12 Doctor Who Actors Who Died In 2023
Please join us as we pay tribute to those Doctor Who stars we lost in 2023.
As 2023 comes to a close, WhoCulture would like to take this opportunity to highlight some of the incredibly talented artists who have died in the last year. No television show is an island, and the combined work of these people has helped shape Doctor Who as we know it today.
Peter Day, Ray Callaghan, Alan Jeffrey, Derek Smith, Derek Hunt, Jim McManus, Bill Strange, Ken Westbury, Alan Hatchman, Dinah Walker, Tony Milton, Roger Squires, Dinny Powell, Patricia Prior, Michael Langley-Evans, Michael Patrick Rix, Doreen Mantle, Bernard Newnham, Elizabeth Norman, Jean Boht, Stuart Walker, Shawna Trpcic, Tony Rohr, Carol Sloman, Anthony Gardner, and Sid Sutton.
All of these people made their mark on the franchise from behind the camera, in various forms of expanded media, or in minor onscreen roles, and are dearly missed.
For the entries in this article, we have compiled a list of those actors who had sizable roles in Doctor Who, Torchwood, or The Sarah Jane Adventures.
12. Tim Barlow
Tim Barlow played Tyssan in the serial Destiny Of The Daleks. This Fourth Doctor story saw the Doctor and Romana II arrive on Skaro, bargaining for the release of a group of slaves, including Tyssan.
Barlow was deaf at the time of filming, a result of an accident while testing a new high-velocity muzzle for a rifle in the '50s. He regained his hearing, thanks to a cochlear implant, which he would then discuss in the BBC Radio 4 programme Earfull - From Silence Into Sound.
He appeared in a range of other roles, including as Mr. Treacher in Hot Fuzz, and as a blind oracle in the HBO series Rome.
Barlow died in January 2023, at 87 years of age.