Barry Letts

Barry Letts started his career as an actor. He began in repertory in York whilst also working for a local radio station in Leeds. After a chance meeting with BBC producer/director Rex Tucker, he started working with him first on radio and then on television. His first television appearance was in a 1950 production of "Gunpowder Guy," about Guy Fawkes.

Letts retired from acting in the 1960s to become a television director and was recommended for a directors' training course by the then Head of BBC Drama, Sydney Newman.

He agreed to produce Doctor Who (1963) on the understanding that he would also be allowed to direct some of the stories. He ended up directing three of the 24 stories he produced, as well as directing the remaining scenes of another, Doctor Who: Inferno Episode 1 (1970), after director Douglas Camfield became ill.

He was hugely influenced by a chance encounter (during his lunchbreak from directing The Newcomers (1965) in Birmingham's Gosta Green) with Alan Watts' 1961 book "Psychotherapy East and West" about Zen Buddhism, a belief he went on to follow throughout his life from his 40s onwards (and elements of which he brought to the Third Doctor).

He eventually decided he wanted to go into directing and in 1967 attended the BBC directors' course.

He worked on episodes of "Z Cars" and "The Newcomers" before directing the six-part Doctor Who story "The Enemy of the World" in 1967.

He became producer of Doctor Who in 1969 and remained in that post until 1974.

He died five weeks after providing the DVD commentary for Doctor Who: The Time Monster: Episode One (1972).

During this period he also co-created and produced the six-part BBC science-fiction drama series "Moonbase 3," transmitted in 1973. After leaving Doctor Who, he marked time for a while by acting as an assistant of sorts to department head Ronnie Marsh. He then decided to make a return to directing and approached various producers for work.

One of the assignments he landed was "The Android Invasion" for Doctor Who in 1975. Straight after that came a production of "The Prince and the Pauper" for John McCrae. However McCrae was promoted to Head of Drama for a New Zealand TV station, so Letts was asked to take over as producer of the classical serials on BBC1.

Amongst those for which he was responsible were "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1978), "The Mill of the Floss" (1979) and "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1980). Following his stint as Doctor Who's executive producer at the beginning of the eighties he continued to work as a director, particularly on the classic serials.