Fiona Cumming
Born: 9th October 1937
Died: 1st January 2015 (aged 77 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1982-1984
Fiona Cumming was born in Edinburgh, Scotland and originally planned to
become an actress, attending the Royal Scottish Academy in Glasgow. Her
parents also prevailed upon her to train as a teacher at the University
of Glasgow, but Cumming was soon earning acting roles, including her
television debut in a 1955 edition of BBC Sunday-Night Theatre.
She could soon be seen in episodes of Sunday's Child,
Suspense and Dr Finlay's Casebook, and then worked as an
interviewer with Border Television. However, Cumming was now eager to
move behind the camera; she spent part of 1963 teaching before taking up
a post with the BBC as an assistant floor manager in 1964. Her first
involvement with Doctor Who came in this capacity, on 1966's The Massacre Of St Bartholomew's
Eve, with William Hartnell as the First Doctor, and later that
year on The Highlanders, by
which time Patrick Troughton had taken over the title role.
In the late Sixties, Cumming was promoted to production assistant; this
brought her back to Doctor Who in 1969 for The Seeds Of Death, one of
Troughton's last serials. By the time she worked with the Third Doctor,
Jon Pertwee, on 1972's The
Mutants, she had already enrolled in the BBC's internal
directors' course. Cumming's first directing credit came on episodes of
Z Cars in 1974. She also worked on programmes such as The
Master Of Ballantrae and Angels, but was still primarily
employed as a production assistant, including on episodes of Murder
Most English and Shoestring.
For Planet Of Fire, Cumming
convinced producer John Nathan-Turner to film in Lanzarote
Fed up with the BBC's refusal to let her direct full-time, Cumming went
freelance in 1979. She was soon busy on shows like Square Mile Of
Murder and Blake's 7. Following an episode of The Omega
Factor, she began a romance with production manager Ian Fraser; they
were married in 1981. In a span of three years, Cumming made four
serials for Peter Davison's Fifth Doctor, including his broadcast debut
in 1982's Castrovalva. For her
final Doctor Who serial, Planet
Of Fire in 1984, she convinced producer John Nathan-Turner to
film in Lanzarote, one of Spain's Canary Islands. An expected return to
Doctor Who for “The
Ultimate Evil” fell through when the BBC cancelled all of the
original plans for the 1986 season. Cumming and her husband did make an
on-screen cameo appearance as tourists in 1988's Silver Nemesis.
Cumming's other work during the Eighties included an installment of
Dramarama and numerous episodes of Emmerdale Farm. She
also began working on Take The High Road, and was eventually made
its associate producer. During the Nineties, Cumming directed for
Eldorado, and made more than a hundred installments of
Machair before retiring from television. In the mid-Nineties, she
and Fraser formed Teynham Productions in collaboration with
Nathan-Turner; the company mainly focussed on pantomime productions. The
couple then moved to Denmark for an opportunity to teach at a film
school. After five years, they returned to the UK, where Cumming
successfully battled lung cancer. The disease was in remission by 2009,
but sadly made an aggressive return in 2014. Cumming died on New Year's
Day 2015.
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