Elisabeth Sladen was born on 1 February 1948 in Liverpool, England. She attended drama school for two years before joining the local repertory theatre in her home town of Liverpool. She met actor Brian Miller during her first production there and they were later married after meeting again in Manchester, three years later. Early television work included appearances on "Coronation Street" (1960), "Doomwatch" (1970), "Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em" (1973), "Public Eye" (1965) and "Z Cars" (1962). Between 1974 and 1976, she had a regular role on "Doctor Who" (1963) as Sarah Jane Smith, a part she has since reprised in K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (1981) (TV); "Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (#20.23)" (1983); the Doctor Who radio serials The Paradise of Death (1993) & Doctor Who and the Ghosts of N-Space" (1996); the Children In Need skit Doctor Who: Dimensions in Time (1993) (TV); the spin-off video drama Downtime (1995) (V) and, most recently, in the new "Doctor Who" (2005) series. Other work on television has included _"Stepping Stones" (1977)_, "Send in the Girls" (1978), "Take My Wife..." (1979), Gulliver in Lilliput (1982) (TV), Alice in Wonderland (1986) (TV) and "Dempsey and Makepeace" (1985). In 1980, Sladen appeared in the cinema film Silver Dream Racer (1980). Since the birth of her daughter Sadie in 1985, she has spent most of her time being a mother and housewife, but has made occasional television appearances, including in "The Bill" (1984) and "Peak Practice" (1993). Fan reaction of her reappearance as Sarah Jane Smith on "Doctor Who" (2005) resulted in the production of a second Doctor Who spin-off just for her, "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007) which is in production at this time.
She starred in K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (1981) (TV), the first television spin-off of "Doctor Who" (1963), which featured Sarah Jane Smith as played by Sladen, and K-9 as voiced by John Leeson .She is the mother of Sadie Miller .Returned to playing the role of her "Doctor Who" (1963) companion character, intrepid journalist "Sarah Jane Smith", in a series of brand new, original self-contained audio adventures on single CD in 2002 and again in 2006.Returned to playing her Sarah Jane Smith character from the original "Doctor Who" (1963) series (1963-1989) in the new in "Doctor Who: School Reunion (#2.3)" (2006), "Doctor Who: The Stolen Earth (#4.12)" (2008), "Doctor Who: Journey's End (#4.13)" (2008), "Doctor Who: The End of Time: Part Two" (2010), and her own spin-off series, "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007).Voted best guest actress by readers of [i]Doctor Who[/i] magazine for School Reunion.Tied with Nicholas Courtney for the record of appearing with 7 on-screen incarnations of the Doctor. Although she is best known as a companion with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker , she appeared with all of the first five Doctors in "Doctor Who: The Five Doctors (#20.23)" (1983). She later appeared with David Tennant and Matt Smith 's Doctors in "Doctor Who" (2005) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007).Along with Peter Davison and John Leeson , she is one of only three actors to play the same character (Sarah Jane Smith) in both "Doctor Who" (1963) and "Doctor Who" (2005).Along with John Leeson , she is one of only two actors to play the same character (Sarah Jane Smith) in four different television productions based in the "Doctor Who" universe: "Doctor Who" (1963), K-9 and Company: A Girl's Best Friend (1981) (TV), "Doctor Who" (2005) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007). She appeared with Leeson's character in all four.Along with David Tennant , John Leeson , Tommy Knight , Alexander Armstrong , Lachele Carl , and Matt Smith , she is one of seven actors to play the same character (Sarah Jane Smith) in both "Doctor Who" (2005) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007).Along with John Leeson , Nicholas Courtney , and Katy Manning , she is one of four actors to play the same character (Sarah Jane Smith) in both "Doctor Who" (1963) and "The Sarah Jane Adventures" (2007).
The Doctor is a renegade Time Lord: an eccentric, highly-intelligent scientist from a distant planet. He travels through time and space in the TARDIS, a curious device, larger on the inside than on the outside, which was designed to change its appearance to suit its surroundings. Unfortunately, the Doctor's TARDIS seems to be broken, and always appears as a blue British police box. The Doctor has a soft spot for the planet Earth, and often visits there, either to save it from various alien threats or to whisk a choice few inhabitants away to the distant parts of the galaxy to help him fight evil there. The Doctor has many foes, including Daleks (led by Davros), and The Master, another renegade Time Lord. Time Lord biology enables them to regenerate their bodies, and so both the Doctor and the Master appear to evolve over the years...