DAVID JACOBS: Jon was special because he was totally different.
There was nothing normal about Jon's looks or Jon's behaviour.
He behaved in his own very special way.
I have a feeling that something wonderful is about to come along.
- And here I am, dear lady.
- Ah! He was an enormous worker.
That was the great thing.
I'd seen him on stage and thought, "God, he's got something! It bounces out.
" (SCREAMING) JUDY CORNWELL: When I think of Jon, I think of tall and slightly zany.
Which I thought was wonderful for Doctor Who.
That's not me at all! TERRANCE DICKS: He's not the greatest actor in the world, or he wasn't, but on the other hand, when he came on the screen, you couldn't look at anybody else, you know, he'd got real kind of charisma.
KENNETH EARLE: Fame was necessary to Jon, apart from being important.
It was necessary.
STUART MONEY: Jon came to terms, with great difficulty, with dealing with authority.
Yes, he was a rebel.
He was a rebel.
I'm your new assistant.
Oh, no! KATY MANNING: There was this extraordinary man with this huge brain and yet he had this child inside, which was so attractive.
JACOBS: When Jon made an entrance in a room, he made an entrance.
That was him.
-(APPLAUSE) -Ladies and gentlemen, Jon Pertwee.
JACOBS: I think perhaps Jon was born at the wrong time.
Whilst his life at his own time was very successful, it would have been more so and he would have been more noticeable if he'd been a Regency Buck.
That would have been a character he would have filled absolutely perfectly.
JON PERTWEE: My real name is Jon de Perthuis de Laillevault.
MICHAEL PARKINSON: There.
Now, that's one for your book.
- Say it again, spell it.
- Jon de Perthuis de Laillevault.
PARKINSON: And how does that derive?
- Where is it derived from?
- Well, our name is now Pertwee, but years ago we were Huguenots.
That's what that little badge is.
That means that I'm a Huguenot.
Jon came from a totally theatrical background.
His father Roland was a playwright, his brother Michael a farceur, as it were, and Uncle Guy was a teacher of elocution, I think, at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.
But you couldn't have been anything else but an entertainer, could you, given your background?
PERTWEE: No, not really, because we were all in it.
And in fact, I started My first appearance on the stage was in the niche of our sitting room in our house in Drayton Gardens.
His dad was quite an adept painter.
And he painted us a little scene about where they lived, actually.
And I can show you, actually.
That was it.
I think that is the cottage where he lived and Jon grew up.
Roland Pertwee.
His dad.
But there wasn't a lot of happiness there, in Jon's early life at all.
I mean, I think it's been well reported and he told me that his father, whilst a great entertainer and writer, wasn't the best of fathers.
I think he was very cold to Jon.
And equally, on the other side of it, Jon didn't really know his mother at all.
In fact, I think that his mother divorced the father to take up with his best friend, a Frenchman, I think.
And Jon was led to believe, you know, that his mother had d*ed.
Only to subsequently find out maybe a couple of years later that she hadn't d*ed at all.
And then, that she used to make a visit as a family friend.
And then when Jon discovered this, I think he visited her, tried to create a bond, but it never worked out at all.
You went through one or two schools, didn't you?
Yes I was kicked out of most schools, yes.
Why was that?
Well, I was a rebel.
MONEY".
Jon was a highly rebellious child.
And I suspect, I don't know, but I suspect that could have been driven or was corollary with the fact that he had such an unhappy childhood.
You know, with no love dispensed from his mama or papa.
The first school that I went to, I was thrown out for doing the most dreadful thing.
I swung on lavatory chains.
(AUDIENCE LAUGHING) I'd seen a Tarzan film and I'd enjoyed that, and I saw him swinging on these, these vines and so I swung from one lavatory chain to another.
I only made one before I fell in the pan.
MONEY: Jon was at Sherborne School, I think, when he really became a rebel.
Because you know, he always wanted to go into acting and a lot of his fellow muckers at the time thought, "Well, he's got to be a sissy.
" So he really did take the brunt of an awful lot of bullying.
- Why were you singled out?
- Well, I was different, you see.
I was going to be an actor, so I had to be a poofter, for a start.
