- Born
- Died
- Birth namePatrick George Troughton
- Nickname
- Pat
- Height1.71 m
- Patrick Troughton was born in Mill Hill, London and was educated at Mill Hill School. He trained as an actor at the Embassy School of Acting in the UK and at Leighton Rollin's Studio for for Actors at Long Island, New York in the USA. During World War II he served in the Royal Navy and after the war ended he joined the Old Vic and became a Shakespearean actor. He won his most famous role as the second Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), in 1966 and played the role for three years. His hobbies included golf, sailing and fishing. He was a father of six (David, Jane, Joanna, Mark, Michael and Peter), a stepfather to Gill and Graham and a grandfather to Harry Melling, Jamie and Sam Troughton.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Paul Austin Austinac@deakin.edu.au
- Patrick Troughton was born on 25 March 1920 and grew up in North London, where he was educated at Mill Hill Public School. In his teens he attended the Embassy School of Acting at Swiss Cottage, under Eileen Thorndike. From there he won a scholarship to the Leighton Rallius Studios at the John Drew Memorial Theatre on Long Island in New York. When the Second World War broke out, he returned to Britain on a Belgian ship. Just in sight of the coast the ship hit a mine and sank, but Troughton was fortunate enough to escape in a lifeboat. In 1939 he joined the Tonbridge Repertory Company before joining the Royal Navy in 1940, rising through the ranks to attain the captaincy of a motor gunboat on duty in the North Sea. When he was demobbed in 1945 he returned to the theatre, working with the Amersham Repertory Company, the Bristol Old Vic Company and the Pilgrim Players at the Mercury Theatre in Nottingham.
He first broke into television, always to remain his favorite medium, in 1947. Notable early work included parts in Robin Hood (1953), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955), Paul of Tarsus (1960), Dr. Finlay's Casebook (1962) and, perhaps best remembered of all, The Old Curiosity Shop (1962), as Quilp. His cinema debut came in 1948, with small roles in Hamlet (1948) and Escape (1948), with William Hartnell.
Patrick Troughton is best known for his portrayal of The Doctor in Doctor Who (1963) (1966-69), replacing Hartnell.- IMDb Mini Biography By: A. Nonymous
- SpousesMargaret Dunlop(1943 - 1957) (2 children)Shelagh Dunlop(? - March 28, 1987) (his death, 4 children)
- Children
- RelativesJim Troughton(Grandchild)Harry Melling(Grandchild)Sam Troughton(Grandchild)
- Troughton died while attending a science fiction convention (Magnum Opus Con) in the United States. His successor as the Doctor, Jon Pertwee, also died of a heart attack while visiting the U.S.
- When it was announced in 1980 that Peter Davison was to play the Fifth Doctor, he advised the 29-year-old actor to limit his time on the series to three years, as he had done, in order to avoid being typecast. Davison followed this advise. In March 1987, only weeks before Troughton's death, Davison advised Sylvester McCoy, who had been announced as the Seventh Doctor that month, to do likewise.
- He was an excellent swordsman.
- Although he is now fondly remembered for his role as the Second Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), with his performance in the role being either praised or cited as an influence by almost all of his successors, including Tom Baker, Peter Davison, Colin Baker, Sylvester McCoy, David Tennant, Matt Smith and Peter Capaldi, Troughton's period as the star of the series was also the worst affected by the BBC's policy in the 1970s of wiping programmes. Of the 21 serials Troughton starred in as the Doctor between 1966 and 1969, only seven are known to exist in their entirety. As of 2023, using available soundtrack recordings, six of Troughton's serials have been partially or fully reconstructed using CGI animation.
- He was the only actor to play the Doctor and his nemesis in the same story, which was The Enemy of the World: Episode 1 (1967), in which he played a Hispanic dictator named Salamander. It is considered by many to be a tour de force by Troughton during his time on the series. Unfortunately, at some point between 1972 and 1978, the BBC wiped all except episode three of this serial. However, the discovery of 16mm film prints of the complete serial in Nigeria made national news in the UK in the series' 50th anniversary year.
- Doctor Who (1963) gave me a chance to indulge my passion for dressing up and being able to have some sly fun as well as a bit of clowning.
- I've done a lot of swashbuckling in my time - ever since Joy Harington gave me my first real television chance in Kidnapped (1956).
- I'm ready to play anything.
- If, as a character actor, you go around promoting your own personality, you're defeating the very thing you're trying to achieve as an actor, which is to be anonymous as a person and only emerge as somebody else on screen. That's the main reason I've stayed away from interviews. It's like a conjurer telling you how he does his tricks all the time.
- When I finished in the role I was fairly young and I had to get back to the variety of roles which I had been doing. Otherwise, if you stay too long you come into a play and everyone says, 'Oh, it's Doctor Who!' And that's no good. You must try and get them to forget -- hoodwink them into forgetting.
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