William hartnell left doctor who health arteriosclerosis
The First Doctor is the initial incarnation of the fictional character known as the Doctor seen on screen in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who. He was portrayed by the actor William Hartnell from 1963 to 1966. Hartnell reprised the role in the tenth anniversary story The Three Doctors in 1973 - albeit in a reduced capacity due to his ailing health. Actor Richard Hurndall played the part of the First Doctor in the 20th anniversary story The Five Doctors after William Hartnell's death in 1975. A cinematic version of the character, Dr Who, was played by Peter Cushing.
Overview
Doctor Who earned Hartnell a regular salary of £315 per episode by 1966 (equivalent to £4,050.90 in modern terms). In comparison, his co-stars Anneke Wills and Michael Craze earned £68 and £52 per episode at the same time.Throughout his tenure as the Doctor, William Hartnell wore a wig and very few photographs exist of him dressed as the Doctor without the wig.
Hartnell suffered a bereavement in 1965 whilst working on The Myth Makers: his aunt, Bessie Hartnell, who had looked after him during his troubled childhood, died. The tight production schedules prevented him from taking time off to attend her funeral.
According to some colleagues on Doctor Who, he could be a difficult person to work with, although others, notably actors Peter Purves and William Russell, and producer Verity Lambert, speak glowingly of him after more than forty years. Among the more caustic accounts, Nicholas Courtney, in his audio memoirs, recalled that during the filming of The Daleks' Master Plan, Hartnell pointed out to him that an extra on the set was Jewish, Courtney's inference being that Hartnell was an antisemite. In an interview in 2008, Courtney claimed that Hartnell "was quite nationalist-minded, a bit intolerant of other races, I think." However, he allegedly always got on extremely well with his first companion, played by Carole Ann Ford, who was Jewish. Hartnell's poor health (arteriosclerosis) as well as poor relations with the new production team on the series following the departure of Lambert, ultimately led him to leave Doctor Who in 1966.
When Hartnell left Doctor Who in 1966, producers of the show came up with a unique idea. Since the Doctor is an alien, he can transform into another man when he dies. William Hartnell himself suggested that Patrick Troughton replace him as the Doctor. In Episode 4 of The Tenth Planet, the First Doctor dies and transforms into Troughton's Second Doctor.
Story
At the inception of the series the Doctor was a mysterious character and little was known about him except that he had a granddaughter, Susan Foreman, and that they were from another time and another world. He had a time machine, the TARDIS, which was disguised as a police box and was bigger on the inside than on the outside. He and Susan were in exile as well, for unspecified reasons. It would not be until the last adventure of the Doctor's second incarnation that the name of the Doctor's people (the Time Lords) would be revealed, and the third before the name of his home planet (Gallifrey) was first spoken.
The series began with schoolteachers Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright investigating the mystery of Susan, a student who appeared to possess scientific and historical knowledge far beyond her years. Discovering the TARDIS in a scrapyard, they were involuntarily taken by the Doctor on a journey back to the year 100,000 BC, and spent two years adventuring through time and space with the Doctor.
It was during this incarnation that the Doctor first met the Daleks and the Cybermen, races that would become his most implacable foes. The TARDIS crew also observed many historical events such as the Reign of Terror in revolutionary France, meeting Marco Polo in China and The Aztecs in Mexico. When Susan fell in love with the human resistance fighter David Campbell, the Doctor left her behind to allow her to build a life for herself on 22nd century Earth (The Dalek Invasion of Earth), although he promised to return someday. The TARDIS crew were soon joined by Vicki, whom they rescued from the planet Dido.
At the conclusion of a chase through time, Ian and Barbara used a Dalek time machine to go home (The Chase), and their place in the TARDIS was taken by a space pilot named Steven Taylor. Together, they met another member of the Doctor's race for the first time in the form of the Meddling Monk and had an adventure in Galaxy 4. During the siege of Troy, Vicki decided to leave the TARDIS to stay with Troilus. The Doctor and Steven were next briefly joined by Katarina and Sara Kingdom, but both were killed during the events of The Daleks' Master Plan.