I like I played games and so on but that had nothing to do with it.
The fact that I was going into the theatre to be something different, that was against me.
Well, I know there was one particular occasion, I think Jon was having a trumpet lesson, in fact, and then there was a knock on the door and someone said, "Pertwee, Pertwee, Pertwee! Clerk Major wants you.
" And I said, "What for?
" He said, "I don't know.
Quick.
" So I had to say, "Excuse me, sir, I've got to go back to the house.
" And I went back to the house and there was my prefect, who said, um "Ah, Pertwee.
Please make me a piece of toast.
" And I said, "But I'm in the middle of a music lesson.
" He said, "Don't argue.
Make me some toast.
" And so I had to get a piece of toast and sit in front of the fire that he had in his study and make him a piece of toast.
Actually, I didn't really make him the toast.
I burnt it deliberately and threw it at him.
-(LAUGHING) - And then you got a b*ating.
- I got beaten for it.
- You got beaten.
Oh, yes.
Regularly beaten, yes.
Well, I think a day or two later, things had really built up.
And Pertwee said, "I'm not having any more of this.
" So, in fact, yeah, Jon did tell me he got a bat or ball bat or something like that, and then he waited for this Clerk Major to come round the corner and chinned him one.
Jon left school at 17.
He'd always wanted to be an actor.
I don't know that he had much of an encouragement from his father but that was definitely, you know, what he wanted to be.
- You went to RADA, didn't you?
- Yes.
- You did, too, didn't you, Joan?
- Oh, yes.
PERTWEE: Yeah, for a short time.
I wasn't there very long.
Why weren't you there for too long?
Well, I was thrown out.
(LAUGHTER) I think he was offered, coming up to the end of terms, if you like, a part in a Greek tragedy.
We had to be winds.
And I hadn't got a part.
All I went was (IMITATING WIND BLOWING) And I thought it was just terribly boring and very expensive for my poor father to pay for me to be a wind.
And so I rebelled.
Said I wouldn't be a wind.
MONEY: So that led I think, eventually, coming up to his final term, for him to be, I think as he put it, "superannuated" from RADA.
So he was expelled from there as well.
During the w*r, a very young and handsome young gentleman called David Jacobs came to us for training.
I was in the Navy then with the Naval Broadcasting section.
And David came to train as an announcer.
Jon and I really made a team.
I was so impressed by Jon.
Imagine this.
I'm 18, he's six years older and he had a way with the ladies.
Well, I had a certain way with the ladies, but he had the experience, which I didn't.
And I learnt an awful lot about the way you date girls.
And he used to date the most beautiful girls.
Wonderful creatures.
Models That I would never have got anywhere near.
He used to introduce them all to me.
We used to go dancing to the Hammersmith Palais.
And he would put on a Scottish accent.
And he would ask girls to dance with him and I'd be there while he was planning his move, and he said (SCOTTISH ACCENT) "Will you dance with me?
" And he was always using funny voices.
And she said, "Yes," she said, "but are you Scottish?
" (SCOTTISH ACCENT) "No," he says, "I'm not Scottish.
"I'm actually English.
"But unless I put on a funny voice nobody will give me a date.
" So this is the sort of thing that went on.
Of course, Jon was mightily proud of the fact that he had been a Naval Officer, and used to show off a tattoo on his arm that he actually didn't know he'd had because it was done one night when he was in a rather drunken stupor.
Jon wasn't a great drinker but he must have been that night, 'cause he really did freely admit that he had no idea how he had got this tattoo, but he was mightily proud of it.
Towards the latter part of the w*r, I was in charge of the Naval Broadcasting section and um, I had to go down to a broadcast of a man called Eric Barker, who was being rather rude about my Lords of the Admiralty.
And so I went to check him out and, uh, instead of checking him out, I shouted out something from the audience, and he said, "That was very good.
" I mean, he wanted me to, he said, "Would somebody shout this line?
" And I said, "Yes, I will.
" And that was my beginning in radio comedy.
JACOBS: Jon used to love telling the story of how his life was saved by being drafted away from the ship H.
M.
S.
Hood.
PERTWEE".
During the w*r I served on H.
M.
