Born: 20th August 1962
Episodes Broadcast: 1987-1989, 1993, 2022

Sophie Aldred hailed from London, having been born in Greenwich and raised in Blackheath. Her father worked in advertising and, by age two, Aldred was appearing in his promotional campaigns. An interest in performance was kindled, and she was regularly involved in plays throughout her schooldays. Although Aldred's father wanted her to follow in his footsteps and go to Oxford University, she instead chose to study drama at Manchester University, from which she graduated in 1983. A talented musician, Aldred spent a period performing cabaret before she decided to specialise in children's entertainment. She had appeared in a number of stage productions when she successfully auditioned for Doctor Who in 1987.

An inveterate tomboy, Aldred was tailor-made for the role of Ace but, initially, there was no certainty that the character would continue beyond the Season Twenty-Four finale, Dragonfire. That changed on the first day of recording, and Ace would be paired with Sylvester McCoy's Seventh Doctor for the final two seasons of Doctor Who's original run, in the process forging one of the most popular TARDIS duos in the programme's history. Aldred would help influence Ace's unprecedented level of character development, presaging the more well-rounded companions who would follow in the twenty-first century. Meanwhile, Aldred was also establishing herself as a presenter on children's television; in fact, her television debut came not on Doctor Who but in the second-season premiere of Corners, which she would host until 1991.

In 1996, Aldred co-wrote the retrospective Ace!: The Inside Story Of The End Of An Era

Although Doctor Who ended with 1989's Survival, Aldred was back as Ace in a 1990 episode of the schools programme Search Out Science, and again in the charity special Dimensions In Time. She was also involved in several direct-to-video dramas which brought together numerous Doctor Who alumni, including 1992's More Than A Messiah from BBV and 1994's Shakedown: Return Of The Sontarans from DreamWatch Media. In 1996, Aldred and Mike Tucker co-wrote the retrospective Ace!: The Inside Story Of The End Of An Era, released by Virgin Publishing. Various youth-oriented programmes during the Nineties included Melvin & Maureen's Music-a-Grams, Wimzie's House, WOW! and ZZZap!. Two EastEnders episodes in 1993 represented a rarer foray into adult television; the same year, Aldred made her West End debut in Lust Circa 1661. She married her presenting colleague Vince Henderson in 1997, and gave birth to sons Adam in 2001 and William in 2003.

Aldred was part of the initial group of stars to join Big Finish Productions' range of Doctor Who audio dramas. The first of many releases reuniting her with McCoy was 2000's The Fearmonger, in which her husband also appeared. In 2001, Aldred co-starred with McCoy in the webcast Death Comes To Time. Indeed, voicework was becoming an increasingly prominent part of Aldred's career, and also saw her involvement in programmes such as Sergeant Stripes, Noddy In Toyland and Dennis & Gnasher. During the 2010s, Aldred could be heard in everything from Bananas In Pyjamas to Tree Fu Tom to Peter Rabbit to the American version of Bob The Builder. She also made a cameo appearance in the spoof The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, which formed part of the celebrations of Doctor Who's fiftieth anniversary in 2013. Another Doctor Who-related appearance came in the 2019 video drama Sil and The Devil Seeds Of Arodor from Reeltime Pictures.

At one stage, former Doctor Who executive producer Russell T Davies had hoped to bring Ace back to television in the spin-off series The Sarah Jane Adventures. Although these plans had to be abandoned following the untimely death of series star Elisabeth Sladen, some of Davies' ideas influenced Aldred's appearance in a specially-produced trailer for the 2019 Blu-ray release of Season Twenty-Six. They were also echoed in Aldred's first novel, At Childhood's End. Published by BBC Books in 2020, it saw Ace -- now a successful philanthropist -- meet the Thirteenth Doctor many years after her travels in the TARDIS. Aldred then returned to televised Doctor Who in 2022, reprising Ace for The Power Of The Doctor, which celebrated the BBC's centenary and saw the regeneration of the Thirteenth Doctor as played by Jodie Whittaker. The following year, she was back in character again for an episode of Tales Of The TARDIS on BBC iPlayer, which featured an abridged version of The Curse Of Fenric.