Jon Pertwee was a British comedy character actor credited with an extensive list of stage, screen, radio, and cabaret appearances. The onetime spouse of Upstairs, Downstairs star Jean Marsh, Pertwee is best known for his turn from 1970 to 1974 as the Doctor in the long-running BBC program, Doctor Who. A master of accents, voices, sounds, and comical walks, Pertwee perfected his multiple comedic personae on the radio series The Navy Lark and in supporting roles in various films, beginning with his appearance in 1937’s Dinner at the Ritz.

Recruited by Doctor Who producer Peter Bryant in 1969 to take over as the Doctor from Patrick Troughton, Pertwee brought to the program a radically different interpretation of the title character. Aired initially in 1963, Doctor Who was produced by the drama department at the BBC and—contrary to many reports—was not intended primarily for children. The first Doctor, as portrayed by William Hartnell, was a renegade Time Lord from the planet of Gallifrey who exhibited a strong moral sense, an aggressive and curmudgeonly attitude, and impatience with his various earthly companions’ comparative mental slowness. Hartnell was replaced in 1966 by Patrick Troughton, who played the part as a “cosmic hobo” in the tradition of Charlie Chaplin’s Little Tramp.

As Sean Hogben asserted in “Doctor Who: Adventure with Time to Spare” in TV Week, however, “Doctor Who won its reputation as a top science fiction series during Jon Pertwee’s time in the role.” Reacting to the popularity of the early James Bond films, and determined to move away from the clownish depiction Troughton gave the Doctor, Pertwee played the character as an action-based interplanetary crusader exhibiting the characteristics of a folk hero. Pertwee was thus able to draw on his considerable ability to perform his own stunts—resulting from his love of skin diving and waterskiing, along with his habit of driving fast vehicles—which gave a harder edge to his interpretation.

The Pertwee era began with the serialization of “Spearhead from Space,” which also introduced the program’s fans to the series’ first broadcasts in color, after 17 years of black-and-white shows. Pertwee’s adoption of his grandfather’s evening suits as the foundation of the Doctor’s garb allowed him to switch among different colored velvet smoking jackets to mark each passing season of episodes. With this change in the Doctor’s apparel, the producers began to publicize the series as providing “adventure in style,” alluding to Pertwee’s penchant for a similar type of life outside the studio while partly cashing in on the liberated “Swinging Sixties” ambiance still prevalent in Great Britain during the early 1970s. The fact that the program was attracting a considerable audience among upscale 17- to 19-year-olds also contributed to this change in character depiction and promotion.

Pertwee’s love of fast vehicles and gadgets prompted him to suggest that the Doctor travel from trouble spot to trouble spot in an Edwardian four-seat roadster eventually named “Bessie.” During most of Pertwee’s term, the Doctor was banished to Earth by the Time Lords of Gallifrey, thus necessitating a different mode of transportation than his predecessors enjoyed with the Tardis, the Doctor’s police-box-styled time machine. Thus, “Bessie” and (in 1974) the “Who-mobile,” a flying-saucer-shaped, custom three-wheel car built for Pertwee by Peter Faries, became the Doctor’s primary transportation during the four years Doctor Number 3 assisted UNIT (United Nations Intelligence Taskforce) and its indefatigable leader, Brigadier Lethbridge-Stewart (Nicholas Courtney), as they saved the Earth from a variety of monsters, aliens, megalomaniacs, and other menaces.

In early 1974 Pertwee announced he would step down from his stint as the Doctor following that season’s shooting, in order to resume his stage career in The Breadwinner. His final appearance came in “The Planet of the Spiders,” which dovetailed with the initial episode the following season, “Robot,” during which Tom Baker took over as the regenerated Time Lord. Pertwee returned in 1983 to share top billing with his fellow Doctors in “The Five Doctors,” a 20th-anniversary celebration and one of the stories best received by the series’ fans. The plot found all five incarnations of Doctor Who taking on their most memorable enemies, who attempted, but failed, to destroy the five Doctors for good.

Jon Pertwee returned briefly to British television in 1979 for the short-lived comedy series Worzel Gummidge. His post-Doctor years found him performing primarily onstage and in motion pictures. He continued his association with the Doctor Who character from time to time with appearances at Doctor Who conventions worldwide. While on vacation in the United States, Pertwee died unexpectedly at the age of 77 on May 20, 1996.