S.
Hood, the battle cruiser which you remember was sunk by the Bismarck, and I was extremely lucky to get off off that.
I was a C.
W.
Candidate and got off very shortly before she blew up.
So close, in fact, was I to being blown up in it that my parents received letters saying that "The addressee of this envelope is missing, presumed k*lled.
" I think my father was singularly shocked when I walked back.
JACOBS: Hundreds of lives were lost, but we didn't lose Jon.
We kept )on 'm the Navy.
JACOBS: Jon liked to show off with his voices.
We'd go to a boxing match or something and, uh, there'd be crowds who wouldn't recognise him.
He'd be sitting there while they're all shouting out, "Punch him!" And he'd say, (FUNNY ACCENT) "Oh, give him one there! "Why don't you give him a Tear him up!" or something.
You know, put on one of his funny voices.
And people would realise, âOh, that's )on Pertwee.
â And you could tell from that moment onwards that Jon was destined for stardom.
PARKINSON: Where do you get that gift from?
Was that in the family?
Was your father a mimic?
My father was a mimic.
Yes, he had been an actor with Tree and Irving, before he became a writer.
And he had a marvellous ear for dialects and voices.
We're not able to give impersonations -very well of people but of characters.
- Yes.
And he was very good at that.
In the post-w*r years, he became very, very big on radio indeed.
You know, did many series of Puffney Post Office, waterlogged Spa and stuff like that.
PERTWEE".
(AS POSTMAN) Here are your letters, darling.
Oh, they're last week's, so they're fairly fresh.
WOMAN".
Thank you, postman.
I think he became known as the man of a thousand voices.
Many years ago, before your time, of course, about the relief of Mafeking, there was a radio programme called Merry-Go-Round and waterlogged Spa, in which there was a character which he remembers (HIGH-PITCHED) Bugling, bugling, the whole time bugling, my dear.
He was the bugler in Plymouth barracks.
- Yes, I remember that.
Yeah.
- You remember him?
And eventually when we turned over and became waterlogged Spa, he became the postman who had a catchphrase saying, (FUNNY ACCENT) "Well, what does it matter what you do "so long as you tear 'em up?
" - Do you remember him?
- I do, indeed.
Yes, very well.
He was full of these imaginary characters.
In fact, his voice as the postman in Puffney Post Office (IMITATING PERTWEE) "Oh, what does it matter what you do "as long as you tear 'em up?
" was a national treasure.
PERTWEE".
He was based on an old man that we He used to deliver letters to us in our house down in Devonshire when we were kids and And this old fellow, he was, um He used to He delivered the letters and he told me one day, he said (IMITATING) "You know, Mr Pertwee, " he said, "I've walked three times round the world in distance," he said, "in gumboots.
" He said, "And you can imagine the condition of my feet.
" And he says, "When I get to your hill "and I look up there and I see that great red house "sitting at the top of the hill," he says, "God I'm not gain ' up there.
"And I throw them letters on the ï¬oor," he says.
"Mind you, it's got a bit to do with the scrumpy I've had on the way up," he says, "but I think all them young fellers "they come down, they can pick up.
They can deliver 'em themselves.
" (NORMAL VOICE) That's where I based the postman character from.
ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we present The Navy Lark, with our three stars, Dennis Price, Jon Pertwee and Leslie Phillips.
(APPLAUSE) JACOBS: And he was also hugely keen on all things that had to do with him being in the Navy.
And of course it led to great stardom, as far as radio was concerned, in The Navy Lark.
Because you did a lot of these, didn't you, you developed them in the show called The Navy Lark, which was in fact the longest running radio show wasn't it, of its kind.
I think it was the longest running radio comedy -in the history of broadcasting.
-18 and a half years.
Yeah, I think that beats even the American records.
That's right.
I loved doing Navy Lark.
It was It was fun.
I was only 18 and to me, Jon was a very grown-up person and somebody who had to be respected.
He was very much like a sort of school teacher or something, as far as I was concerned.
But he was charming and nice, and I remember this very blonde hair sticking out, and these sort of very magnetic eyes that had a sort of really magnetic quality.
And there was Ronnie Barker.
