Born: 25th March 1920 (as Patrick George Troughton)
Died: 28th March 1987 (aged 67 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1966-1969, 1972, 1983, 1985

The middle child in a family of three, Patrick Troughton was born in Mill Hill, Middlesex. He was in plays while at school, and then studied at the Embassy School of Acting. In 1939, he started an exchange with the Leighton Rallius Studios in New York, an opportunity which was cut short by the outbreak of World War Two. Troughton travelled back to England aboard a Belgian ship which struck a mine although, fortunately, he and everyone else aboard were rescued. Troughton joined the Royal Navy in 1940, and received several decorations before returning to civilian life in 1945. In 1943, he married Margaret Dunlop; they would have three children together, of whom sons David and Michael both became actors and appeared in Doctor Who. David was in four stories between 1967 and 2008, most notably as the King in The Curse Of Peladon. Michael played Professor Albert in the 2014 holiday special Last Christmas.

Returning to acting, Troughton pursued repertory work. However, he was never comfortable on stage, and derided the theatre as “shouting the evenings”. On Christmas Day 1946, he made his first radio appearance in the nativity story Christ's Comet. Ten months later, Troughton was on television in a broadcast version of the play Edward II. His film debut came in 1948, as the Player King in Laurence Olivier's celebrated Hamlet. During the Fifties, Troughton starred regularly in classics serials and telefilms, including Toad Of Toad Hall, The Scarlet Pimpernel and two versions of Kidnapped. In 1953, he became television's first Robin Hood, and an image of him in this role could later be seen in the 2014 Doctor Who story Robot Of Sherwood. Troughton and his wife divorced in 1955; a longstanding relationship with Ethel “Bunny” Nuens would subsequently produce three children.

Troughton was particularly fond of his role as Daniel Quilp in The Old Curiosity Shop

Troughton started to diversify his roles towards the end of the decade, and the early Sixties saw him cast in everything from Compact to No Cloak -- No Dagger to A Tale Of Two Cities to Dr Finlay's Casebook. He was often heavily made up, especially when cast as foreign villains. In Smuggler's Bay (1964), he appeared alongside Frazer Hines, who would later star as companion Jamie McCrimmon in all but one of Troughton's Doctor Who serials. Troughton was particularly fond of his role as Daniel Quilp in a 1962 adaptation of The Old Curiosity Shop. Occasional movie roles included The Moonraker with George Baker, the 1962 Hammer Films version of The Phantom Of The Opera, and Jason And The Argonauts (1963) with its celebrated Ray Harryhausen stop-motion special effects.

Two more Hammer titles followed in the mid-Sixties: the horror movie The Gorgon and the adventure film The Viking Queen. It was while making the latter in June 1966 that Troughton received an invitation from Doctor Who producer Innes Lloyd to replace William Hartnell as the Doctor. Troughton -- who had recently turned down an opportunity to appear as outlaw Johnny Ringo in The Gunfighters -- was concerned about Doctor Who's longevity, given that it had already been on the air for three years. An intensely private man, he was also wary of the increased profile that playing the Doctor would bring. However, the prospect of financial security to help him support his two families was too enticing to resist.

Troughton's Doctor was initially glimpsed in the closing seconds of The Tenth Planet, with The Power Of The Daleks serving as his first full story. Troughton's tenure on Doctor Who saw ratings climb as his impish Doctor was pitted against a succession of memorable monsters, most notably the Cybermen. However, he was exhausted by the gruelling pace of production on the series, and a perceived dip in script quality during his third season convinced Troughton that it was time to leave. His final serial was the ten-part The War Games in 1969. He would be replaced by Jon Pertwee.

Although Troughton had worried that he would be typecast as the Doctor, his post-Doctor Who career never missed a beat, and he immediately started work on The Six Wives Of Henry VIII. Dozens of television appearances during the Seventies included A Family At War, Coronation Street, The Feathered Serpent and Hawkeye, The Pathfinder. There were genre parts as well, such as Doomwatch, Out Of The Unknown, Survivors and Space: 1999. In 1972, he was back on Doctor Who for The Three Doctors to celebrate the start of the programme's tenth season. On the silver screen, Troughton made two more Hammer horrors, was memorably ill-fated in the classic 1976 fright film The Omen, and appeared in 1977's Sinbad and The Eye Of The Tiger, which also featured Harryhausen effects. His last movie was children's fare A Hitch In Time (1978), in which he again played a time traveller.

Troughton played yet another time traveller in The Box Of Delights

Following the end of his twenty-year relationship with Nuens, Troughton married Shelagh Holdup in 1976. Soon thereafter, however, his health became a significant concern, with a heart attack forcing him to drop out of a 1979 version of The Old Curiosity Shop, in which he would have reprised the role of Quilp. Nonetheless, Troughton maintained a steady pace of work as the Eighties dawned. He had regular roles on shows like Nanny, Foxy Lady and The Two Of Us, and played yet another time traveller in The Box Of Delights. Troughton returned to Doctor Who twice more, for 1983's The Five Doctors and 1985's The Two Doctors. In between, however, he suffered a second major heart attack in 1984.

Troughton also discovered the joy of attending Doctor Who conventions, although his lifelong determination to avoid the glare of the British press meant that he chiefly appeared at American events. Sadly, it was at one such convention in Columbus, Georgia on March 28th, 1987 that Troughton suffered a third heart attack; he died instantly. The world thus lost not only one of Britain's great character actors, but also the man who indelibly charted the course for Doctor Who's future. Troughton's incarnation did much more than merely establish that audiences would accept a version of the lead character very different from William Hartnell's portrayal. He reinvented the Doctor as a fundamentally heroic character -- one who knew that there were corners of the universe which bred terrible things, and who was determined that they must be fought. This would become a fundamental tenet of Doctor Who ever after.

Troughton's final acting role was in an episode of Super Gran broadcast two months after his death. In the 2013 telefilm An Adventure In Space And Time, Troughton was portrayed by Reece Shearsmith. In 2011, Hirst Publishing released Patrick Troughton: The Biography Of The Second Doctor Who by his son, Michael.