Born: 8th June 1943
Episodes Broadcast: 1984-1986, 1993, 2013, 2022

Colin Baker was born in Waterloo, London during an air raid, and nearly perished some weeks later when flying shrapnel struck his cot. After the end of the Second World War, he moved with his family to Rochdale, Greater Manchester, where he started acting in school plays. Baker's television debut came at the age of thirteen, in a 1956 episode of My Wife's Sister. But while acting remained an interest of Baker's, he didn't view it as a serious career option, and instead began to train as a solicitor. The lure of the stage eventually persuaded him to become involved in amateur dramatics. When his father suffered a stroke, it was the motivation Baker needed to change the course of his life. He gained admission to the London Academy Of Music And Dramatic Art, graduating in 1969.

Shortly thereafter, Baker was treading the boards in repertory theatre, and he returned to television in 1970 with several episodes of Roads To Freedom. He was soon finding steady work, including on Cousin Bette, War & Peace, Harriet's Back In Town and Fall Of Eagles. In 1974, an appearance as Paul Merroney in The Brothers turned into a regular role, with Baker becoming one of British television's best-loved villains. In 1976, he married co-star Liza Goddard, who would later appear in the 1983 Doctor Who serial Terminus. Their relationship ended in divorce in 1978. With The Brothers having wrapped up, Baker found himself typecast; he concentrated on theatre and radio work for the remainder of the decade, with a 1979 episode of Doctors And Nurses marking a rare television appearance.

Baker assumed that playing Maxil in Arc Of Infinity meant that he could no longer aspire to play the Doctor one day

However, Baker began to take on more television roles as the Eighties dawned, including episodes of Blake's 7, Juliet Bravo and The Citadel. He also made inquiries about the title role in Doctor Who once news emerged in 1980 that Tom Baker's lengthy tenure as the Doctor was coming to an end. Instead, Peter Davison became the Fifth Doctor and Baker accepted the role of Maxil, commander of Gallifrey's Chancellery Guard, in the 1983 serial Arc Of Infinity. Baker had mixed feelings about the job, since he assumed it meant that he could no longer aspire to play the Doctor himself one day. Instead, it became one of several interactions with producer John Nathan-Turner which led him to offer Baker the role of the Sixth Doctor in 1983.

Sadly, the happy news was marred by tragedy in Baker's personal life. He had married actress Marion Wyatt in 1982, and their son Jack was born in 1983. After accepting the role of the Doctor, Baker left on a Scandinavian tour of The Mousetrap, only to learn that Jack had become a victim of cot death, aged just seven weeks. Baker would thereafter become a staunch ally of the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. He and his wife would subsequently have four daughters: Lucy, Bindy, Lally and Rosie.

Unusually, Baker made his debut as the Sixth Doctor in the penultimate story of Doctor Who's 1984 season, The Caves Of Androzani. The idea was to give audiences a chance to acclimate to the new Doctor before the long break between seasons, and so Baker's first full adventure was the Season Twenty-One finale, The Twin Dilemma. Baker found himself uneasy about some of Nathan-Turner's decisions, such as the Sixth Doctor's intentionally tacky coat of many colours; the actor himself had suggested an outfit in black velvet. Beyond Doctor Who, Baker also played the Sixth Doctor in a 1985 episode of the wish-fulfillment show Jim'll Fix It.

To his chagrin, Baker soon discovered that he had taken the reins of Doctor Who at a time when Nathan-Turner was falling out with his script editor, Eric Saward, and the BBC brass was becoming hostile to the programme. Concerns about violence mounted over the course of the 1985 season, leading to the unprecedented decision to delay the 1986 episodes by eight months while the production team retooled the show. In the interim, Baker starred in the Doctor Who radio drama Slipback. When Doctor Who returned to television, it was in the form of the season-long The Trial Of A Time Lord. Baker had nearly been fired by the BBC before production resumed, but Nathan-Turner had stood up for his lead actor. Simultaneously, Baker recorded an appearance as the Doctor in Roland Rat: The Series.

Sadly, the new Doctor Who format was not well-received by viewers. Once again, BBC executives demanded Baker's ouster; this time, Nathan-Turner was unable to deter them. Baker was offered a final adventure which would culminate in his regeneration, but he refused to return for anything less than a full season. As a result, the concluding installment of The Trial Of A Time Lord became his swansong; the brief glimpse of the Sixth Doctor seen at the start of the 1987 premiere, Time And The Rani, was actually new series star Sylvester McCoy in a wig. It was a devastating end to Baker's tenure as the Doctor -- one which had begun with ambitions to best Tom Baker's seven-season run.

In 1994, Baker co-wrote the Sixth Doctor graphic novel The Age Of Chaos

Despite Baker's acrimonious exit from Doctor Who, however, it wasn't long before he was back in the Sixth Doctor's “totally tasteless” costume. In the summer of 1989, he succeeded Third Doctor Jon Pertwee in a tour of the stage play Doctor Who: The Ultimate Adventure. From 1991, Baker starred in a number of video dramas from BBV, in which he primarily played “The Stranger”, a character which was initially the Sixth Doctor in all but name. Then, in 1993, Baker was the genuine Sixth Doctor in Dimensions In Time, a charity special made for Doctor Who's thirtieth anniversary. In 1994, he co-wrote The Age Of Chaos with Barrie Mitchell; the Sixth Doctor graphic novel was published by Marvel UK.

Having concentrated on the theatre for several years, Baker began to reestablish his presence on television as the Nineties wore on, with credits including The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles, The Famous Five and The Knock. He was also the very first murder victim in Jonathan Creek. Baker became a regular columnist for the Bucks Free Press in 1995, beginning a run of opinion pieces which would last for more than two decades. In 1999, Baker joined the nascent range of Doctor Who audio dramas from Big Finish Productions. He appeared alongside Davison and McCoy in the very first release, The Sirens Of Time, before Whispers Of Terror became his first solo outing later that year. Baker would thrive in the audio medium, which finally gave him the opportunity to develop his Doctor in the manner he had originally wanted. In 2002, he made the leap online with the Cyberman thriller Real Time.

Baker's other work beyond the turn of the century included programmes such as Hollyoaks, Kingdom, Hustle, and no fewer than four characters in Doctors. He released several compilations of his Bucks Free Press columns, beginning with Look Who's Talking from Hirst Publishing in 2009. In 2012, Baker was the eighth-place finisher in the twelfth season of the reality competition I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out Of Here!. The following year, he co-starred in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, a spoof celebrating Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary. Baker then reprised the Sixth Doctor for 2022's The Power Of The Doctor, which celebrated the BBC's centenary and saw the regeneration of Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor. The following year, he could be seen as the Doctor again in an episode of Tales Of The TARDIS on BBC iPlayer, which featured an abridged version of Vengeance On Varos.