Tom Baker Net Worth

Tom Baker's Quotes

• I wasn't interested in novelty. I was looking for good drama.
• To want to be an actor, especially these days, is to be ill.
• I am a one success man.
• I think quite often a fate worse than death is life, for lots of people.
• The Old Testament is my favourite science fantasy reading.

Interesting Facts about Tom Baker

1. His incarnation of the Doctor has made silent cameo appearances several times in both The Simpsons (1989) and Futurama (1999). Matt Groening is said to be fan of Doctor Who (1963). However Baker himself has never been a guest star on either show.
2. He is the longest-serving actor to have portrayed the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963), having played the role for seven seasons from 1974 to 1981, a total of 172 episodes. In second place is his immediate predecessor, Jon Pertwee, who played the Third Doctor for five seasons from 1970 to 1974.
3. For over 20 years, since the death of Jon Pertwee at the age of 76 on May 20, 1996, he has been both the oldest and earliest surviving Doctor from Doctor Who (1963). He has also outlived three of the actors who played his regular companions in the series, Ian Marter, Elisabeth Sladen and Mary Tamm.
4. Baker was a largely unknown, unemployed actor who had actually written to the BBC seeking work shortly before he was cast in his most famous role as the star of Doctor Who (1963). His appointment as Jon Pertwee's successor came after series producer Barry Letts had already considered for the role more famous actors such as Jim Dale, Richard Hearne, Michael Bentine, Graham Crowden, Fulton Mackay and Bernard Cribbins, all of whom had been discounted for various reasons. Letts was impressed by his performance as the villainous Koura in the film The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973).
5. He has performed with the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company.
6. He has two children with Anna Wheatcroft: Daniel and Piers.
7. Known for his rich, resonant voice, he has done a lot of voiceover work during his post-Doctor Who (1963) career, including many television commercials in the UK.
8. After his hair turned white, he claimed he had been mistaken by members of the public for his Doctor Who predecessor Jon Pertwee.
9. He trained at Rose Bruford Drama School in Sidcup, Kent, alongside Freddie Jones. Later members include actors Ray Fearon, Gary Oldman and Stephen Armourae.
10. Baker is the son of John Stewart Baker and Mary Jane (Fleming). Baker's paternal grandparents were Thomas Victor Baker, a farmer's son, and Sarah Grieve, who had Scottish ancestry, and was the daughter of Robert Grieve and Agnes Stewart. His maternal grandfather, William Henry Fleming, was born in Liverpool, to Irish parents, Bridget and John Fleming. His maternal grandmother, Christina Usher, was also born in Liverpool, to James Usher, who was from Drogheda, County Louth, Ireland, and Rose Ann Colligan, who was born in Glasgow, Lanarkshire, and had Irish ancestry.
11. During his youth he was an apprentice monk for six years and lived in a monastery on the island of Jersey.
12. He is the longest-lived actor to have played the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963). He surpassed his predecessor Jon Pertwee on December 5, 2010. He became the first Doctor to reach the age of 77 on January 20, 2011.
13. At 6'3", he was the tallest actor to play the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963). His immediate predecessor, Jon Pertwee, was marginally shorter at 6'2".
14. His period on Doctor Who (1963) was the ratings high point of the series and produced many of the most enduringly popular stories. In a 1998 poll in Doctor Who (1963) Magazine, five of the stories voted into the top ten were from his period: Doctor Who: City of Death: Part One (1979), Doctor Who: The Robots of Death: Part One (1977), Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars: Part One (1975), Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Part One (1977) and the story voted into first place, Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks: Part One (1975). In fan site Outpost Gallifrey's 40th anniversary poll, six of the stories voted into the top ten were from his period: Doctor Who: The Deadly Assassin: Part One (1976), Doctor Who: The Robots of Death: Part One (1977), Doctor Who: City of Death: Part One (1979), Doctor Who: Genesis of the Daleks: Part One (1975), Doctor Who: Pyramids of Mars: Part One (1975) and the serial voted into first place, Doctor Who: The Talons of Weng-Chiang: Part One (1977). In addition to this, in 2003 he was voted the best star of Doctor Who (1963) in a poll in the Radio Times and again in 2005 by readers of science fiction magazine SFX.
15. After leaving Doctor Who (1963) in 1981, he was reluctant to reprise his role as the Fourth Doctor. He refused to appear in the anniversary special Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (1983), so footage of him from the unfinished story Doctor Who: Shada (1992) was used instead, although he did appear briefly in the Comic Relief special Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time (1993). When Big Finish Productions started making new Doctor Who audio stories in 1999, he repeatedly turned down offers from them but eventually changed his mind and a series of stories starring him as the Fourth Doctor started being released from January 2012. According to Peter Davison in an interview in 2016, Baker doesn't like appearing with the other actors to have played the Doctor and he claimed there was a genuine tension between Baker and his predecessor Jon Pertwee whenever they met.
16. During his Doctor Who years he continued to spend much of his spare time drinking heavily in the pubs and bars of London and his drinking buddies included the artist Francis Bacon, the journalist Jeffrey Barnard, and Anthony Hopkins. He eventually gave up this lifestyle in the 1980s when he moved to Kent with his wife-to-be Sue Jerrard.
17. His first wife's uncle was the famous English rose grower Harry Wheatcroft.
18. He already possesses his own gravestone, with his name and year of birth carved onto it (but the year of death left blank). It resided in the graveyard next to the converted schoolhouse he used to live in before he moved.
19. He married his Doctor Who (1963) co-star Lalla Ward (who played the Doctor's companion Romana) when they were both leaving the program. They divorced 16 months later. She later married Richard Dawkins, one of the world's biggest proponents of atheism. Baker was once an apprentice Catholic monk but has since rejected religion and has spoken disparagingly about the religious indoctrination he experienced as a youth.
20. During his two years National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps, he worked as the curator of a small museum on his base which no one visited and then as an orderly at a military hospital in Germany.