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Elisabeth Sladen’s life
I’m not normally a biography sort of person. Many years ago, when I was an acting student, I read Laurence Olivier’s On Acting (which is a sort-of quasi autobiography focusing on his acting career) and I wasn’t riveted. So reading an autobiography was not really high on my list… until Elisabeth Sladen died.
Ms Sladen was the actress who played Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who and various spin-offs. I’m a HUGE Doctor Who fan and Sarah Jane was my favourite character and I was rather devastated to hear of her passing (see my post from last year “Famous Dead People”). So when I discovered that she had completed an autobiography shortly before her death, I thought I’d give it a go.
Reading an autobiography is an odd experience. It often feels like the subject is talking specifically to you… but of course you know they’re not. And there is the danger that a person you have admired from afar, may end up disappointing you. Reading Elisabeth Sladen: the autobiography, there was a certain amount of both.
As I started reading, I found the style a little disjointed. It took me a while to settle into it and accept the conversational approach, where thoughts sometimes jumped back and forth. By the end of the book, I was quite enjoying the style, and even getting that “specifically talking to you” feeling.
And yes, as I read Sladen’s reminiscences, I sometimes found myself thinking that her response to certain people and events were a little disappointing, or uncharitable or whatever. I guess, as a fan, I had imagined perfection… but what this book showed me was a human being.
In the end, that’s what I ended up loving about it… the fact that this book shows Elisabeth Sladen, the flawed human being. The person who was sometimes impatient with others; the person who sometimes made the wrong decisions; the person who stumbled through life and career without any sort of plan. It makes for a fascinating read. And in the end, it did not make me any less a fan.
On a personal note, this book provided me with an exceeding sense of relief that I did not end up pursuing an acting career. I went to drama school and I did some acting (and still do occasionally), but I never actually pursued it as my one and only career option. Unlike Ms Sladen and her husband Brian Miller. Acting was the sole career for both of them… and OMG, what a hard life. It’s all well and good if you’re a star, earning bucket loads of money, but most actors are not in that lucky situation. Particularly striking are Sladen’s descriptions of life in repertory theatre, where she was paid a pittance to be working on a gruelling schedule — performing one play in the evenings, while rehearsing another during the days, on a schedule that rotated every couple of weeks. You have to be incredibly dedicated to do that.
Of course, what I loved most about this book was its focus on Doctor Who. Eight of the seventeen chapters are devoted to Sladen’s days with Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker. It was really interesting reading about her dichotomous relationships with these two men — how she loved Pertwee and ended up being friends with him and his wife, but how he also often infuriated her and how she often found him difficult to work with; and how she loved working with Baker, but was never friends with him outside of Doctor Who. In fact, she describes a wonderfully awkward meeting between herself and Baker (and his then wife), when he, out of the blue, insisted on having to buy her a coat. The Baker she writes about is definitely a larger-than-life, eccentric character.
Sladen’s perspective on the transition between Pertwee and Baker is also intriguing… and quite sad. I’ve not read much about this before, but from her account, Pertwee ended up deeply regretting his decision to leave Doctor Who. I now want to seek out Pertwee’s autobiography (unfortunately out-of-print) to find out his thoughts on the matter.
There’s not a huge amount in this autobiography about Sladen’s personal life. Yes, there’s a bit about her parents and her marriage and her daughter… but not much. The book very much focuses on her as an actress, and her personal life is generally touched on in relation to her acting life. I would have liked there to be a little more about her life outside of acting. I was also disappointed that there wasn’t more about her work on The Sarah Jane Adventures. She filmed four and a half seasons before her death, but it barely gets a chapter.
Nevertheless, I did enjoy this book. It felt very honest. I never once got the impression that Sladen was trying to put on a façade. She just told things, good and bad, how they were. And it’s persuaded me that I should, perhaps, read some more autobiographies.
And for those of you who may be interested, a little while ago I reviewed the DVD release of The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Complete Third Series.
Catch ya later, George
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Tags: Doctor Who, Elisabeth Sladen
