Deborah Watling – RIP

Deborah Watling – RIP

GNR has just heard that Deborah Watling has died following a short battle with cancer, aged 69.

The actress was best known for her role as Victoria Waterfield – the companion of 2nd Doctor Patrick Troughton in the BBC’s sci-fi series Doctor Who.

She was diagnosed with lung cancer just six weeks ago.

Deborah was the daughter of 1940s film star Jack Watling and actress Patricia Hicks, and started acting at a young age.

Deborah Watling is best known for being in Doctor Who (Image: BBC)
She starred in Doctor Who from 1967 (Image: PA)

At just nine, she was a child actress in The Invisible Man and made her first televised appearance in an episode of William Tell.

But she got her big break in 1967 when she got the part of Victoria Waterfield in Doctor Who.

Many of Deborah’s episodes were lost by the BBC.

Tomb Of The Cybermen was discovered in Hong Kong in 1992 – it was later released on DVD.

Deborah was a child actress (Image: LWT / KMK)
Deborah with her father actor Jack Watling (Image: Mirrorpix)

Then in 2013, nine missing Doctor Who episodes from the 1960s featuring Patrick Troughton were recovered in Nigeria and made available for fans to watch.

Eleven episodes were discovered in total by Phillip Morris, director of Television International Enterprises Archive, from the tracking records of overseas shipments made by the BBC containing tapes for transmission, namely “The Enemy of the World” and “The Web of Fear”.

Unfortunately, episode three of “Web” is still missing however “The Doctor Who Restoration Team” reconstructed this part of the story using a selection of the 37 images that were available from the episode along with the original audio which has been restored.

Alongside Patrick Troughton who played both the Time Lord and his antagonist (Ramon Salamander) were his companions Frazer Hines (Jamie) and Deborah Watling (Victoria).

She also starred in films with David Essex and Cliff Richard (Image: Mirrorpix)
Deborah Watling played Doctor Who companion Victoria Waterfield (Image: Mirrorpix)

After her role as a prim Victorian lady, Deborah opened her own boutique.

But later she returned to acting and starred in hit movies with David Essex and Cliff Richard.

At the time of her death, Deborah lived in Thorpe-le-Soken with her husband Steve Turner.

The Doctor Who family responded on Twitter today:

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *