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Who on Earth is Tom Baker? An Autobiography Start Reading Table of Contents www.tom-baker.co.uk Copyright details Copyright © Tom Baker 1997 E-book published by Tom Baker Limited www.tom-baker.co.uk [email protected] ISBN 978 0 9926600 0 0 Cover design hallmark-design.co.uk' First Published in 1997 by HarperCollinsPublishers 77-85 Fulham Palace Road, Hammersmith, London W6 8JB A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 0 00 255834 3 The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers. For photos and videos of Tom Baker’s life go to: http://www.tom-baker.co.uk/photos_and_videos.asp Dedication For my wife, Sue Jerrard Table of contents Copyright details Dedication Introduction 1997 – a chance meeting with my son in New Zealand Chapter 1 Growing up during the Second World War in Liverpool Chapter 2 Collecting salvage and involvement in the Church Chapter 3 Stories about my family, aunts and cousins Chapter 4 Childhood memories of comics and hospitals Chapter 5 Serving at altar and telling stories in confession Chapter 6 My father attempts to give me away Chapter 7 A novice’s thoughts on poverty, chastity and obedience Chapter 8 The silence, loneliness and comedy of monastery life Chapter 9 I leave the monastery and adjust to the world outside Chapter 10 The Royal Army Medical Corps followed by drama college Chapter 11 My first marriage and birth of my two sons Chapter 12 Life as a struggling actor and a part in a Pasolini film Chapter 13 Spotted playing a dog in York by the National Theatre Chapter 14 The National Theatre, then Nicholas and Alexandra Chapter 15 More National Theatre but finally my contract not renewed Chapter 16 From English teacher to Macbeth, builder’s labourer to Dr Who Chapter 17 Now I’m in demand and I throw myself into Doctor Who Chapter 18 More Doctor Who until I decide to leave. I get married again Chapter 19 Drinking in Soho, Hedda Gabler and Sherlock Holmes Chapter 20 I marry for the third time and move to the country INTRODUCTION ‘Would you like to goto New Zealand to do a commercial?’ That’s the sort of question an actor likes to hear from his agent in freezing mid- January. ‘Certainly,’ I replied. ‘What’s it about?’ ‘Oh, pensions, I think,’ replied Annette, who is the second most beautiful agent in Europe. ‘Does that bother you? The dosh would not be light, and you could take your wife as well, first class.’ Suddenly I was desperate to go to New Zealand. But two weeks passed and I began to forget the offer. I had also been interviewed twice for the part of an irascible Raj man in a film about the Indian Mutiny. Funny how all the old Raj chaps are seen as irascible. It wasn’t a very good part and I was not keen to go all the way to India just to be irascible. Fortunately the director, looking again at his video, realized I would be no good and I was dropped. So to pass the time I went down to the village and had my hair cut short. Life can be dull in the country and a haircut can sometimes be high drama. I gave the girl cutter a good tip for laughing at my jokes and went back home. My wife was looking out of the window as I drove in. ‘New Zealand is on,’ she said. ‘They want you to leave in eight days’ time and to do the job as an old Doctor Who. Oh, you’ve had your hair cut.’ I spoke to Annette and she confirmed the job and the dosh. June Hudson, one of my favourite designers from BBC days, agreed to get the costumes ready with the help of Angel’s, the costumiers, and I took my trousers to the cleaners. It was a wild few days. The alterations to the old costumes were done with great tact. June even managed to locate an original scarf from Madame Tussaud’s waxworks where I am still unmelted after all these years. The scarf, being twentyfive feet long was, along with the boots, the only part of my old costume to fit me. So eight days later on a Thursday morning after a nice ride in a limousine, my wife Sue and I arrived at Heathrow's Terminal 3 and checked in. I cannot tell you how much I was looking forward to going Air New Zealand. Haymaking in January! Everybody had assured me it was a very special experience. Everybody was right. ‘I’m afraid one of your tickets has been cancelled, sir,’ said a charming contralto at the check-in desk. ‘Why has one of my tickets been cancelled?’ I asked. ‘I don’t want to pry, you understand, but I had planned on sitting next to my wife all the way to New Zealand and back on your airline.’ ‘Would you come with me, madam?’ said the contralto, and my dear wife meekly followed her out of my sight. Meantime, to avoid falling into a berserk attack, I struck up a conversation with the rather fraught looking parents of a fourteen-year- old boy. Their problem dwarfed mine. As my wife would not be allowed to sit on my knee all the way across the world all I needed was another seat. These anxious parents had ordered ten bottles of oxygen for their frail child. ‘But surely nothing has gone wrong?’ I murmured in bedside tones. ‘I’m afraid it has,’ said the father sorrowfully. ‘There is no oxygen and the plane leaves in about forty minutes.’ Just then my wife returned with her helper and told me that a solution could not be found. The impulse for a berserk attack came rushing back, swept to my head in a few pints of blood by the feel of it. The contralto looked at me anxiously. My wife looked at me anxiously. I looked at them both anxiously and wondered how long it had been since an old man went berserk at their check-in desk. My meditation was interrupted by the arrival of one of the airline’s male Samaritans clutching a mobile phone. There was a good deal of movement under his clean white shirt in the area of his sternum, as if his heart was trying to break out. His Adam’s apple was jumping, too. In fact as he gasped ‘Hello’ to me I caught a clear view of his uvula; it was fluttering audibly. ‘We may have found a solution, sir,’ he panted. I smiled encouragingly at him. ‘Yes, sir, we’ve found two seats for you, sir.’ I clapped my hands gently together in the manner of a sophisticated Jap and said: ‘Why that’s wonderful.’ ‘The only thing is, sir,’ added the Samaritan, ‘they’re broken.’ ‘What are broken?’ I asked. ‘The seats, sir,’ smiled the saint from customer services. I matched his smile to the millimetre as I enquired, ‘What do you mean by broken?’ ‘I mean the electronics are not working, sir. I mean you would not be able to listen to the stereo or hear the sound track on the films.’ It occurred to me that these seats might be just the ticket. No sound? Great. No music or commercials from the airline. Great. The sacred sickness that a moment before might have endangered the man’s life receded miraculously and I nodded my agreement. I wished the anxious parents good luck and said I was sure that Air New Zealand were bound to solve their problem: I mean look at how quickly they had sorted mine. As I followed the miracle worker through secret passages which led us aboard in about five minutes and twenty seconds, I thought I heard the price of £800 a bottle being discussed with British Airways. They’re in a good bargaining position, I thought. We were ushered on to the plane and to our new-found silent seats. To a layman like me they seemed to be handsome seats. I longed to give myself up to them. As I approached them, my New Zealand guide was called aside for a moment by some other poor pilgrim seeking a miracle. Instantly, the cabin steward appeared at my side. ‘Do you realize what you are letting yourself in for, sir, with these seats?’ and he looked at them with cruel contempt. ‘Oh, yes,’ I answered, ‘we won’t be able to hear the sound tracks, that’s all. We don’t mind at all. In fact,' and here I leaned towards him, ‘in fact, we are quite glad not to be able to hear.’ My wife nodded in agreement and my relief was profound. It was also brief. ‘But sir,’ urged the steward, ‘nothing works in these seats. The lights don’t work and the backs won’t recline.’ Swiftly I tried a seat. The steward disappeared instantly in the ensuing darkness. The reclining button was pressed and, as a doctor, I could easily and swiftly diagnose the seat as dead. The original fixer now materialized at our elbows and then knelt down! He too had received the latest news, that the seats were dead. The steward passed my wife and me a glass each of champagne. It was quite good champagne. ‘My latest information, sir, is that these seats are very severely handicapped, sir,’ whispered the fixer who couldn’t mend the seats. I sipped my Champagne. ‘But,’ pressed the would-be miracle worker, ‘but, there is one seat right up front and if either, you, [a little bow] or your wife, sir, got a bit fed up you could always do turn and turn about with the good seat up front.’ My wife was splendid. She just smiled, shook her head and said ‘I think not’, and we left the plane. Sixteen hours after our early morning wakening at home we left Heathrow on Singapore Airlines and thirteen hours after that we arrived in Singapore. We had been awake for twenty-nine hours. A quick hour and a half in Singapore, where chewing gum is forbidden by law, and we were on our way again towards Auckland. Thirty hours and a half. This next bit was also twelve or so hours. The service was very stylish with a great deal of bowing and smiling. Continuous smiling can get to you after thirty odd hours. Sometimes you have the impression that they are smiling because they know something that you don’t. And they probably do. With a smile (what else?) a girl delivered a seafood omelette to my wife. But such is the charm of their style nobody seems to look at the food with anything other than gratitude. The long hours drag by and we are a bit discouraged. Fortunately my wife is brave and knows something about Buddhism so she does not despair. I know nothing of such philosophy so my suffering is meaningless. At last, forty or so hours after getting out of our beds, we arrive. And the seafood omelette begins to do its work. My poor wife looks grey in the face and at times is unsteady on her legs. ‘Christ,’ I thought, I’ve come all this way to be a widower.’ This thought turned out to be alarmist, but she was very sick indeed.