Born: 20th August 1943 (as Percy James Patrick Kent-Smith)
Episodes Broadcast: 1987-1989, 1993, 1996, 2013, 2022

James Kent-Smith was born in Dunoon, Scotland to an English father and an Irish mother. Sadly, he never knew his father, who was killed during wartime service with the Royal Navy four months before the birth of his only child. During his youth, Kent-Smith spent three years in Aberdeen training for the priesthood, until he decided he was more interested in girls than God. At age eighteen, he moved to London and found employment in the insurance industry. After five years, his employer closed -- much to Kent-Smith's relief, as he had come to despise the trade. Instead, he took a job at the box office of the Roundhouse, a performing arts venue in Chalk Farm. There he was recruited by Ken Campbell for his Roadshow comedy troupe in 1970. It was Campbell who gave Kent-Smith the stage name “Sylvester McCoy” (sometimes modified to “Sylveste McCoy”). This was the moniker of a strongman character he was playing and, when a reporter confused it for Kent-Smith's real name, the gag stuck.

Developing a penchant for physical comedy -- including shoving nails up his nose and ferrets down his trousers -- McCoy was amongst the performers featured in a 1971 documentary for BBC2's Review. He was soon appearing in children's programmes, initially in a 1973 episode of Roberts Robots and then on several seasons of Vision On and Tiswas. Adult-oriented television in the Seventies included an episode of Lucky Feller, and as a regular castmember on For The Love Of Albert. McCoy made his movie debut in the 1979 Frank Langella version of Dracula. By this time, he had married Agnes Verkaik, and sons Sam and Joe were born in 1976 and 1977, respectively.

In 1983, McCoy put his name forward for consideration as the Sixth Doctor, unaware that Colin Baker had already been cast

During the Eighties, McCoy had stints on Jigsaw, Big Jim And The Figaro Club, Eureka and The Last Place On Earth. He also remained busy on stage, including a 1982 run of The Pirates Of Penzance with Bonnie Langford. In 1983, when it was announced that Peter Davison was leaving Doctor Who, McCoy asked his agent to put his name forward for consideration as the next Doctor, unaware that Colin Baker had already been cast in the role. However, when Baker was fired from Doctor Who at the end of 1986, McCoy tried again. Although he was met with initial resistance from BBC Head of Drama Jonathan Powell, McCoy's auditions eventually won him over. He made his debut as the Seventh Doctor in 1987's Time And The Rani, where he was reunited with Langford, who had joined Doctor Who as companion Melanie Bush the year before.

McCoy's arrival on Doctor Who came at a time when the programme was little loved by BBC upper management, and was regularly scheduled in unforgiving timeslots. Nonetheless, McCoy helped to reinvigorate the show, bolstered by a new style of storytelling nurtured by script editor Andrew Cartmel, and energised by the chemistry he shared with Langford's successor, Sophie Aldred, who played Ace. Although his early serials leaned heavily on comedy elements, McCoy worked to infuse his Doctor with a compelling sense of darkness, danger and mystery in stories like 1989's The Curse Of Fenric (which also featured cameo appearances by his sons as young Haemovores). Nonetheless, Doctor Who's ratings remained weak, and the programme was cancelled after McCoy's third season in 1989.

The Seventh Doctor, however, quickly transcended the demise of Doctor Who. McCoy reprised the role for an episode of the educational programme Search Out Science, and again for the 1993 charity special Dimensions In Time, which helped celebrate Doctor Who's thirtieth anniversary. He joined other Doctor Who alumni for a pair of direct-to-video dramas from BBV: The Airzone Solution in 1993 and The Zero Imperative in 1994. And when Philip David Segal tried to relaunch Doctor Who as an American co-production in 1996, McCoy was there, handing over the TARDIS key to Eighth Doctor Paul McGann. Other Nineties television included Rab C Nesbitt, Ghostlands, Beyond Fear and The History Of Tom Jones, A Foundling. In 1999, McCoy was one of the first Doctor Who stars to sign up for the range of audio dramas from Big Finish Productions. He could initially be heard alongside his two predecessors, Davison and Baker, in The Sirens Of Time, before 2000's The Fearmonger became the first of many Seventh Doctor releases.

A role on Doctors, in which McCoy played a former science-fiction star, was especially written for him

If anything, McCoy's television career started to pick up steam after the turn of the century. During the following decade, his appearances included Casualty, Hollyoaks and The Bill. A guest role on Doctors, in which he played the aging former star of a beloved science-fiction programme, was especially written for him. McCoy was the Seventh Doctor again in the experimental Death Comes To Time, the first webcast made for the BBC's Doctor Who website, between 2001 and 2002.

Having barely missed out on the opportunity to play Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's movie adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings, McCoy won the role of Radagast the Brown in the prequel trilogy, The Hobbit, which started arriving in theatres in 2012. Other movie roles that decade included The Christmas Candle, while amongst McCoy's small screen credits were Crims, Sense8, Holby City and Zapped. He also travelled to India as one of the castmembers of the 2016 reality series The Real Marigold Hotel. In 2013, McCoy appeared prominently in The Five(ish) Doctors Reboot, a satirical tribute to Doctor Who in honour of its fiftieth anniversary. McCoy's career continued into the Twenties, when he co-starred with Maisie Williams in the horror film The Owners. In 2022, he reprised the Seventh Doctor for The Power Of The Doctor, which celebrated the BBC's centenary and saw the regeneration of Jodie Whittaker's Thirteenth Doctor. The following year, McCoy could be seen as the Doctor again in an episode of Tales Of The TARDIS on BBC iPlayer, which featured an abridged version of The Curse Of Fenric.