Ian Marter

Harry Sulivan

Biographic Info

Poor old Harry never seemed able to do anything right, in the eyes of his fellow travellers. Ever well-meaning, his clumsiness and his tendency to remark on the obvious didn't entirely endear him to either Sarah Jane or the newly regenerated Doctor.

Harry was a medical man, called in to help when the third Doctor was suffering from the trauma of a forced regeneration. In many respects he was very much a product of the same stiff upper-lipped, slightly gung-ho background as the Brigadier.

He was attracted to the idea of serving his country from an early age, probably influenced by a schoolboy diet of comic adventure books and spy thrillers. This is not to say that he was stupid - far from it. The prestigious UNIT were hardly likely to recruit idiots into the ranks of their elite. Medicine requires many years of training and though perhaps led to his career by his childhood dreams, Harry was no shirker and went through a rigorous naval training, as well as his academic studies.

The problem was that after becoming involved with the Doctor, like others before him, Harry found his skills somewhat redundant, as circumstances and indeed technology were usually well beyond his comprehension. All he had to do now was what the Time Lord told him and this didn't suit Harry at all - he wanted to be in the thick of things, an ambition that was to get him into difficulties on more than one occasion.

Part of the problem was that, try as he might, Harry found it hard to accept the Doctor's authority and to acknowledge Sarah's independence. He was hidebound by the same sexist principles ingrained in the Brigadier. Sarah brought out the worst side of his masculine ego - he wanted both to protect and impress her.

Sadly, though fond of him (after all, his motives were genuine enough), Sarah just wasn't the quiet, acquiescent type and Harry more often than not found himself snubbed rather than admired.

Harry's difficulty in accepting the Doctor's authority was a symptom of the circumstances under which they first met. Harry found it hard to shake off the initial impression that this madcap figure with the curly brown hair and crazy clothes wasn't still in serious need of medical protection - if only for his own safety.

The fact that it took him so long to become accustomed to accepting that the Doctor was simply eccentric was an indication of the rather conceited mind Harry possessed. This conceit almost certainly led to some of the blunders he made - starting a rock fall being about the most stupid.

Given that Harry was an ambitious young man, and that he could hardly have been said to have taken to time travelling like a duck to water, it was never likely that he would stay on board the TARDIS for any length of time. After the first shock of realising he was indeed travelling in time and space, there came the slower realisation that this life, adventurous though it was, was not for him.

Nobody likes to feel constantly out of their depth and for most of the time, Harry was struggling to maintain his sense of purpose and discipline within a lifestyle that offered neither for a man of his type.

While he was a member of the Doctor's entourage, Harry did, however, learn. He learnt the truth of the saying that travel broadens the mind - and that to preclude the unusual or the unexpected because it doesn't fit in with a traditional English upbringing and set of standards is unwise indeed.

Harry's adventures occurred over a very concentrated period of time and his swift refusal of a further trip in the TARDIS was a sure sign that he'd had enough of this disordered existence. Ironically, by this stage Harry had become much more a part of the ship's crew and Sarah was genuinely sorry to see him go - now there would be no other Earth person with whom to enjoy and endure the sights and experiences of the universe.

Born 28 October 1944 - Died 28 October 1986

Ian Marter portrayed Doctor Harry Sullivan from the beginning of Robot (1974) through the end of The Android Invasion (1975). He also wrote a number of the Target Books novelisations (among other books) before his untimely death (diabetic coma) in 1986.

Age during show: Robot 30 years .. The Android Invasion 31 years

The character of Harry was devised by outgoing producer Barry Letts to ensure that if the as then uncast new Doctor was older and more frail than Jon Pertwee had been, there would still be someone around to handle the rough stuff. Ian Marter had been offered the part of Captain Yates some years before by Letts and had then been cast in the 1972 serial Carnival of Monsters (again by Letts).

Unfortunately for Marter, the new Doctor was not old and frail and anyway, new producer Philip Hinchcliffe decided to move the show away from UNIT and the action emphasis. Harry's clumsiness and comical mistakes were put in the place of the action, but even so there was no real longevity in the character and after his contract expired, Marter was dropped, making one brief return in The Android Invasion.

He played the part to the best of his abilities, but he was hardly stretched by the experience (Harry being virtually identical to his role as Andrews in Carnival of Monsters) and he wasn't sorry to depart.

Afterwards, Ian Marter played a variety of roles on television and started his equally well known career as a writer of novelisations, many of them Doctor Who titles. His premature death was a great shock to all those who had enjoyed his twin talents, and especially his writing of the special Harry Sullivan book.