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 | Biographic Info |
Terry Nation started his glittering career writing jokes. He worked on many radio shows, writing for The Goon Show and Tony Hancock before turning to the more lucrative world of television drama, there he contributed scripts to many of the most popular shows of the 60's and 70's, including The Persuaders, The Avengers, and The Saint. It was during this period that he created perhaps his most famous, and certainly his most enduring characters: the Daleks, the pepper pots with attitude for Dr Who. The Daleks would later go on to menace the universe in a number of series, two films, and even the Oxford English Dictionary. As well as working on other peoples series, he created his own, most notably Survivors (the tale of a group of people who survive a deadly plague which obliterates the world's population) and Blake's 7. Originally pitched as "The Dirty Dozen In Space", the challenge - to come up a series that would appeal to both children and adults, replacing Survivors and Doomwatch - was a tall order but Nation's concept (which became more like Robin Hood than The Dirty Dozen) was tremendously popular, and the final episode was watched by more than 9 million viewers. Nation wrote the entire first series and many episodes for the second and third before he moved to California in 1979. There he worked as a writer and producer for the likes Columbia and 20th Century Fox, hoping to achieve larger scale success than he could in the UK. He continued doing what he did best, but his work did not take off in the same way as before, and it was there thathe died on the 9th of March 1997 aged just 66. With the continuing popularity of many of his series -both Blake's 7 and the Avengers seem to be enjoying a resurge while Dr Who continues to make the BBC large quantities of money in video and merchandise sales- we can be sure that Terry Nation's imprint on the national psyche will remain for some time to come. Terry Nation the creator of SURVIVORS was born in 1931 and tragically died at the early age 66 on the 9th March 1997 at his home in California from the lung disease Empphysema.He will probabley best remembered for creating the Doctor Who monsters the Daleks for the 1963 story The Dead Planet.However,it all started very differently for Terry, as a comedian;having been told he wasn't funny!! He turned his attentions to writing the jokes for other people,including Tony Hancock,Anthony Newley and Frankie Howard. After creating the Daleks Terry moved on to work on such series as The Baron,The Saint,The Champions,The Persuaders and the final series of The Avengers. Then in 1974 that Terry was commisioned by the BBC to write a Sci-Fi/Drama series,which as we know became SURVIVIORS.Terry wrote the series plots with a great deal of action,indeed it has on more than one occasion has been described as "4 men in a Land Rover with guns",which in my opinion worked very well.However,this wasn't the case with the series Producer Terry Dudley or the co-writer Jack Ronder who thought they should deal more with the scientific aspects of the series and as a result at the end of season one Terry moved onto other projects.The first series reflects Terry's views upto Garland's War after which it follows the direction of the Producer.This is shown most vividly in the novel written by Terry to acompany the series in which it follows the TV series faithfully until Garland's War but continues on the same theme thoughout the rest of the book,entirely different to the TV series.The same theme is used in the follow up book GENESIS OF A HERO By John Eyers in which we see Peter Grant kill his Mother! On leaving SURVIVORS Terry moved onto create Blakes 7 a true Sci-Fi Drama based on a "Dirty Dozen in Space".This proved to be another resounding success and ran for four seasons until it's shocking climax in 1981.It was just before the series ended in 1980 that Terry moved out to Los Angeles to work for Columbia Pictures and 20th Century Fox where until his death he worked on such projects as MacGuyver.
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On Sunday, March 9th, 1997, Terry Nation passed away, age 66. He was in many ways a unique individual. He spent most of his life writing for television, not normally a medium that creates household names. Yet Terry became the first British scriptwriter to become a superstar with the creation of the Daleks for the second serial of "Doctor Who" in 1963.
I was nine years old at the time, and, like so many of my contemporaries, I became instantly obsessed with the Daleks. I, too, bought every bit of Dalek merchandising - and there was a lot of it - that I could find and afford. We all played at being Daleks. I even started writing my own original Dalek stories. Daleks had infested the national imagination, and Terry suddenly became incredibly well-known. Despite having killed the Daleks off in his first story, there was virtually no doubt that they would be back.
Their second appearance, invading London the following year, cemented their popularity and left indelible memories in the mind. Daleks by various famous landmarks, for example. And Robomen, their minds stolen by the Daleks, walking in unison like zombies. Further stories over the years only made them more and more popular. Terry moved on the story-edit shows such as "The Saint" and "The Avengers", and the Daleks continued to return.