There was Stephen Murray.
Richard Caldicot.
Leslie Phillips, of course.
And Heather Chasen, who was wonderful to me.
There were three microphones.
And Heather said to me I said, "Oh, what a nice lot.
" And she said, "Yes, everything is lovely now, Jude.
"But when you get up there, all the men hog the microphones.
"So do what I do, when it's your turn to speak "kick them in the shins, elbow them in the ribs "and make them get off the microphone.
" I thought "I don't know if I can do this.
" And, um Anyway, I watched her do it.
And I tried to get in without doing it.
Nobody would let me in.
So I was kicking Jon Pertwee on the legs, elbowing them just like everybody else.
Like Heather was doing.
And in that way, I could get to the microphone and get my line in.
PERTWEE".
You don't know the first thing about aeromanotautologifying.
JACOBS".
It was Jon all over.
When he used that voice of, "Hey, you know, get out of here!" It was actually Jon liked to talk like that from time to time.
PERTWEE".
(COCKNEY ACCENT) Oh, you mean how the Chief talks?
Well, you know, he's a sort of Lambeth Cockney, really, I suppose.
(LAUGHS) I never really know! I mean, he varies sometimes, from week to week.
It all depends how I feel.
All depends how the Hobson's choice is too, you know.
If I've got a bit of a cold, it's not so easy to do.
But it's a rumbustious, vulgar, loudmouth character.
I don't know why anybody listens to him.
He's a terror, as far as I'm concerned.
He couldn't stop using funny voices.
JACOBS:Jon married his first wife Jean at Shepperton and I was one of his guests, the principal guest.
But somehow or other, I had a strange feeling that whilst I liked jean enormously, I didn't seem to think it was quite right for Jon.
And as it turned out, it wasn't.
And his breakup of his marriage caused him, I think, almost to have a nervous breakdown.
When Ingeborg came into his life, Jon's whole character changed.
He mellowed.
He became enchanted by this lovely girl.
They were to be married, and happily married, for a very, very long time.
MONEY".
He met Ingeborg in the late '50s, I think it was.
He was a great skier, a great adventurer, as you know.
And he went out to Kitzbuhel, in Austria, broke his leg skiing, much to his chagrin.
But also, that gave him obviously the opportunity to check out all the girls walking by.
And he obviously spotted this very glamorous uh, young German lady, who he invited over to England.
I think she came originally as an au pair.
And then they got married over in Bourne End.
DICKS: Ana' her father was, I think, some sort of German aristocrat.
You know, somebody quite powerful and important.
And Jon went to see him, more or less to ask for Inge's hand.
And he said, this chap said, "Mr Pertwee, "I have several problems with you.
"Firstly, you are much older than my daughter.
"Secondly, you're already married.
" Which he was, he'd posted for divorce.
And um He said, "Thirdly, you are a Schauspieler, " or something like that, which is German for actor.
But he, uh, got the girl, as it were, in the end.
But he wasn't well received by the family.
EARLE".
With Inge, he was devoted, loved his son and daughter You know, they were great, great kids.
Great Kids! Now they're adults.
But they were lovely children.
The first time I met Jon was, I think, 1961.
And it was in jersey.
And we met up funnily enough, because I did a lot of underwater diving, scuba stuff.
And an awful lot of it.
And he came down and, uh, he said, "Oh, yes, come in, you know, we'll go together.
" Which we did.
PERTWEE".
I was born in July, that's Cancer.
Which I gather has got some connection with the water.
And I've always had a great love and liking for the water in all its forms.
I like to live by it.
And I like to spend my time on it or under it.
And I've always been very closely connected with water.
But I don't think, really, water likes me.
I don't mean this in the sense of drinking it.
I don't like drinking water, I prefer drinking wine.
But water doesn't seem to like me, because it's always trying to destroy me.
In one situation, we had We went down and, uh suddenly he's going And I'm going, "What?
Oh!" No air, so Took my mouthpiece out and you go You know, and suck air like that.
And anyway, then got him up to the top.
When we got up to the top, he went (SPLUTTERING) It was like Worzel Gummidge.
PERTWEE".
