Born: 1st February 1946 (as Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen)
Died: 19th April 2011
Episodes Broadcast: 1973-1976, 1981, 1983, 1993, 2006-2011

Born in Liverpool, Merseyside, Elisabeth Heath-Sladen took dance lessons from a young age and started acting in school plays. As a teenager, she danced in Christmas shows with the Royal Ballet. Sladen attended the Elliott-Clarke Drama School, which led to appearances in the television talent show Search For A Star and the 1964 film Ferry Cross The Mersey starring Gerry and the Pacemakers. She also began to work in theatre, and took a job as an assistant stage manager with the Liverpool Playhouse. There she met actor Brian Miller, and they married in 1968. Sladen began winning larger roles in theatre, and she and Miller frequently collaborated with playwright and director Alan Ayckbourn. At the same time, she started moving into radio, and made her debut in television drama with a 1967 edition of ITV Playhouse.

Sladen's first major role came in six 1970 episodes of the soap opera Coronation Street. She and Miller relocated to London, which provided Sladen with more opportunities to audition for television. She was soon appearing in programmes such as Doomwatch, Z Cars and Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em. Then, during the spring of 1973, Sladen was invited to audition for the role of Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who, having been recommended to producer Barry Letts by his Z Cars counterpart, Ron Craddock. April Walker had already been cast as an earlier version of the new companion but the production team had reconsidered following objections from Jon Pertwee, who played the Third Doctor. This time, Sladen won the role and made her debut in The Time Warrior, the premiere adventure of Pertwee's final season.

It was with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor that Sladen and Sarah Jane Smith would become indelibly linked

However, it was with Tom Baker's Fourth Doctor that Sladen and Sarah Jane would become indelibly linked. The two characters were paired for two and a half years, during what was arguably Doctor Who's most successful run of the twentieth century. Sladen finally left in 1976's The Hand Of Fear. The same year, she featured alongside Baker in a Doctor Who audio drama for Argo Records called The Pescatons. Sladen subsequently presented several children's series such as Merry-Go-Round; she acted most frequently on the stage, although television appearances included Take My Wife... and she had a small role in the 1980 action movie Silver Dream Racer.

In 1980, it was decided that Tom Baker would leave Doctor Who at the end of its eighteenth season, after seven years in the title role. To help introduce viewers to the first new Doctor in more than half a decade, producer John Nathan-Turner hoped to bring back a popular companion, and Sladen was at the top of his list. Although she refused the offer, this communication led to the inclusion of Sarah Jane Smith in 1981's A Girl's Best Friend, the pilot for a proposed Doctor Who spin-off called K·9 And Company, featuring the popular robot dog who had been introduced in 1977. Sadly, this project did not proceed to series, but Sladen soon returned as Sarah Jane in The Five Doctors, celebrating Doctor Who's twentieth anniversary in 1983. Around the same time, Sladen appeared in the classics serial Gulliver In Lilliput for Barry Letts, and an episode of Dempsey And Makepeace.

In 1985, Sladen and Miller welcomed a daughter, Sadie. Sladen thereafter chose to put her acting career on the backburner: she made only two further television appearances during the Eighties, in Alice In Wonderland and The Bill, and turned down an opportunity for a regular role on Emmerdale Farm. For Doctor Who's thirtieth anniversary in 1993, Sladen reprised Sarah Jane for Dimensions In Time, and also appeared in the documentary 30 Years In The TARDIS alongside her daughter -- who wore a miniature version of her mother's Andy Pandy outfit from The Hand Of Fear! Sladen also recorded two radio plays which reunited Sarah Jane with the Third Doctor: 1993's The Paradise Of Death and The Ghosts Of N-Space, which had its broadcast delayed until 1996. In 1995, she played Sarah Jane in the unofficial Doctor Who video release Downtime from Reeltime Pictures.

Away from Doctor Who, Sladen's Nineties credits included Men Of The World, Faith In The Future, and a recurring role in Peak Practice. However, she was increasingly unhappy with the television industry and, by the late Nineties, she considered herself to be retired. In 2002, Sladen recorded the first of two seasons of Sarah Jane Smith audio plays for Big Finish Productions. Sadie joined her mother, portraying computer hacker Natalie Redfern. Sladen also played Miss Lime in Big Finish's fortieth-anniversary Doctor Who special, Zagreus.

Initially apprehensive, Sladen was persuaded to return to Doctor Who by the emotional story Russell T Davies wanted to tell

Then, in 2005, Doctor Who made a wildly successful return to television after an absence of many years. For its second season, executive producer Russell T Davies was keen to bring back a well-known companion from the programme's original run, and he felt that Sarah Jane Smith was ideal for this purpose. Although Sladen was initially apprehensive, she was persuaded by the emotional story Davies wanted to tell; this became School Reunion, featuring David Tennant as the Tenth Doctor and juxtaposing Sarah Jane with current companion Rose Tyler, played by Billie Piper.

Sladen's presence was so effective that plans were soon in the works for a spin-off series. The Sarah Jane Adventures debuted on New Year's Day 2007 with Enemy Of The Bane, providing Doctor Who-like adventures aimed at a slightly younger audience than the parent programme. Pairing Sarah Jane with several teenaged characters, including adoptive children Luke and Sky, The Sarah Jane Adventures ran for four full seasons. During this period, Sladen appeared in Doctor Who twice more, first in the 2008 season finale The Stolen Planet / Journey's End, and then receiving a visit from a regenerating Tenth Doctor in 2010's The End Of Time. The stars of Doctor Who returned the favour, with Tennant appearing on The Sarah Jane Adventures in 2009's The Wedding Of Sarah Jane Smith, and Eleventh Doctor Matt Smith joining Sladen for Death Of The Doctor in 2010.

A fifth season of The Sarah Jane Adventures was partly completed, with plans for a sixth well underway, when Sladen was diagnosed with cancer in February 2011. Sadly, the disease progressed quickly, and Sladen passed away on April 19th. For many adult Doctor Who fans, this day marked the loss of a favourite actress and character -- the best of the Doctor's best friends. For many children, however, it represented this loss of their own best friend: through The Sarah Jane Adventures, Sladen had made an abiding connection to a brand new generation of television viewers, whose lives were enriched by the exploits of Sarah Jane Smith and her young friends.

The first episode of Doctor Who's 2011 season, The Impossible Astronaut, was dedicated to Sladen's memory. The same day, CBBC aired My Sarah Jane: A Tribute To Elisabeth Sladen. The truncated fifth season of The Sarah Jane Adventures was broadcast the following autumn, concluding with The Man Who Never Was in October. Elisabeth Sladen: The Autobiography was published by Aurum Press in November. Sladen's husband, Brian Miller, played a tramp named Barney in Peter Capaldi's first episode as the Twelfth Doctor, Deep Breath, in 2014; he had earlier appeared as the showman Dugdale in 1983's Snakedance, an adventure of Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor. Big Finish subsequently recast the role of Sarah Jane Smith, with Sladen's daughter, Sadie Miller, taking over for her mother from Return Of The Cybermen in 2021.