After narrowly missing the Massacre of St Bartholomew's Eve, the Doctor and Steven took on board a young girl named Dodo Chaplet. Dodo brought a cold virus to the far future, which nearly annihilated the humans and Monoids travelling on The Ark. One of the First Doctor's most deadly foes was the Celestial Toymaker, who forced him and his companions to play deadly games. Eventually, the Doctor managed to win the Trilogic Game allowing them all to escape the Toymaker's domain.
Eventually, Steven and Dodo left the Doctor as well, Steven remaining on an alien planet as a mediator (The Savages), and Dodo deciding to remain on Earth in 1966. The Doctor was then joined by Polly and Ben Jackson who would be the first companions to witness a most remarkable event.
The toll of years put strain on the Doctor's elderly frame. After defeating the Cybermen at the Antarctic Snowcap Station (The Tenth Planet), the Doctor collapsed inside the TARDIS, and before the astonished eyes of his then-companions Ben and Polly, his cells renewed themselves for the first time, giving him a completely new physical appearance and character — the Second Doctor.
What Sort Of Doctor?
From the beginning, the First Doctor was a mysterious figure. He appeared to be a frail old man, despite the eventual revelation that he was actually the youngest of the Doctor's incarnations, and yet was possessed of unexpected reserves of strength and will. (An early writers' guide by script editor David Whitaker describes "Doctor Who" as "frail-looking but wiry and tough as an old turkey".) He obviously held tremendous knowledge of scientific matters, and yet was unable to pilot his TARDIS time ship reliably; his granddaughter Susan explained this by saying that her grandfather was "a bit forgetful". He was abrasive, patronising, and cantankerous towards his human travelling companions, yet shared a deep emotional bond with his granddaughter Susan. He also harboured a streak of ruthlessness, being willing to lie — and in one case attempt to kill — to achieve his goals. Initially, he distrusted his first two human companions, Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright, who were forced on him. Over time, however, as they shared adventures together, he grew closer to them, and the TARDIS crew came to share almost a family bond.
Eventually, the Doctor began to enjoy his travels through time and space, taking people along for the ride and was always reluctant and sad to see them go, even when he knew it was for their own good. The Doctor's personality mellowed around the time of the serial Marco Polo, and he evolved into the more familiar grandfatherly figure that children loved. Despite his age, the Doctor was never conservative, and was always a bit of an anti-establishment figure, opposing tyranny and overreaching authority in all its forms.
It was also during this time that the Doctor first met what would become his most persistent adversaries — the Daleks and the Cybermen. It would be the latter encounter that would see the Doctor first regenerate; stating "This old body of mine's wearing a bit thin," he collapsed at the end of the serial, regenerating inside the TARDIS into the Second Doctor.
William Hartnell described the Doctor as "a wizard", and "a cross between the Wizard of Oz and Father Christmas". One quirk of the First Doctor was his tendency to become occasionally tongue-tied and stumble over words. Sometimes this was a deliberate acting choice: William Russell recalls that it was Hartnell's idea for the Doctor to get Ian Chesterton's surname wrong, calling him "Chesserman" or "Chatterton". This character choice also gave the series' producers the ability to use takes in which Hartnell flubbed his lines. Due to the series' tight production schedule, it was rarely possible to reshoot such scenes and dubbing the dialogue was usually not an option. Hartnell suffered from undiagnosed arteriosclerosis, which affected his ability to remember lines, increasingly so as his time on the series progressed.
In the original pilot, the Doctor wore contemporary clothes (Including a suit and tie). When the pilot was reshot, however, his costume changed to a more Edwardian ensemble. The first incarnation of the Doctor carried a wooden walking cane, with a twisted handle. In one occasion, he was seen smoking a large bent tobacco pipe; to date, he is the only incarnation of the character to be imbibing in this habit.
Source:doctorwhoconfidential
