Who's got views for you? -- Article One Reprint

Who's got views for you

EXCLUSIVE

The night

Tom Baker

silenced

Hislop & Merton

By HELEN WEATHERS

IT IS the show where no ego is left unpunctured, no lame joke goes unpunished and no personal quirk unlampooned.

Television history is littered with the names of the politicians and celebrities who have fallen victim to the ruthless wit of Paul Merton and Ian Hislop on, Have I Got News For You.

But only one man has left them speechless and won host Angus Deayton's accolade as the funniest guest ever to appear in the show's nine-year history - former Doctor Who, Tom Baker.

As Deayton and Co tried gamely to keep the show on track, Tom veered off with an anecdote about how he was once mistaken for Shirley Williams.

Oblivious to any questions, he then cracked: "Did you hear about the Dalek that took Viagra? It went around with its antennae sticking out,, repeating 'Fornicate, fornicate'."

And he left everyone gobsmacked with his observation that "when Prince Albert found out Queen Victoria was Jewish, well, that's what killed him".

The show has made him a cult figure once more, 20 years after he handed in the keys to the Tardis. Tell this to Tom, the fourth and best-loved Doctor Who, and he gives a huge tombstone-toothed smile.

"Really," he says in that booming voice which used to say things like, "Do have a jelly baby," even when faced with near certain extermination by the Daleks.

"It's so nice to feel wanted again. Dr Who was such a wonderful time in my life. I have to admit that everything after it has been a bit of a downer."

Now aged 64, his once dark mop of unruly curls short and silvery-grey, Tom is usually mistaken for a different Doctor Who these days.

People think I'm Jon Pertwee which always gives me a little frisson, even though people forget that Jon is now dead," he grins.

"But I'm an old codger now. I see young people looking at me in the street, and unless they are Dr Who fans who are endlessly loyal, they turn their heads away in shock."

Within minutes of meeting Tom you can see why he succeeded on Have I Got News For You where so many have failed.

He wittily cuts himself down to size before whittling away at the self-important, vain and pretentious. "Peter Mandelson and Geoffrey Robinson! Mandy called himself 'exotic' but you wouldn't buy a copy of the Big Issue from either of them, would you?" he bellows across the hotel lobby.

"And that awful pseudo-posh Geordie Jack Cunningham, the enforcer? He's like Baron Hardup in Jack And The Beanstalk! We have a pantomime front bench with Tony Blair cast as Buttons in Cinderella. What a joke!

"When the Conservatives were in I cannot tell you how much I hated them. But I realise how shallow I am because I now hate the Labour Party as much."

He suddenly turns his attentions to fellow actors well-known for their luvvie tendencies.

"I mean Anthony Hopkins - what was he in? Saddle of Lamb? he bellows. Silence of the Lambs, you prompt.

"That's it! I knew it was something to do with lambs. He says he's giving up acting because it's bad for his health. Ha! Now he decides. How many films do you have to make before you work that one out?"

But Tom could never be accused of presenting anything other than a brutally honest image of himself.

Here is a man who admits to being a failed monk before becoming an actor. A working-class lad from Liverpool, so hated and humiliated by his first wife's well-to-do family, he tried to kill his mother-in-law by hurling sharpened gardening hoes at her.

A man who, in desperation, tried to kill himself. When that failed, he left his first wife and two sons to try to save his sanity.

A jobless actor - despite a spell at the National under Laurence Olivier - he worked on a building site until he won his big break as Doctor Who in 1973.

An overnight star, he then "went mad" with all the adulation, indulging in drink and one-night stands.

Today, happily married to his third wife Sue Jerrard, he has no regrets about his wild past.

"I don't have women throwing themselves at me any more, but people never forget, do they?" he says. "Fan love is so superior to ordinary human love.

"I'm 64 now but I get letters and tapes all the time from women. I had one recently from a woman who said she wanted me to impregnate her. She said she was off the drugs and could I be on standby because she'd had a dream that she'd had my baby. She signed it 'By the way, I'm 54'."

"The next week she sent a letter which read'Goddammit! I'm back on the drugs again.' I guess I'm not on standby any more'.

At the height of Tom's fame, there was no shortage of groupies who wanted to have sex.

"One university don persuaded him to show her his Dr Who costume and then put it on. She then threw herself across a hotel bed and growled: "Come on Doctor, let's travel through space."

"As we grappled like demented stoats, her wearing my gear, I kept thinking I was making love to myself," he says. "That was how I described it in my autobiography and when this lady read it, she wrote and said how much she loved my description of 'demented stoats'.

"She asked if we could meet up, but I won't because she might be disappointed to see how old I've become."

Tom met wife Sue when she worked as an editor on Dr Who. They had a relationship before Tom married his TV assistant Lalla Ward. His marriage to Lalla broke down after a year, because he spent more time out drinking than with her. They split amicably and Tom renewed contact with Sue, 15 years his junior, and they married 14 years ago.

Today they live in an old school-house in Kent. "The mystery is Why she still loves me after all this time," says Tom. "I really don't think I could live without her."

Sue seems to be the only constant in his life. He was only reconciled with his younger son from his first marriage after a chance meeting in a New Zealand restaurant.

He was at the bar and I was sitting at a table on the habourside," says Tom. "The next thing I know our bill had been paid.

"This chap came over, tall and handsome and said 'I'm Piers Baker, I'm your son'. He recognised me, but I hadn't seen him for years so there was no way I could have recognised him. Once I got over the shock we had a nice conversation." But there is no contact with his eldest son Daniel, 37. The last time they spoke was five years ago. "I don't know why. There was no malice," he says.

Time has not dented Tom's eccentric take on life. So it comes as no surprise he has already bought his own gravestone in the churchyard at the bottom of his garden.

"The church was collecting money and I didn't just want to give them 100 pounds with nothing in return so I said 'I'll buy that old headstone off you,' says Tom.

"The next day as I was mowing the tummies of the dead - one of my hobbies when I'm out of work - I suddenly heard 'chink, chink, chink'.

"There was this monumental mason chipping away and I said "Listen, do you want to earn a score?" and I told him to put my name on the gravestone and my date of birth and leave the next bit blank."

Unlike his dark days when he tried to kill himself, Tom would never entertain that thought now.

"When you get to 64 you want to cling on to life as much as possible. I have noticed all the Doctor Whos have died in sequence. The first Doctor Who died first, the second, second and Jon was the third and he's gone. I'm next.

"But when I do go, I might have something else engraved on my tombstone." And what might that be, Doctor?

"I'd like a second opinion."