William Russell (English actor)

William Russell
File:William Russell at BAFTA 1998 (cropped).jpg Russell celebrating the 35th anniversary of Doctor Who, BAFTA London, 1998
Born	William Russell Enoch (1924-11-19) 19 November 1924 Sunderland, County Durham, England
Other names	Russell Enoch
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1940–present
Known for	First male Doctor Who companion
Television	Doctor Who
Spouse(s)	Balbina Gutierrez (divorced) Etheline Margareth Lewis
Children	Alfred Enoch (born 1988)

William Russell Enoch (born 19 November 1924), is an English actor. He played the role of companion Ian Chesterton in Doctor Who, from the show's first episode in 1963 until 1965.

He came to national fame (for children at least) in 1956 when he took the title role in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot, a weekly series on British TV.

Doctor Who

In 1963 he was cast in Doctor Who as the Doctor's first male companion, science teacher Ian Chesterton, appearing in most episodes of the first two seasons of the programme.

Russell was one of the four original cast members of Doctor Who, starring opposite William Hartnell as the Doctor, Jacqueline Hill as Barbara Wright, Carole Ann Ford as Susan Foreman and later Maureen O'Brien as Vicki. His first involvement in the series took the form of the untransmitted pilot episode, which was eventually reshot and broadcast as "An Unearthly Child". He eventually departed, alongside Hill, in the penultimate story of the second season, The Chase.

Russell has continued his association with Doctor Who, having lent his voice as a narrator to several of the audiobook releases of the lost 1960s episodes. He appeared in The Game, one of the continuing Doctor Who audio stories produced by Big Finish. He has also recorded readings for some of the CD audio adaptations of Doctor Who story novelisations originally published by Target Books.

In the late 1990s Russell returned to the role of Ian for the VHS release of the story The Crusade, of which the second and fourth episodes are lost. He recorded several in-character scenes to camera, which helped to bridge the gap between the existing episodes.

Russell has also contributed to the Doctor Who DVD range, having participated in several audio commentaries and on-screen interviews since 2002.

In 2013, the BBC produced An Adventure in Space and Time, a docudrama depicting the creation and early days of Doctor Who, as part of the programme's fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Russell appeared as a character in the drama, portrayed by actor Jamie Glover. Russell also had a cameo role in An Adventure in Space and Time playing a BBC Commissionaire (security guard) named Harry.

The same year, Russell portrayed both Ian and the First Doctor in the Big Finish audio play The Light at the End, produced to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Doctor Who.

Personal life

On 2 December 1988, Russell and his second wife, Etheline Margareth Lewis, had their first child Alfred Enoch, when he was 64 years old. Alfred is now an actor, known for portraying Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter film series and Wes Gibbins in the ABC legal drama How to Get Away with Murder.

Filmography

Film

Russell appeared in British films from 1950 onwards, appearing in well-known productions such as They Who Dare (1954), One Good Turn (1955), The Man Who Never Was (1956) and The Great Escape (1963). Later, he had minor roles in Terror (1978), Superman (1978) and Death Watch (1979) with Harvey Keitel and Harry Dean Stanton.

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	Gift Horse	Crewman	As Russell Enoch
1953	Appointment in London	RAF Officer	Uncredited
	Intimate Relations	Michael	As Enoch Russell
	Malta Story	Officer in Prison	Uncredited
	The Saint's Return	Keith Merton	As Russell Enoch
1954	They Who Dare	Lieut. Tom Poole	As Russell Enoch
	The Gay Dog	Leslie Gowland	As Russell Enoch
1955	One Good Turn	Alec Bigley
	Above Us the Waves	Ramsey
1956	The Man Who Never Was	Joe
1957	The Big Chance	Bill Anderson
1958	The Adventures of Hal 5	The Vicar
1962	The Share Out	Mike Stafford
1963	Return to Sender	Mike Cochrane
	The Great Escape	Sorren
1978	Terror	Lord Garrick
	Superman	8th Elder
1980	Death Watch	Dr Mason	As William Russel
1981	Mark Gertler: Fragments of a Biography	Roger Fry
1989	The Kill-Off	Rags
1990	Deadly Manor	Alfred
1998	Mob Queen	Swede Carlson

Television

His big break was the title role in The Adventures of Sir Lancelot on ITV in 1956. Russell has acted in many plays and TV series including Disraeli, Testament of Youth and the part of Ted Sullivan, the short-lived second husband of Rita Sullivan in Coronation Street. He also had a small part in an episode of The Black Adder, as a late replacement for Wilfrid Brambell, who had become impatient with delays to his scene and left the set before shooting it, and appeared as the Duke of Gloucester in the Robin of Sherwood episode "The Pretender". Other roles include Lanscombe in an episode of the 2005 series of Agatha Christie's Poirot ("After the Funeral").