It is a dangerous sport, but you have to go into it very carefully and you have to be taught properly and know what you are doing so if anything does happen, anything remiss happens to you under the water, you have to be clear-headed so that you can get out of that predicament.
It's the one thing that Jon did that I didn't, was a great deal of sporting events.
Dangerous things.
I mean, I'm not a coward, and I quite like water-skiing, but Jon would go mad for it.
He'd get himself a jet-ski boat.
He'd do anything, motorbikes he loved, but cars most of all.
MONEY".
Jon had an absolute passion for motor vehicles.
And anything that moved very quickly.
I mean, he knew the internal combustion engine inside out, was a fine mechanic and you know He'd have anything, whether on four wheels, two wheels, anything on the water that moved very quickly indeed.
Jon was the sort of character that if he saw the Billy Smart's Circus tent up, he'd go around and make friends with them.
In fact, Billy Smart used him from time to time as a friend, I think he even got him to get on a motorcycle and do the "wall of death".
He didn't die of that, I'm glad to say.
PERTWEE".
The first thing you have to do is you have to conquer this fear.
Once you've conquered your fear, then you're fine, because if you don't panic, you're perfectly safe.
If you do panic, you're as good as dead.
If there was a motorbike on set, we'd both take off on the motorbike, you know, because the lovely thing inside this, you know, obviously mature older man was the child.
There was this wonderful, playful child.
He was actually a sort of nutcase.
He wouldn't stop doing all these things.
At 76, he would be out on the reservoir somewhere, water-skiing or Give him a chance to go snow skiing! And he'd go off and break a leg, and I've always thought Jon was such a show-off, 'cause he really was, that even if he hadn't broken his leg he'd have had a plaster put round it and walk around saying, "Oh! Whatever.
" MONEY".
In 1969, Jon was offered the role of Doctor Who.
And it was quite a departure from anything he had ever done before.
I couldn't have been more surprised when I heard that Jon had got the part of Doctor Who.
It didn't seem anything like that which he should have been doing.
When Shaun Sutton said, "Would you like to play Doctor Who?
" And I said, "Yes, how shall I play it?
" And he said, "Well, as Jon Pertwee.
" And I said, "Who the hell is that?
" Because I'd never played myself, ever.
I'd hidden under a green umbrella all my life.
And so he said, "No, play it as you, and it'll happen," and it did.
All I knew about Jon Pertwee before he became the Doctor was that, uh, he popped up in an enormous number of British comedies, usually playing some eccentric ancient, a mad professor or something like that, covered in make-up and whiskers and false noses and using one of his variety of funny voices.
So it really is extraordinary that he, uh, that he ever got cast.
MONEY".
In 1969, he got the part.
The show had gone into colour, there was a new character full of ï¬amboyance, you know, the sort of dashing dandy.
Playing it as himself.
Oh, there she is! How nice of you to look after her for me.
Do you happen to have got the key, by the way?
It was, as it turned out, an unlikely but brilliant stroke, because it really worked very well.
I don't even know your name.
Smith.
Doctor john Smith.
JACOBS: I think he loved doing the part because it was a family show.
And he loved working to amuse children.
He was marvellous with children.
And I think he liked the fact that, wherever he went, he wasn't going to be any more the man with the funny voices.
He was going to be that singular character, Doctor Who.
A man of great importance.
And Jon was indeed just that.
MANNING: The very first time that I met Jon was on the very first day filming Terror of the Autons.
(LAUGHS) And I was terrified, because, um, I'd only done one television series and I was completely new, I was very young, I was very green.
And you know,Jon Pertwee had been a voice in my life for so many years, 'cause I used to try and impersonate Jon Pertwee's characters when I was a kiddie.
I was totally I grew up with the radio, so I grew up with this voice, I knew this voice, I knew who this man was.
Ana' this man just swept in in this cloak and he was so tall and so handsome.
He looked like a superhero to me.
You know, he was just an extraordinary man.
There was an instant rapport.
And it was just In a very short time, we found this extraordinary friendship.
I'm sorry I ruined your experiment.
That's all right.
Jon had a smile in his eyes that felt to me like somebody was pouring warm honey over me.
