Louis Marks

The son of a London jeweller, Louis Marks took the unusual step of moving from the world of academia, as head of history at a boarding school, to writing and producing for television. A serious scholar with a PhD in history from Balliol College, Oxford, author of magazine articles and founder/editor of the journal Books and Bookmen, Marks entered television in 1959 by contributing four scripts to The Adventures of Robin Hood (1955).

This led to more steady work as writer for ITC's The Four Just Men (1959) and as script editor of Associated-Rediffusion's crime series No Hiding Place (1959).

He created the ATV drama serial Market in Honey Lane (1967).

He joined the BBC in the same capacity in 1970, eventually rising to becoming a producer of high-quality, critically-acclaimed single dramas and miniseries, specialising in the classics (including, Silas Marner (1985), Middlemarch (1994), Daniel Deronda (2002) and a series of staged plays, Theatre Night (1985)).

Marks also tackled supernatural themes, beginning with the ghost story The Stone Tape (1972) as script editor and including (as scriptwriter) several key chapters of Doctor Who (1963), notably Doctor Who: Day of the Daleks: Episode One (1972) (which introduced the simian Ogrons and dealt with some of the complexities and issues that come with time travel), Doctor Who: Planet of Evil: Part One (1975) and Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora: Part One (1976) (an assignment for which he was eminently qualified, having worked in Florence to research the history of Renaissance Italy).

He was an expert on the Italian Renaissance, which was why he was asked to write Doctor Who: The Masque of Mandragora: Part One (1976).