Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor’s granddaughter, has shared a fond sentiment about her time working with William Hartnell on Doctor Who.
Hartnell, of course, played the First Doctor and starred opposite Ford in serials in 1963 and 1964 before the latter’s departure. Nonetheless, Carole looks back at that time with warmth, and shares:
“I found him divine — we got on terribly well! We were like a family; I don’t remember any arguments with anybody about anything.”
She is donning rose-tinted glasses here, as there was definitely an argument on the set of Marco Polo, though Hartnell apologised in his own way.
Director, Waris Hussein also remembers time with William, though notes how testy he could be:
“We had all the floor plans taped out… and when I said ‘I’d like you to move from here to there’, he said ‘Oh, Waris, I don’t think I want to do that; I want to move there’. So he was testing me, because he knew I’d already planned my shot. I said ‘William, if you move there, I won’t be able to cover you with a camera’, and when he knew he wouldn’t be on camera, he said, ‘Oh, okay, where would you like me to go?’ It was a test, which I think I passed… Once he learned to trust me, we became companions.”
Hussein directed Marco Polo as well as the first ever serial, An Unearthly Child, and helped shape the show with producer, Verity Lambert.
It’s always good to hear little anecdotes about the very earliest days of the show and this chat, in the otherwise rather grating The Whoniverse Show, is nonetheless a pleasant watch.
