Elisabeth Clara Miller (née Heath-Sladen; 1 February 1946 – 19 April 2011), known professionally as Elisabeth Sladen, was an English actress. She was best known for her recurring role as Sarah Jane Smith in the BBC series Doctor Who from 1973 to 1976, alongside Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker; she reprised the role with David Tennant between 2006 and 2010 and in spin-offs K-9 and Company (1981) and The Sarah Jane Adventures (2007–2011).
Sladen was interested in ballet and theatre from childhood, and began to appear on stage in the mid-1960s, although she was more often a stage manager at this time. She moved to London in 1970 and won several television roles, with her acting in the police drama Z-Cars leading to her being recommended for the role in Doctor Who. After leaving the series, she had other roles on both television and radio before semi-retiring to bring up a family in the mid-1980s.
Sladen returned to the public eye in the 2000s with more Doctor Who-related appearances, which culminated in taking a regular lead role in The Sarah Jane Adventures. In 2010, the show earned the Royal Television Society Award for Best Children's Drama. She also made regular guest appearances on the main television series and provided voice-over commentaries and interviews for its releases to DVD. She died of cancer in 2011.
Elisabeth Clara Heath-Sladen was born on 1 February 1946 in Liverpool, England. She was the only child of Tom Sladen (1900–1994), who fought in the First World War and served in the Home Guard during the Second World War, and Gladys (née Trainer; died 1978). She was named after her paternal grandmother, Clara Heath. On the unusual spelling of Elisabeth with an "s", her mother explained that "S is for star".
Around the age of five, Sladen's mother enrolled her at Shelagh Elliott-Clarke's local dance school. She entered a competition at a local festival where she recited a monologue from Hansel and Gretel, and subsequently began attending Elliott-Clarke's acting classes. Sladen attended Mosspits Lane primary school in Wavertree, where she played Alice in a production of Through the Looking Glass. One of her classmates and co-stars was future politician Edwina Currie. Sladen attended Aigburth Vale High School for Girls, where she performed on stage with the Royal Ballet every Christmas for five years.
At the age of sixteen, Sladen signed up for three years full-time study at Elliott-Clarke's drama school. In her first year she was put forward for the television talent contest Search for a Star. She recited Portia's speech from Julius Caesar and won through to two heats in London.
After a year at drama school, Sladen spent one summer with the London Youth Theatre at the Scala Theatre. She played a court lady in Hamlet (alongside Helen Mirren) and understudied for Portia in Julius Caesar. Sladen made her first film appearance as an uncredited extra in Ferry Cross the Mersey (1964). Sladen joined the Hillbark Players for a 1964 open-air production of Much Ado About Nothing, playing Hero.
After two years at drama school, Sladen began work at the Liverpool Playhouse repertory company as an assistant stage manager. Her first stage appearance at the Playhouse was as a maid in Twelfth Night. A few months later, she played a corpse in The Physicists. She met her husband, actor Brian Miller, when he was cast in her third Playhouse production The Long and the Short and the Tall. However, she was scolded for giggling on stage due to Miller whispering the words "Respiration nil, Aston Villa two" in her ear while he was playing a doctor. Sladen was such a good assistant stage manager that she did not get many acting roles, a problem that was solved when she accidentally made a mistake on one occasion. One interview indicated that she deliberately made mistakes on several occasions. As a result, she began to get on-stage roles again. She eventually moved into weekly repertory work, travelling to various locations in Britain. After a brief period living with Miller in London, their colleague from Playhouse, Tony Colegate, became director of the Library Theatre Company, Manchester. Colegeate brought in Miller and appointed Sladen as ASM in December 1966.
Sladen's first television appearance after Search for a Star was with a bit part in ITV Playhouse episode "Top of the Ladder", which aired on 11 December 1967. She later played a hotel maid in the Playhouse episode "Chekhov's If Only the Trains Come", aired December 1968. After 1968, Sladen took the lead role of Jo in a production of A Taste of Honey. She also acted in BBC radio productions, including Story Time: Royal Brides (1969) and A Bang with a Spanner (1970). She worked for dramatist Alan Ayckbourn at BBC Leeds. Under Ayckbourn, Sladen and Miller acted in productions through the summer 1969 at the Library Theatre, Scarborough, including in How the Other Half Loves.
She went on to appear in numerous roles, most notably as Desdemona in Othello, her first appearance as a leading lady. She also got the occasional part on Radio Leeds and Granada Television. In January 1970, Sladen appeared as barmaid Anita Reynolds in six episodes of the long-running soap opera Coronation Street. Afterwards she returned to stage work in Manchester.
In 1969, Sladen and her husband appeared in the play How the Other Half Loves; when in the autumn of 1970 the play moved to London, the couple also moved there. Her first television role in London was in a two-part story of Z-Cars. These two episodes of Z-Cars have since been wiped and are listed as missing episodes by the BBC's archive library. She then appeared as a terrorist in an episode of Doomwatch, followed by guest roles in further episodes of Z-Cars, Public Eye, Some Mothers Do 'Ave 'Em and Special Branch.
In 1973, Doctor Who actress Katy Manning, who was playing the Third Doctor's assistant Jo Grant opposite Jon Pertwee, was leaving the series; Z-Cars producer Ron Craddock gave Sladen an enthusiastic recommendation to Doctor Who producer Barry Letts. Sladen arrived at the audition not knowing it was for the new companion role, and was amazed at Letts's thoroughness. She was introduced to Pertwee, whom she found intimidating at the time. As she chatted with Letts and Pertwee, each time she turned to look at one of them the other would signal a thumbs-up. The role of Sarah Jane Smith was originally given to comic actress April Walker, but allegedly during rehearsals for debut story The Time Warrior, doubts over the pairing of Walker and Pertwee surfaced and the part was recast with Sladen.
She stayed on Doctor Who for three-and-a-half seasons, alongside Pertwee as the Third Doctor and Tom Baker as the Fourth. She departed the programme in the serial The Hand of Fear (1976). While Sladen was in Doctor Who, she attended numerous public events to publicise the programme. Following her departure, she largely stopped attending related events as she felt it could be seen as bad manners to the new cast.
After her initial run in Doctor Who ended in 1976, she returned to Liverpool with her husband and performed in a series of plays. This included a two-hander with Miller in Mooney and his Caravans. Subsequent appearances include a two-year stint as a presenter for the children's programme Stepping Stones, a lead role with Miller playing her husband in ITV drama Send in the Girls, a BBC Play for Today, a role as a stand-up comic's spouse in Take My Wife, and a small part in the film Silver Dream Racer as a bank secretary in 1980, only her second film appearance.
She returned to the character of Sarah Jane Smith on several later occasions. In 1981, new Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner asked her to return to the series to ease the transition between Tom Baker and new Doctor Peter Davison. She declined but accepted his second offer of a pilot for a spin-off series called K-9 and Company, co-starring K-9, the robot dog from Doctor Who. Although it won viewing figures of 8.4 million and a positive reception from BBC executives, the pilot was not picked up for a series due to "logistics and changes in BBC management".