- Born
- Died
- Birth nameBarry Leopold Letts
- Barry Letts started his career as an actor. He began in repertory in York whilst also working for a local radio station in Leeds. After a chance meeting with BBC producer/director Rex Tucker, he started working with him first on radio and then on television. His first television appearance was in a 1950 production of "Gunpowder Guy," about Guy Fawkes.
He eventually decided he wanted to go into directing and in 1967 attended the BBC directors' course. He worked on episodes of "Z Cars" and "The Newcomers" before directing the six-part Doctor Who story "The Enemy of the World" in 1967. He became producer of Doctor Who in 1969 and remained in that post until 1974. During this period he also co-created and produced the six-part BBC science-fiction drama series "Moonbase 3," transmitted in 1973.
After leaving Doctor Who, he marked time for a while by acting as an assistant of sorts to department head Ronnie Marsh. He then decided to make a return to directing and approached various producers for work. One of the assignments he landed was "The Android Invasion" for Doctor Who in 1975.
Straight after that came a production of "The Prince and the Pauper" for John McCrae. However McCrae was promoted to Head of Drama for a New Zealand TV station, so Letts was asked to take over as producer of the classical serials on BBC1. Amongst those for which he was responsible were "Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm" (1978), "The Mill of the Floss" (1979) and "The Old Curiosity Shop" (1980).
Following his stint as Doctor Who's executive producer at the beginning of the eighties he continued to work as a director, particularly on the classic serials. In the 1990s, he wrote (and subsequently novelised) two Doctor Who radio serials, "The Paradise of Death" and "Doctor Who and the Ghosts of N-Space," both starring Jon Pertwee.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Anonymous
- SpouseMuriel Letts(1951 - May 2009) (her death, 3 children)
- Children
- RelativesPauline Letts(Sibling)
- He was hugely influenced by a chance encounter (during his lunchbreak from directing The Newcomers (1965) in Birmingham's Gosta Green) with Alan Watts' 1961 book "Psychotherapy East and West" about Zen Buddhism, a belief he went on to follow throughout his life from his 40s onwards (and elements of which he brought to the Third Doctor).
- In an interview, composer Mark Ayres was asked why Doctor Who (1963) was better than Star Trek (1966) or Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977). He simply replied: "Barry Letts".
- Letts retired from acting in the 1960s to become a television director and was recommended for a directors' training course by the then Head of BBC Drama, Sydney Newman.
- He served in the Royal Navy during the Second World War.
- He is regarded as one of the most influential figures in the history of the television series Doctor Who (1963). As producer of the series for five years, among many other achievements he co-created (with Terrance Dicks) the character of the Master (originally played by Roger Delgado), he co-created (again with Dicks) Sarah Jane Smith (casting Elisabeth Sladen in the part) and he cast Tom Baker as the Doctor (Baker and Sladen have often been voted the most popular Doctor and companion in the series). Following his death, tributes were paid by Tom Baker and Doctor Who (2005) executive producer Russell T. Davies. One obituary written of him described him as the godfather of the series.
- The BBC doesn't teach you how to be a drama producer. She just picks you up by the scruff of the neck and drops you in it, if you take my meaning.
- [about Doctor Who (1963)] To a certain extent we set out to frighten the viewer, it's traditional. Everybody talks about how they watched, when they were little, "Doctor Who" over the top of the sofa or between their fingers or through the crack in the door.
- I think that the role of the monster in the frightening story is very much the role of the ogre and the giant in fairy stories. It's something to be frightened of, which is containable because it's obviously made-up. A child can accept a monster when it's quite clearly not something it's going to meet around the corner.
- The Daleks were never popular with directors. One director said to me, when I asked her if she'd like to direct a Doctor Who (1963), she said, "Yes, as long as I don't have to direct any tin cans".
- What Terrance Dicks, my script editor, and I established (and what was picked up and developed by Philip Hinchcliffe with [Robert Holmes]) was an approach based on some definite principles deriving from the best of the past. We took the programme seriously. This is not to say that we didn't have fun making it, or that the writing had the po-faced grimness--or dullness--of some of the more dreary sci-fi offerings of the day.
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