It And just seeing him now, that feeling of that warmth of that coming from those eyes literally used to make me smile from inside out.
And nobody has ever had that effect on me before or since.
MANNING".
One of the things that Jon absolutely loved, he had this house in Ibiza and he adored this house.
This was where Jon went to actually to relax and to pursue all the things that he loved doing, all the water sports and so on and so forth.
MONEY".
And that was absolutely critical to him.
Because I think, as he put it to me, "Look, "I work very hard for nine months of the year "and I like to play very hard for three.
" He would say, "Hey, you must join me.
"I'm Ibizancan, you know.
" And, "Are you?
What's that?
" He said, "Well, I live in Ibiza.
" "Oh, really! Oh, right.
" MONEY: The minute the series of Doctor Who was wrapped, he was quick to Heathrow Airport as he possibly could and enjoy three months over in Ibiza.
I was really honoured when he and Ingeborg felt that we were good enough friends and that we'd got to that stage that we were invited to go there, too.
And it was indeed absolutely beautiful.
He taught me to snorkel, which was terrific.
The only problem was that the I needed the snorkel glass to be my prescription, because you know, he said to me, "Wasn't that wonderful?
"Did you see this?
" Of course, I didn't see anything.
But it was lovely doing it.
MONEY".
I first met Jon in the early '70s.
And I'd always been a big Doctor Who fan since I was a little boy.
And then when I was about 11 or 12, we started to correspond.
And I used to overwhelm him with fan letters and requests for photographs and so on and so forth And he was very obliging.
And then eventually, he invited me down to BBC Television Centre when they were doing a recording of The Green Death.
When I first met him, I was absolutely knocked out because there was I, a tiny little boy, you know, a timorous little teenager.
And bursting through these doors was this bear of a man dressed in pink.
I'll never forget, it was a pink waistcoat, pink shirt, pink corduroy trousers, coming through with a huge beam on his face.
And of course, he was under the impression that I was quite a mature man.
Due to the By way of the correspondence I'd been sending him, so that gave him quite a shock.
Little did I know at that point we were to become great friends.
MALE REPORTER: Saturday, July 26, and the Reliance garage, North Circular Road, awaits the arrival of former Doctor Who, Jon Pertwee.
His Whomobile is already there.
MONEY: When Jon left Doctor Who, he certainly knew he had made it.
I think probably he would liked to have gone on.
But there was a bit of a commercial dispute and so on and so forth, so, unfortunately, he had to wave goodbye.
But if you think about it, uh, the ratings, at its peak, it moved them from probably 3 or 4 million, I think, uh, with Pat, and they were getting 10 or 11 or 12 million people in a very short space of time.
MALE REPORTER".
During the afternoon, Jon Pertwee signed over 100 autographs.
MONEY".
So he certainly felt that he'd accomplished something good.
So then, of course, he was looking for something else.
MANNING: While I was doing the show with Jon, Jon and I both knew this book, Worzel Gummidge- I had read it as a child.
And he said to me, "I would love to do that.
" So I was there when he actually started the whole idea.
And, you know, the journey that he subsequently took into creating Worzel Gummidge, which was just so perfect for him, I cannot begin to tell you.
EARLE".
Worzel Gummidge was the thing, that's where he set his sights on.
And he would talk about it and say, "I'm pushing like mad for this.
"It's right for me and I know it's right and it will be good.
" Jon fought passionately to get Worzel off the ground.
Originally he took it to the BBC, thinking, "Oh, they've got to take this "after five seasons I did for them in the Who.
" BBC turned it down flat, incidentally, they said it was, uh Had no future of any sort at all.
And I then took it to Thames, because I knew they'd jump at it, having just done Whodunnit?
for them and, uh, they turned it down flat, too.
Then, as Jon put it, he found a man of great "perspicacity".
A guy called Lewis Rudd, who was then head of Southern Television.
And he said, "I love it.
Let's make it.
" They made it.
And I think within three or four episodes, it was getting about 10 million people.
Good evening, sir.
Oh, we had enormous fun doing Worzel.
Hey, Worzel! BAYLDON: When I arrived at the location to be made up, Jon was already nearly finishing his make-up.
