Caroline John

John was the third of eight children born to Vera (née Winckworth), an actress and singer, and Alexander John, a theatre director.Spearhead from Space Blu Ray, July 2013 She was educated at St. Joseph's Convent School, Crackley Hall in Kenilworth.Myth Makers interview

After training at the Central School of Speech and Drama, she worked in theatre and toured with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre Company.{{cite web | url= https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/doctorwho/entries/1acf8178-3475-3721-a87d-3760fc4a12ae | title= Caroline John | work=BBC| date=21 June 2012 | access-date=16 April 2021}}{{cite web | url= https://metro.co.uk/2012/06/21/former-doctor-who-companion-caroline-john-dies-aged-72-475997/ | title= Former Doctor Who companion Caroline John dies aged 72 | work=Metro | first=Christopher | last=Hooton | date=21 June 2012 | access-date=16 April 2021}} She appeared in Juno and the Paycock in a 1966 production directed by Laurence Olivier, King Lear, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and The Merchant of Venice.

John also appeared as Hero in Franco Zeffirelli's 1965 National Theatre production of Much Ado About Nothing.{{cite news |url=https://theatricalia.com/play/1/much-ado-about-nothing/production/9yp|title=Much Ado About Nothing| publisher=Theatricalia| accessdate=20 December 2024}} This production was adapted for television and shown on BBC1 in February 1967.{{cite news |url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/59dc452833bc43b58f443034ec894275|title=The National Theatre Company: Much Ado About Nothing| publisher=BBC Genome| accessdate=20 December 2024}} It was subsequently lost from the BBC archives, but in 2010 it was announced that a copy of it had been discovered in the US Library of Congress as part of a substantial tranche of missing British TV.{{cite news |url=https://www.loc.gov/item/prn-10-205/|title=Library of Congress Discovers Lost British TV Treasures| publisher=Library of Congress. 14 September 2010 | accessdate=20 December 2024}} An extract including John was released by the BBC in 2016,{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p049fydp|title=Shakespeare Lives 2016| publisher=BBC. 30 September 2016 | accessdate=20 December 2024}} with the play due to be repeated in its entirety for the first time on 28 December 2024.{{cite news |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0026cjc|title=Much Ado About Nothing| publisher=BBC| accessdate=20 December 2024}}

John played the role of the Doctor's companion in 1970 opposite Jon Pertwee's Third Doctor. John was recommended to then Doctor Who producer Peter Bryant by another BBC producer, James Cellan Jones, who sent Bryant and his associate Derrick Sherwin photographs of her.{{citation needed|date=December 2018}}

Unlike most of the preceding and subsequent female companions of the Doctor, Shaw was a brilliant scientist and understood much of the Doctor's technobabble. Shaw and the Doctor discussed things on a more equitable level of intelligence, and the Doctor respected and rarely patronised her.

During her final story, Inferno, John also played the part of Section Leader Elizabeth Shaw, an alter ego of her regular character that the Doctor encounters in an alternative time stream. John reprised the role of Shaw, albeit as a phantom, in the anniversary episode "The Five Doctors", and also appeared in the special episode Dimensions in Time (1993), part of the BBC's annual Children in Need appeal. In the 1990s she appeared in a series of straight-to-video releases including The Stranger: Breach of the Peace, and as Liz Shaw in the P.R.O.B.E. stories written by Mark Gatiss and featuring numerous actors from the history of Doctor Who – including Jon Pertwee, Peter Davison, Colin Baker and Sylvester McCoy. In these stories made by the production company BBV, a pipe-smoking Shaw works as an investigator (for the P.R.O.B.E. organisation); John is seen opposite Linda Lusardi in the former model's first acting role.

John later appeared in two Big Finish Productions' audio dramas based on Doctor Who; Dust Breeding (2001), although playing a character other than Liz Shaw, and The Blue Tooth (2007) where, as Liz, she recounts in narrative form an adventure she once had with the Doctor and UNIT. After The Blue Tooth she played Liz in four more Companion Chronicle audio plays; Binary, The Sentinels of the New Dawn and Shadow of the Past. Her final audio play, The Last Post, which she recorded on 26 January 2012, was released after her death.