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1955, 1960	St. Ives	St. Ives	6 episodes
1956	Theatre Royal	Boy	Episode: "The Assassin"
	Assignment Foreign Legion	Gerry Brooke	Episode: "The Ghost"
	The Adventures of Aggie	Ted Jordan	Episode: "Hypertension"
1956–1957	The Adventures of Sir Lancelot	Sir Lancelot du lac / Sir Blaint	30 episodes
1957	Nicholas Nickleby	Nicholas Nickleby	10 episodes
	Sword of Freedom	Count Rene D'Albert	Episode: "The Strange Intruder"
1959	Armchair Theatre		Episode: "The Girl on the Beach"
	Tales From Dickens	David Copperfield	3 episodes
1960	BBC Sunday-Night Play	Col. Friedrich Eilers Charles Hemington Oliver Farrant John Freeman	Summer Theatre: The Devil's General Twentieth Century Theatre: The Elder Statesman Twentieth Century Theatre: I Have Been Here Before Twentieth Century Theatre: The Fanatics
1961	Hamlet (TV Serial)	Hamlet	5 episodes
	Triton	Captain Belwether
1962–1963	The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre	Mike Stafford / Mike Cochrane	2 episodes
1963	Drama 61-67	Mick Lambert	Episode: "Drama 63: Somebody's Dying"
	Jane Eyre	St. John Rivers	2 episodes
	Suspense	John Richards	Episode: "The Patch Card"
1963–1965	Doctor Who	Ian Chesterton	77 episodes
1966	Breaking Point	Martin Kennedy	5 episodes
1966–1967	This Man Craig	Peter Rogers / Peter Woodburn / Avis	3 episodes
1967	Dr. Finlay's Casebook	Neville	Episode: "Who Made You?"
1969	Detective	Bill Cartwright	Episode: "And So to Murder"
	Parkin's Patch	Wilkins	Episode: "No Friendship For Coppers"
1972	Buggins' Ermine	Frank
1972–1973	Harriet's Back in Town	Tom Preston	90 episodes
1972–1981	ITV Playhouse	Daddy / Dr. Crane / Frank	3 episodes
1974	Justice	Dr. Victor Ashworth	Episode: "Point of Death"
	Father Brown	Reverend Wilfred Bohun	Episode: "The Hammer of God"
	Whodunnit?	Captain Alexander Anderson	Episode: "A Piece of Cake: Christmas Special"
1975	The Hanged Man	Peter Kroger	Episode: "Knave of Coins"
	The Main Chance	Arnold Galbraith	Episode: "We're the Bosses Now"
	Against The Crowd	Arthur Penwarren	Episode: "Bread and Circuses"
	The Doll	Julian Osborne	Episode: "#1.2"
	Three Men in a Boat	Doctor	TV Movie
1975–1977	Crown Court	Edward Birkland /Robert Aldrich	2 episodes
1977	Van der Valk	Kees Rokin	Accidental
1978	BBC2 Play of the Week	Lord Folkstone Chapman Headmaster	Fearless Frank
	Disraeli	Wyndham Lewis	2 episodes
	Parables	Peter Vernon	Episode: "A Gental Rain"
	Strangers	Bamford Harker	Episode: "Accidental Death"
1979	Testament of Youth	Marriott	Episode: "Buxton 1913"
	Shoestring	David Carn	Private Ear
	Spearhead	Mr. Dickson B.F.S	Episode: "Repercussions"
1980	Mackenzie	Francis Hammond	2 episodes
	Armchair Thriller	Senior Officer	Episode: "Dead Man's Kit: Part 1"
	Play for Today	Don	Episode: "Instant Enlightenment Including V.A.T."
	The Professionals	Charles Holly	Episode: "Involvement"
1983	The Black Adder	The Duke of Winchester	Episode: "The Archbishop"
1986	Robin of Sherwood	The Duke of Gloucester	Episode: "The Pretender"
1988	The Four Minute Mile	AAA Official
1990	Boon	John Loseley	Episode: "Tales from the River Bank"
1992	Coronation Street	Ted Sullivan	46 episodes
1995	The Affair	Dr. Hastings	TV Film
	Casualty	Mo Meredrew	Episode: "Halfway House"
1997	Great Performances	Henry V (at Shakespeare's Globe)
2000	Heartbeat	Gabriel Firth	Episode: "Gabriel's Last Stand"
2005	Agatha Christie: Poirot	Lanscombe	Episode: "After the Funeral"
2013	An Adventure in Space and Time	Harry - Security Guard

Theatre

Russell has played a number of roles in theatre with the Royal Shakespeare Company, the National Theatre and in the opening season of the Globe Theatre. In the 1980s, while a member of the Actors' Touring Company, he used the stage name Russell Enoch; on leaving the company he reverted to the name William Russell.

External links

• William Russell at IMDb