With little bits here, the nose was longer, the hair was straw and Straw was coming out of his head.
And he said, "Well, "I'll see you on the green, Geoffrey.
" So I went down onto the set, and what he was doing was walking down a little narrow path, a wee narrow path, and on this side were several cows with solid expressions, looking at him.
And he then moved forward, wobbling, coming forward and said, "Good morning, ladies," and passed them.
And I just laughed.
I thought, "This is funny.
"This is comic, it's enjoyable.
" I thought, "This is a success.
"It's going to be a success.
" There's too much talent in this man.
And there certainly was and thank God it all happened.
I thought he was a smashing Worzel Gummidge.
I don't I think he would have been quite proud of himself.
It was the biggest thing of his life.
I had a gut feeling about Worzel, I thought, this is going to take off and go like nothing I've ever been involved with, and sure enough it did.
Five Within four weeks, five weeks, we were the media's darling, I mean, we were never out of the papers.
But I think it was the achievement of getting it that really pleased Jon, you know.
For the first time in his life, with Worzel Gummidge, Jon felt he'd really accomplished something.
He always said to me, "I've got a new guise at last.
" And he deserved it.
PERTWEE".
We ran 10 years, we ran I ran longer than my sojourn in Doctor Who.
INTERVIEWER'.
What was your favourite role out of those two big TV - PERTWEE: Oh, Worzel, I'm afraid.
-Really?
Yes, because it was my own original.
I was the third of the Doctor Whos and Worzel I was the was the first.
MONEY: After Worzel, it's probably fair to say that he became a good deal calmer.
He was far more relaxed about a lot of things.
(FUNNY LAUGH) It was a wonderful happening when we were staying at the same hotel.
And he knew that they were There was a wedding.
He said to the receptionist, "Are there any marriages today?
" They said, "Yes, there's one on now.
"Just along there.
"Through the double doors.
" So he said, "That's enough.
" He went straight down to the double doors, looked through the double doors and saw the wedding.
And what he saw was the bride and groom, the mother, the father, aunts and uncles and et cetera And he came in and said, "Hello, hello! "Oh! Oh, it's a wedding! "Oh! Oh, that's the bride's mother, I'll kiss her.
" (IMITATES KISSING) And did.
To a horrified woman who said, "What the hell is this?
" I did the same as Whatever he did, I did.
So I kissed her.
And Then we went to the tables and passed them.
And And said, "Goodbye.
" And disappeared.
MONEY".
He was always delighted to go back to Doctor Who in any shape or form.
You know, I think he went back to do The Five Doctors, I think it was, but certainly the conventions.
Why?
I think he genuinely loved that show.
And he recognised very well that he owed a lot to it.
In Jon's later life, Doctor Who became an income, really.
You know, to a Doctor Who convention, which he'd get paid for, and so on and so forth, it was just another outlook for making a few quid, you know.
Which was good.
MANNING".
And it was just exactly as it was back then.
Nothing had changed, he still held my hand to make sure I didn't trip over things.
He still kind of took charge, 'cause he always did with me.
PERTWEE".
When the fans ask me questions, they say, you know, "Why did Admetus give the crystal to Bluva?
" And I say, "Why do you think?
" And he says, "Well, I think it's because of blah, blah" I say, "Absolutely right.
" And the only reason I say that is because I haven't the faintest idea what the answer is.
It was a very long time ago.
INTERVIEWER: It's a good way of doing it, isn't it?
Answering with a question.
- That's right.
- That's the best way forward.
MONEY".
He always liked to wear the Doctor Who costume at conventions.
Probably because I think he did make one remark to me, "Sometimes, you know, some of the Doctors go to the conventions "looking more like Worzel Gummidge's scruffy scarecrow character.
" And that wasn't Jon at all.
I mean, he was always a snazzy dresser anyway.
But it was very important to him to assume the character of Doctor Who, you know, encapsulate it in that wonderful costume.
You're back as Doctor Who on the stage after a 15-year gap.
- PERTWEE: That's right.
- Are you glad to be back?
Oh, sure, the money's good.
Do you miss being Doctor Who?
Yes I do, from time to time.
