Posted in: BBC, Doctor Who, TV | Tagged: bbc, carol ann ford, doctor who, jodie whittaker, will, william hartnell

Doctor Who: William Russell, One of the First Companions, Passes Away

William Russell, aka Ian Chesterton - one of the first companions on Doctor Who when it premiered back in 1963 - has passed away at age 99.

William Russell, who played Ian Chesterton on Doctor Who, has passed away at age 99. Ian Chesterton, along with his girlfriend and fellow school teacher Barbara Wright (Jacqueline Hill) and the Doctor's grandfather Susan (Carol Ann Ford) were the Doctor's first companions in the series when it premiered in 1963. Ian was the first one to ask "Doctor Who?" when confronted by the strange old man living in a police box in a junkyard in East London.

Russell was William Russell Enoch in 1924 and studied at Trinity College, Oxford. He was a Royal Air Force officer during the Second World War before he began his acting career after the war. He had the bearing of a traditional English leading man with an air of old-school authority. He had a thriving stage, television, and movie career for a decade before he joined Doctor Who. He played the lead in the hit ITV series The Adventures of Lancelot and the 18-episode BBC adaptation of Charles Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby. When he was cast as Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who, he was intended to be the reassuring father and authority figure in the show, in contrast to The Doctor's unpredictably and potentially dangerous crankiness.

Doctor Who in 1963 was intended to be educational for children, teaching them about Science and History during the Doctor's adventures with his companions. That was why Ian and Barbara were teachers, and the teenage Susan was their student. Ian, Barbara, Susan, and The Doctor were a TV family unit – surrogate dad, mum and daughter, and eccentric granddad who effectively kidnapped them to run around across Time and Space. Ian was the first cast member to be shot by a Dalek in "The Daleks", which introduced the peppperpot space Nazis and turned the show into a megahit. Russell and Hill left the series in 1965 after three seasons with the Doctor dropping them back in 1960s London, and they ran off, hopping on a bus and marveling at being back and alive in the (then) present day.

Russell did not stop working after his departure from Doctor Who. He continued on stage, screen, and in movies all the way to the 2020s, as well as making guest appearances at conventions. He made one final appearance as Ian Chesterton in "The Power of the Doctor" in 2022, Jodie Whittaker's final story.

William Russell's available episodes of the classic series of Doctor Who can be streamed on the BBC iPlayer in the UK and Britbox and – for free – Tubi in the US.

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