William Russell (English actor)

William Russell
Russell pictured in Blighty, 1953
Born	William Russell Enoch (1924-11-19)19 November 1924 Sunderland, County Durham, England
Died	3 June 2024(2024-06-03) (aged 99)
Other names	Russell Enoch
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1949–2022
Notable work	Doctor Who
Spouses	Balbina Gutierrez ​ ​ (m. 1953, divorced)​ Etheline Lewis ​ (m. 1984)​
Children	4, including Alfred Enoch

William Russell Enoch (19 November 1924 – 3 June 2024) was an English actor who performed as both Russell Enoch and William Russell. His career on stage and screen spanned over seven decades and he first achieved prominence in the title role of the television series The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956–1957). In 1963, he was in the original lead cast of BBC1's Doctor Who, playing the role of schoolteacher Ian Chesterton from the show's first episode until 1965.

Russell's film roles include parts in The Man Who Never Was (1956), The Great Escape (1963) and Superman (1978). On television, he appeared as Ted Sullivan in Coronation Street in 1992. In his later years, he continued his association with Doctor Who and returned as Ian for a 2022 cameo in "The Power of the Doctor", 57 years after the character left, which won him a Guinness World Record for the longest gap between TV appearances.

Early life

William Russell Enoch was born on 19 November 1924 in Sunderland, County Durham, to Eva Compston (née Pile) and Alfred James Enoch. He was educated at Wolverhampton Grammar School and Oxford University and became interested in acting at an early age. He was involved in organising entertainment during his national service in the Royal Air Force and then, after university, went into repertory theatre.

Doctor Who

Russell at the 2012 London Film and Comic Con

In 1963, Russell was cast in Doctor Who as science teacher Ian Chesterton, the Doctor's first male companion, appearing in all episodes of the first two seasons of the programme except the last four.

Russell was one of the four original cast members of Doctor Who, starring opposite William Hartnell as the First 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 form in the pilot episode (not transmitted until 1991), which was later reshot and broadcast as the first episode of An Unearthly Child, the programme's first serial. He eventually departed, alongside Hill, in "The Planet of Decision", the final episode of The Chase, which served as the penultimate story of the second season.

It was intended that Russell would reprise the role of Ian in the 1983 story Mawdryn Undead alongside Peter Davison as the Fifth Doctor for the twentieth season. Scheduling conflicts left him unavailable.

After leaving Coronation Street in 1992, Russell had maintained 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 Productions. He also recorded readings for some of the CD audio adaptations of Doctor Who story novelisations originally published by Target Books.

In 1999, Russell returned to the role of Ian for the VHS release of The Crusade, of which "The Knight of Jaffa" and "The Warlords", the second and fourth episodes, respectively, are lost. He recorded several in-character scenes to camera, which helped to bridge the gaps between the existing episodes.

Russell 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 was a character in the drama and was portrayed by actor Jamie Glover. Russell himself had a cameo role, playing a BBC Commissionaire 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 fiftieth anniversary; aged 88, he became the oldest person to portray the Doctor, a record he held until March 2023, when Tom Baker portrayed the Fourth Doctor in the Big Finish audio series The Fourth Doctor Adventures at the age of 89.

Russell made a cameo appearance as Ian in the 2022 special "The Power of the Doctor". With this, his final role, he won a Guinness World Record for the longest gap between TV appearances.

Personal life and death

In 1953, Russell married Balbina Gutierrez. They had three children, Robert, Laetitia and Vanessa, and later divorced.

In 1984, he married his second wife, Etheline Margareth Lewis, a Barbadian Brazilian doctor. Their son, Alfred was born in 1988. Alfred is now an actor too, best known for playing Dean Thomas in the Harry Potter film series and Wes Gibbins in the television series How to Get Away with Murder. They performed together in the 2020 movie Executive Order.

Russell died at his home from pneumonia on 3 June 2024, at the age of 99.

Filmography

Film

Russell appeared in British films from 1950 onward, 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). He later played minor roles in Terror (1978), Superman (1978) and Death Watch (1979).

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1952	Gift Horse a.k.a. Glory at Sea	Crewman	As Russell Enoch
1953	Appointment in London a.k.a. Raiders in the Sky	RAF Officer	Uncredited
	Intimate Relations a.k.a. Disobedient	Michael	As Russell Enoch
	Malta Story	Officer in Prison	Uncredited
	Always a Bride	Dutton's Chauffeur	Uncredited
	The Saint's Return a.k.a. The Saint's Girl Friday	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
1963	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
1990	Deadly Manor	Alfred
2020	Executive Order		Cameo appearance