Proving that his success wasn't simply a fluke, Terry created "The Survivors," which lasted two seasons, and then the astonishingly-popular "Blake's 7." Following this success, Terry and his family moved to Hollywood, where he attempted to repeat his successes for American TV. A short stint on "MacGyver" was followed by two study jobs where he was paid a lot of money to write scripts and outlines that were never filmed. Frustrated by this, Terry retired.
Thus goes the short bio of Terry. It gives you an idea of what he's done, but not of what kind of a person he was. I had the tremendous privilege of working with him for nine years, and I learned a great deal about him in that time. The first thing I discovered was that he was a tremendously kind and generous man. I had contacted him in 1988 when I had been approached about producing a "Doctor Who" book for an American publisher. I suggested a book on the Daleks, and that Terry should write it. When I contacted Terry, he thought the idea was splendid, but that he didn't have the time to do it. "Why don't you write it?" he suggested.
As if I'd turn down such an offer! So write it I did, with Terry's input. He provided me with a wealth of material. It seems that he'd taken all of his work with him to California in packing cases, now stored in his garage. Terry never threw anything away, and it was all there, but in need of finding. His wife, Kate, would go out to the garage, hunt through the cases and pull out anything with Daleks in it for me. I might get a scrapbook of newspaper clippings his mother had made up about him, or a Louis Marx catalogue of their products. One mailing contained the pilot script for "Doctor Who" that Terry had been given to guide his scripting (different from either filmed versions). I never quite knew what would turn up next.
We got along marvellously on the project. So much so that when Terry was approached by W.H. Allen for the rights to novelize "The Chase" and "The Daleks' Masterplan" (which he'd previously refused them), he agreed on one condition: that I be allowed to write them. This was completely unexpected for me, and showed his faith in my abilities. He always supported my writing, even though at this point I'd never had a word of fiction published professionally. I threw myself into the task, rewatching "The Chase."
Which raised a problem. I hated the scene in episode one where Vicki and Ian talk about the magic castle, and I was dreading having to tell him I wanted to change it. Then the scripts arrived, and I discovered that the scene wasn't there - it had been added by Dennis Spooner! In fact, Terry's scripts were much more serious, much tighter and far better than the filmed version. The same held true of "Masterplan." So I didn't need to confront him. However, whenever I wanted to make any changes at all, Terry invariably replied: "You're the writer; do what you feel works best for the story." No ego, no criticism. In fact, he enjoyed reading the manuscripts and gave me some excellent advice.
This was Terry all over. At conventions, he would mingle happily with the fans, constantly amazed that they regarded him in such awe. He took his work seriously, but never himself. He constantly told stories of his experiences - many very funny, since he'd once been a comedy writer - and often at his own expense. He never white-washed his motives or achievements, and was very self-depreciating.
Some people have said that Terry was greedy, but nothing could be further from the truth. He and his life-long agent, Roger Hancock, pursued licensing fees on the Daleks not for the money but to maintain the integrity of his copyright. In fact, Terry was anything but greedy. I had proposed from the start a fifty-fifty split of monies from any Dalek books, and Terry was absolutely adamant that this was completely unfair - to me. He insisted on my taking a much larger share than he did because I was doing the writing.
Terry was amazingly patient and gentle with everyone (sometimes especially me!). In fact, the only three times I can recall Terry criticizing anyone all stemmed from the same problem: producers who didn't take his work seriously. He loathed the final season of "Blake's 7", and was talking for years about writing a novel to pick up from the final episode and set it all straight again. I don't think he ever started it, but he often talked about doing it. The second criticism he had was for Terence Dudley, producer of the second season of "Survivors," and whom Terry blamed for its demise. At a Chicago convention, I shared a panel with Terry and writer Gerry Davis. When Dudley's name came up, Gerry politely said: "Let's not speak ill of the dead." To which Terry replied: "No, let's." He didn't see any need to cover up what he considered to be Terence Dudley's "crimes". The final person he criticized was Jon Nathan- Turner, whom he considered had ruined the Daleks, notably with "Remembrance Of The Daleks." Aside from these three producers, Terry never (to my hearing) spoke a bad word against anyone.
In short, Terry was not merely a creative genius, but also a lovely human being. He acted as my mentor and adviser on my early books, and he generously promoted my works. And this was all after I'd been critical of him in print, too. Instead of taking offense at my harsh words, as most people would have done, Terry simply took the time to explain his reasons and point of view. Needless to say, his calm, cheerful manner won me over completely.
We'll all miss his creative talents. I, and many, many others, will also miss a wonderful person. But we all have his legacy - the Daleks, Blake's 7, and all of the other shows he worked on. Wonderful tales that will always haunt our imaginations. And what better legacy could a man leave?
John