After leaving Doctor Who and the birth of her first child, John appeared in the BBC drama series The Doctors playing the recurring role of Marilyn Lane for four episodes in 1971.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/9af835b6ddaf452a81f80127bc469308|title=The Doctors|date=6 May 1971|issue=2478|pages=38|via=BBC Genome}} In 1972, she appeared in the one-off BBC1 drama for the Omnibus strand, Actor, I said starring Barry Foster and Martin Jarvis, just a few weeks before appearing in the Z-Cars episode Operation Ascalon.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/92984f28464b45b2b00c6fa205d1eeab|title=Z Cars: Operation Ascalon|date=4 May 1972|issue=2530|pages=26|via=BBC Genome}} For the next several years, John became a regular performer in BBC Radio dramas, which included appearances in Radio 4 series Afternoon Theatre, Five Morning Plays, The Monday Play, Saturday Night Theatre, Story Time and being a regular story teller on Woman's Hour. Various BBC radio productions covered in these strands were Thérèse with Vivien Merchant,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/663aa73c477e4c46b53c5f2706001c0e|title=The Monday Play|date=17 February 1972|issue=2519|pages=31|via=BBC Genome}} Jane Eyre with Patrick Allen,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/0df762e8bcee4ddaaab8956d6e3f43db|title=Jane Eyre|date=30 March 1972|issue=2525|pages=35|via=BBC Genome}} How To Get Away With Murder,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/d54bd18d40f046db8f9104f2c4c8b08c|title=Afternoon Theatre|date=25 May 1972|issue=2533|pages=19|via=BBC Genome}} The Concert,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/818c2dd3e8844669a200c4242cc1701d|title=Five Morning Plays|date=6 July 1972|issue=2539|pages=39|via=BBC Genome}} New Grub Street with Robert Powell,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/252e3debc7a946d0a9b88963d54ad4c4|title=Afternoon Theatre|date=10 August 1972|issue=2544|pages=21|via=BBC Genome}} Observations on a Jesting Man,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/53e3f88c556c42cba904422f2a0135fe|title=Monday Play: Observations on a Jesting Man|date=21 September 1972|issue=2550|pages=29|via=BBC Genome}} Mr. Campion's Falcon,{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/a02c7b6493d64880bdee793d1f54c8da|title=Saturday-Night Theatre|date=19 October 1972|issue=2554|pages=29|via=BBC Genome}} An Infinity of Changes{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/a1ab6c61636542dda27be1561dd597be|title=Saturday-NightTheatre|date=9 November 1972|issue=2557|pages=29|via=BBC Genome}} and Jane Austen's Lady Susan{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/089bdc272d474c499df4933082c6dc27|title=Story Time|date=14 December 1972|issue=2562|pages=81|via=BBC Genome}} amongst many others. John played the role of Laura Lyons in the BBC adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes story The Hound of the Baskervilles, opposite Tom Baker. The four part adventure was produced by Barry Letts. She returned to radio for Radio 3's Light in Distant Rooms.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/41b59f2c18544b60bf74259bd576aab7|title=Light in Distant Rooms|date=18 November 1982|issue=3080|pages=43|via=BBC Genome}}

In 1987, John appeared in the BBC2 drama series A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery: Gaudy Night as Miss Burrows.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/03140b9ea26645aa978effd9877735d3|title=A Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery: Gaudy Night|date=7 May 1987|issue=3311|pages=65|via=BBC Genome}} She also appeared in the BBC's adaptation of John le Carré's A Perfect Spy as Dorothy Pym.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/bb20508e47f94683b6296b696f50e933|title=A Perfect Spy|date=29 October 1987|issue=3336|pages=67|via=BBC Genome}} Throughout January 1988, John and her husband Geoffrey Beevers appeared in BBC Radio 4's Poetry Please.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/7c5a5cc230d0412895d789211e59005c|title=Poetry Please!|date=14 January 1988|issue=3346|pages=37|via=BBC Genome}} John and Beevers appeared together in an episode of Agatha Christie's Poirot titled "Problem at Sea" as Mr and Mrs Tolliver. They both had roles in the audio play Dust Breeding and the TV adaptation of the political thriller A Very British Coup, although they did not appear on screen together. John appeared in several episodes of Casualty as recurring character Edith Hewlett.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/843afa257191471f93e4479e66886dc0|title=Casualty|date=15 September 1988|issue=3381|pages=101|via=BBC Genome}} In 1995, she appeared as Janet Young in the BBC drama adaptation of Joanna Trollope's The Choir.{{cite web|url=https://genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/81f7702e868749be8b7fca952881a934|title=The Choir|date=16 March 1995|issue=3713|pages=72|via=BBC Genome}} Other minor TV appearances included EastEnders, It Might Be You, Silent Witness and Dangerfield. John also appeared in a non-speaking, background role in the film Love Actually.

Her career in the theatre included appearances in His Majesty (1992), Silas Marner (1998), The Master Builder (1999), Death of a Salesman (2001), Happy Birthday Dear Alice (2002), and Dona Rosita (2004).

In June 1970, John married actor Geoffrey Beevers, who later appeared in Doctor Who as The Master, in The Keeper of Traken (1981). The couple had three children: a daughter, Daisy Ashford, and sons Ben and Tom.

Ashford, also an actress, has portrayed her mother's Doctor Who character, Liz Shaw, in audio dramas for Big Finish Production.{{cite web|title=Caroline John 1940–2012|url=http://www.bigfinish.com/news/v/caroline-john-1940-2012|accessdate=22 June 2012}}

John died on 5 June 2012 from cancer.{{cite web|title=Caroline John|url=http://www.doctorwhonews.net/2012/06/dwn210612123117-caroline-john-1940-2012.html}}

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• {{IMDb name|id=0424142|name = Caroline John}}

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Category:1940 births

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Category:20th-century English actresses

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