Born: 16th July 1931 (as Robert Stewart)
Died: 14th January 2016 (aged 84 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1975-1976

A writer from childhood, Edinburgh-born Robert Stewart left school at age fifteen and parlayed his skill into a series of newspaper jobs. His career was interrupted by his National Service, during which he was part of Field Marshal Montgomery's staff. Stewart also began writing plays, and worked for the BBC as a radio commentator for Scottish football matches. He finally left the newspaper industry to serve as a foreign correspondent for Illustrated magazine, prompting a move to London. Stewart was twice married and twice divorced; his first wife bore a daughter, while he had three sons with his second wife, Helen.

When his job with Illustrated came to an end in the late Fifties, Stewart joined the Rank Organisation, initially as a story editor on Interpol Calling. He was soon providing scripts for the programme as well, and he began writing prolifically on shows like Danger Man, Ghost Squad and The Saint, as well as several editions of The Edgar Wallace Mystery Theatre. Stewart's first commission for the BBC came on a 1962 episode of Dr Finlay's Casebook. It was at this stage that he adopted “Robert Banks Stewart” as his professional name, in order to distinguish him from similarly-named writers; Banks was his mother's maiden name. He was also approached to develop ideas for Doctor Who during its formative stages in 1963, though nothing came of this.

Stewart travelled to Australia to produce and write for Riptide

The latter part of the Sixties saw Stewart write for everything from The Avengers to Adam Adamant Lives! to Callan. He was a script editor on Armchair Theatre, and earned his first credit as a producer on Intrigue. At the end of the decade, he travelled to Australia to produce and write for Riptide, until issues with the local labour unions prompted him to return to the UK.

In the early Seventies, Stewart wrote for shows like Jason King, Arthur Of The Britons, The Legend Of Robin Hood and Sutherland's Law, while script editing Harriet's Back In Town and Van Der Valk. In the middle of the decade, he developed three serials for Doctor Who, all featuring Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor. Stewart invented the Zygons for Terror Of The Zygons -- set in his native Scotland -- and then the Krynoids for The Seeds Of Doom. He had written most of the storyline for “The Foe From The Future” when Thames Television hired him to script edit Rooms and Armchair Thriller, leaving Robert Holmes to redevelop the scenario as The Talons Of Weng-Chiang. Big Finish Productions would release an audio adaptation of Stewart's storyline, written by John Dorney, as part of their Doctor Who: The Lost Stories range in 2011.

The producer of Doctor Who during Stewart's time on the show was Philip Hinchcliffe, who subsequently moved to Target. When Hinchcliffe was preparing to leave the police drama, he suggested that Stewart take over, only for Target to be cancelled altogether. Instead, Stewart created two very popular series in a similar vein: first Shoestring, starring Trevor Eve, and then Bergerac with John Nettles. After an unhappy spell in the mid-Eighties as the executive producer of drama for London Weekend Television, Stewart returned to the BBC to produce Lovejoy and develop Call Me Mister. He rounded off the decade as the producer of Hannay and Storyboard.

The Nineties began with Stewart producing another hit, as he helped to launch Catherine Zeta-Jones' career with The Darling Buds Of May. He went on to produce another of his own creations, Moon And Son, before working on McCallum for Philip Hinchcliffe, who was now the Controller of Drama for Scottish Television. Stewart's final scriptwriting credit was for My Uncle Silas at the start of the new millennium. Although he was keen to continue working in television, Stewart was frustrated to find his age a barrier in securing work. Instead, he adapted an unsuccessful television pitch into a novel: The Hurricane's Tail was released by Kaleidoscope Publishing in 2012. Stewart followed it with his 2015 autobiography, To Put You In The Picture, from Miwk Publishing. He succumbed to cancer just three months later, on January 14th, 2016.