Currently multiple Who fan pages are stating Nicholas Courtney passed away last night (UK time, late AM today SA time) in his sleep. While it's not unusual for 81 year olds to die suddenly, the lack of news from anything other than fan (read "gullible") media is striking. I'm sure it will resolve one way or the other in the next few hours.

In the meanwhile this seems an apt moment to reflect upon his life. He was born in Egypt to a diplomat, and this background would become significant in his connection to Doctor Who. Far from being into the military, he performed his national service --  and then left for the theater.

By the mid-sixties he was a fixture on UK television, usually drama, where he was invariably cast as a heavy. One episode of The Saint has him fight Roger Moore, losing, of course.

This is where his background came back.  Fellow expatriate kid from Egypt, Douglas Camfield had graduated to director. He had Courtney in mind for Richard the Lionheart in The Crusade, but managed to get Julian Glover (and was very proud of this casting coup).

Camfield next thought of Courtney when casting The Daleks' Master Plan. Nick appeared in episodes one to six as Space Security Service officer Bret Vyon. Only three episodes of this have been recovered (the latest in 2004), with two featuring Courtney.

Camfield's next Who production was the Web of Fear, and he cast Courtney as the military's second in command, Captain Knight. However the actor cast as Colonel Alistair Gordon Lethbridge-Stewart, David Langton, dropped out, leading to Courtney's promotion. Again very lucky, as Knight perished in the story. Only one episode survives, this time sans Courtney.

Courtney was next back in The Invasion, now as a Brigadier leading the UK division of UNIT. Six of eight episodes survive, all featuring Nick, and all episodes from this date with him survive. With the show becoming Earthbound the following year, Courtney was now a semi-regular character.

However his commitment to the show waned. Following the wrap of the twelfth production block, he refused to return for the next year, capping eight years continuous work on the show. Two stories from the thirteenth production block lack him, with rough substitutions. He returned as the Brigadier in Madryn Undead (striking the largest continuity debate in fandom, even today) and Battlefield.

He appeared as the character in The Sarah Jane Adventures story, Enemy of the Bane, and was name checked in both Sarah Jane and Doctor Who as being "in Peru".

Why was the Brigadier never promoted? Even upon retirement, he still kept the rank of Brig, which seems a bit harsh. An explanation put forward by the BBC Books series is that his leadership of UNIT has been politically disadvantageous; he is being punished for his disloyalty.

http://www.greyhoundleader.com/