have enormous fun - more than usual even. But in the end, it’s still just a job.”

“Working like that, at that pace, for three years, was like doing weekly rep. You got extremely tired and you wanted a definite routine to keep you going.”

“You can do anything you like on the show. You can move sideways, forwards or backwards in time.”

“[Doctor Who] had been going on about three years and I felt at the end of three years that it had gone on a long time. So, to be quite honest, I was very reluctant at first. [On being cast as William Hartnell’s successor.]”

“[On The Three Doctors:] It was fun, it was lovely. Especially having Billy Hartnell there, even though he was only on film, trapped in a sort of bubble. A bit ga-ga, poor lad, but it was lovely seeing him there. Jon Pertwee and I developed quite a rapport, shall we say.”

“I never give interviews, never.”

“I think acting is magic. If I tell you all about myself, it will spoil it.”

“I’ve only talked to you because you’re a girl. and I like girls.”

“It’s like a conjuror showing you how he does his tricks. If you can see how it’s being done, it takes away all the magic.”

“Just tell them that I am that mystery man of television, Doctor Who.”

“I think space will be conquered through the mind rather than the clumsy medium of space travel.”

“I like working with my hands, making things and home decorating, also gardening.”

“I might well have been a professional churchman myself, though not in the Church of England”

“I suppose at heart I am a country person. I would like to have been a naturalist, as long as it didn’t get me involved with snakes and spiders.”

“If I had not been an actor I would quite like to have been a teacher. Children keep one young.”

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