Television

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

Year	Title	Role	Notes
1954	Lonesome Like	Rev. Frank Alleyne	Short Film, As Russell Enoch
1955	St. Ives	St. Ives	Main character, all 6 episodes
	The Sleeping Beauty	The Prince	TV movie
1956	Theatre Royal	Boy	Episode: "The Assassin"
	Assignment Foreign Legion	Gerry Brooke	Episode: "The Ghost"
	The Adventures of Aggie a.k.a. Aggie	Ted Jordan	Episode: "Hypertension"
1956–1957	The Adventures of Sir Lancelot	Sir Lancelot du lac / Sir Bliant	Main character, all 30 episodes
1957	Hour of Mystery	Kevin Ormond	Episode: "Crime of Margaret Foley"
	Nicholas Nickleby	Nicholas Nickleby	Main character, all 10 episodes
	Sword of Freedom	Count Rene D'Albert	Episode: "The Strange Intruder"
1958	Television World Theatre	Prince Pao	Episode: "The Circle of Chalk"
	Who Fought Alone: Epitaph on a Scottish Soldier		TV movie
	Saturday Playhouse	Voulain	Episode: "The Duke in Darkness"
	Television Playwright	Anthony Broderick	Episode: "In a Backward Country"
1959	ITV Play of the Week	Nevil Rigden	Episode: "The Face of Treason"
	Armchair Theatre	Smoky	Episode: "The Girl on the Beach"
	Never Die	Inspector Sauvé	TV movie
	Tales From Dickens	David Copperfield	3 episodes: "Uriah Heep" (1959), "David and Dora" (1959), "David and Dora Get Married" (1961)
1960	St. Ives	St. Ives	Main character, all 6 episodes; remake of 1955 serial
	BBC Sunday-Night Play	Lord Bleane / John Freeman / Oliver Farrant / Charles Hemington / Col. Friedrich Eilers, Leader of a Fighter Squadron / Gerald Croft / Frank	7 episodes "Twentieth Century Theatre: Our Betters" (1960) "Twentieth Century Theatre: The Fanatics" (1960) "Twentieth Century Theatre: I Have Been Here Before" (1960) "Twentieth Century Theatre: The Elder Statesman" (1960) "Summer Theatre: The Devil's General" (1960) "An Inspector Calls" (1961) "Pig in the Middle" (1963)
1961	Adventure Story	Hephaestion	TV movie
	Triton	Captain Belwether	Main character, all 6 episodes
	A Song of Sixpence	Alberto Monzelli	Short Film
	Hamlet	Hamlet	5 episodes
1962–1963	The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre	Mike Stafford / Mike Cochrane	2 episodes, "The Share Out" (1962) and "Return to Sender" (1963)
1963	Drama 61-67	Mick Lambert	Episode: "Drama 63: Somebody's Dying"
	Jane Eyre	St. John Rivers	2 episodes, Episodes 5 and 6
	Moonstrike	Philippe	Episode: "The Biggest Bandit"
	Suspense	John Richards	Episode: "The Patch Card"
1963–1965	Doctor Who	Ian Chesterton	77 episodes
1966	Breaking Point	Martin Kennedy	Main character, all 5 episodes
1966–1967	This Man Craig	Peter Rogers / Peter Woodburn / Avis	3 episodes: "Mates" (1966), "Old Flame" (1966), "You Can Choose Your Friends" (1967)
1967	Dr. Finlay's Casebook	Neville	Episode: "Who Made You?"
1969	Who-Dun-It	Marcel Dupre	Episode: "Don't Shoot the Cook" (1969)
	Detective	Bill Cartwright	Episode: "And So to Murder"
	Parkin's Patch	Wilkins	Episode: "No Friendship For Coppers"
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	Episode: "Accidental"
1978	BBC2 Play of the Week	Lord Folkestone Chapman Headmaster	Episode: "Fearless Frank"
	Disraeli	Wyndham Lewis	2 episodes
	Parables	Peter Vernon	Episode: "A Gentle Rain"
	Strangers	Bamford Harker	Episode: "Accidental Death"
1979	Testament of Youth	Marriott	Episode: "Buxton 1913"
	Shoestring	David Carn	Episode: "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
2022	Doctor Who	Ian Chesterton	Episode: The Power of the Doctor

Audio

Year	Title	Role	Notes
2005	Doctor Who: The Monthly Range	Darzil Carlisle	Big Finish Productions; Story: "The Game"
2009–2014	Doctor Who: The Companion Chronicles	Ian Chesterton	Big Finish Productions; 8 releases
2010–2013	Doctor Who: The Lost Stories	Ian Chesterton	Big Finish Productions; 4 releases
2011	The Five Companions	Ian Chesterton	Big Finish Productions; Special release
2013	The Light at the End	Ian Chesterton, First Doctor	Big Finish Productions; Special release
2014–2015	Doctor Who: The Early Adventures	Ian Chesterton, First Doctor	Big Finish Productions; 4 releases
2016–2017	Big Finish Short Trips	Narrator	4 releases
2020	Susan's War	Ian Chesterton	Big Finish Productions; Story: "Sphere of Influence"

External links

• William Russell at IMDb
• William Russell discography at Discogs