Quicksand Fans

Nicholas Courteney, best known as Brigadier-General Lethbridge-Stuart in "Doctor Who", died on Feb 22 aged 82.
His best line was in "The Daemons", when, confronted by The Devil, calmly gave the order, "Corporal Jenkins, the fellow with the wings, five rounds, rapid!"
His autobiography was titled "Five Rounds Rapid".
We are all the poorer.

I believe he full name of his character on Dr. Who was Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stuart. Nick Courteney had the distinction of working will all of the first five Doctors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison. Although his character was never an actual traveling companion of the good doctor, he was considered an honorary companion because he was with the series so long and had such a presence.

From what I hear, he was a fine actor and a true gentleman. I wish we Yanks had had as much of a chance to know him and his work as the Brits did.

Big Bad John

bbjohn wrote:Nick Courteney had the distinction of working will all of the first five Doctors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison

Not quite - he never appeared with William Hartnell, but he did work with Sylvester McCoy.

He only got the role by accident. He was engaged to play the tiny part of a junior officer, but the actor slated to play Lethbridge-Stewart dropped out at the last minute, so Courtney was promoted.

He is indelibly imprinted on my childhood memories. In pace requiescat.

Amen.

Lomax wrote:

bbjohn wrote:Nick Courteney had the distinction of working will all of the first five Doctors: William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton, Jon Pertwee, Tom Baker and Peter Davison

Not quite - he never appeared with William Hartnell, but he did work with Sylvester McCoy.

He only got the role by accident. He was engaged to play the tiny part of a junior officer, but the actor slated to play Lethbridge-Stewart dropped out at the last minute, so Courtney was promoted.

He is indelibly imprinted on my childhood memories. In pace requiescat.

My memory may be faulty but I believe he did appear in one scene that included Hartnell. The scene was "The Five Doctors". A number of people from earlier series appeared in that one and I think Courteney was one of them. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Doctors

Ah, yes, the Brigadier! Nicholas Courteney played that role wonderfully. I liked how he gave a good military flare (a British military flare in this case) to the episodes he appeared in.

Fred588 wrote:My memory may be faulty but I believe he did appear in one scene that included Hartnell. The scene was "The Five Doctors". A number of people from earlier series appeared in that one and I think Courteney was one of them. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Doctors

I saw that episode of, The Five Doctors, and Brigadier Lethbridge-Stuart was featured. He noted how he was looking forward to see the Doctor... all five of them.

Best wishes to Nicholas Courteney on his new journey.

Actually William Hartnell wasn't in the 5 Doctors. Hartnell had already passed away before then, so the first Doctor was played by someone else.

So he the Brigadier did get to appear alongisde the first five incarnations of the Doctor, but not the first five actors.

Fred588 wrote:My memory may be faulty but I believe he did appear in one scene that included Hartnell.

William Hartnell was dead when The Five Doctors was filmed - they made up another actor to look like him.

HOWEVER - Further research reveals that Courtney DID appear with Hartnell. Although Lethbridge-Stewart made his debut in the Troughton era, Courtney did play another character called Bret Vyon in four episodes in 1965 - before my time.

Talking of which, Why did the BBC not bother to KEEP the recordings of all the Doctor Who episodes????

Lomax wrote:...Talking of which, Why did the BBC not bother to KEEP the recordings of all the Doctor Who episodes????

Misplaced economy measures; they'd reuse tapes rather than archive them.

Yeah in the 1960s they didn't do repeats/reruns, and there was no such thing as a VCR, so at the time those old tapes/films were seemingly worthless. There was no value keeping hundreds and hundres of film reels of TV shows that had already been aired. There was no plan to ever show them again, and they didn't know anyone would be interested in them 10 or 20 or 30 years later. So the tapes were just wiped and reused, or films that couldn't be reused were just burned, to create more room in the warehouse.

I wonder... was the brigadier in "The Three Doctors?" That was a story from Jon Pertwee's era, the brigadier's main era, and the story featured Hartnell and Troughton.