Yes, but I enjoyed Worzel Gummidge, too.
DICKS: I mean, I got to know him better, really, on, uh the second of the Doctor Who plays that I wrote.
And, um, Jon opened in that, and he was very, very nervous, course, he was older by then, you know.
How old are you now?
Uh, I'm 70 this year.
(AUDIENCE APPLAUDING) Now, you're going to You're going to play 10 weeks on stage -of Doctor Who.
- Eleven.
- Eleven?
Well, we wish it well.
- Yeah.
He suddenly said out of the blue, "Do you think I'm a good actor, Terrance?
" You know, which is a very embarrassing question to be asked, I mean, you know And I said, "Yes, of course.
"Of course I do.
" And he said, "And does Barry?
" And I say, "Yes, I'm sure Barry does.
" And he said, "Well, why does he never give me a part "in the classic serials?
" Because by that time, Barry and I were working on the classic serials, you see.
And I said, "The trouble is, Jon, you're a star.
"And, you know, we cast you as anything in a Dickens serial, "people are going to say, 'There's the Doctor,' you know.
" And, um, he wasn't really happy about that but, uh, he accepted it, I think.
Jon was a a strange character, 'cause he He was brash and bright and overtly, um, expressive in his ways.
But he also had another side to him.
He was very easily hurt.
WOGAN: You look as far away from retiring as you did when I met you, which must have been 20 years ago.
- Sweet.
- And you look the picture of health.
- We're all delighted to see you.
- Thank you, Terry.
Thank you.
The actor )on Pertwee has (âed after suffering a heart att*ck.
He was 76.
In a career spanning 60 years, he was best known for his roles as Doctor Who and as the children's scarecrow Worzel Gummidge.
I started getting phone calls through on my mobile phone, the first of which came from Jon's then secretary, to say that Jon had had a heart att*ck.
My friend called and said he'd just spoken to Ingeborg.
And I said, "Well how is he?
" And he said, "He's dead.
" I couldn't believe it.
I still can't believe it.
I was staggered when Jon d*ed, by virtue of the fact How can Jon, of all people, die falling out of bed?
He just fell out of bed dead.
I mean, that's just ridiculous.
R's not the way )on goes.
I don't deal with things when I first hear them.
Because I have this disbelief thing.
They've just gone away.
I did the same I've done the same with my father.
They've just gone away.
And so it wasn't like that instant reaction, it was I don't believe it.
MONEY: The afternoon before, he'd been walking around a fairly big lake in Connecticut and all seemed well.
They were due to come home, I think, two days later.
Um So, uh, yeah, I was absolutely devastated by it.
EARLE".
The outpouring at the time The grief amongst a lot Was It was more unbelievable than grief.
I mean, it was You know, "You're kidding, is this one of his pranks?
" You know?
It's amazing.
It was quite some time before I reacted to the situation.
And I'd come back to London and I was taken to somewhere in Wales where they have like a a Bessie.
And I was sitting in Bessie, and just Tears just flooded, because every single moment, every single memory, every feeling that I'd had for this extraordinary man, suddenly I realised that was it, that I wasn't going to see him again.
And when we did the, um, eulogy in the church, which I did with his family, and I had the world and his wife doing that.
And the instructions were, from me, that is, that I don't want any misery because that's not where he's at.
And we didn't get any, because they made the speeches and from St Martin-in-the-Fields, I think it was, you could hear the laughter in Charing Cross Road, which is a great way to be, you know, so that was lovely.
JACOBS".
I miss Jon terribly.
I saw a photograph of him the other day and I thought, "Good Lord, I don't see that man any more.
" BAYLDON".
I've kept him part of me ever since.
He's He grows out of my shoulder somewhere.
I'm happy, privileged to have had Jon as a friend.
I'd never known anyone like it.
Still haven't met anyone like it.
CORNWELL".
Jon had Not an aristocratic thing, but he had He was classy.
That's it.
EARLE: To me, what made Jon special was that he was always a good friend.
MANNING".
He was a wonderful actor.
He was a wonderful raconteur.
He was a passionate man.
And he was a dear, dear friend.
And I will miss him absolutely forever.
He was untouchable.