Caroline John

Photo courtesy of the Doctor Who Image Archive.

Biography

Caroline John was born and raised in a family whose roots were in the entertainment industry (her father ran a theater and her mother was a dancer and actress), so perhaps it is no surprise that she chose to follow suit. She trained at the Central School of Speech and Drama, after which she spent several years in the theater, including tours with the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. Her stage credits include such notable productions as King Lear, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead, and The Merchant of Venice. She also played Hero, the young lover, in a production of Much Ado About Nothing directed by Franco Zeffirelli.

She decided she want to get into television and so sent her photograph out to the appropriate people. This resulted in no interest whatsoever. So she got her picture taken while sitting on a ladder in a bikini and sent that photo around, with far more gratifying results.

One of those photos ended up in the Doctor Who production office. After a successful interview, she landed the role of Dr. Elizabeth "Liz" Shaw, a brilliant scientist in her own right, who served as the UNIT lab assistant to the Third Doctor. However, she was on the show for only a comparatively short time: the powers-that-be thought that her character was a little too intelligent for the viewers and couldn't serve as the traditional "person to whom the Doctor explains things." She had also become pregnant during this period (something she had to take pains to hide from the powers-that-be) and so left the show after a single season.

She took some time off in the late 70's to care for her growing family with actor-husband Geoffrey Beevers, best known to Doctor Who fans as the decaying Master in "The Keeper of Traken." (He also appeared with Caroline in "The Ambassadors of Death" as Private Johnson, the radar technician who picks up the Doctor's SOS signals.) As her children grew older, she returned to acting, appearing in such television productions as The Hound of the Baskervilles (with Tom Baker, freshly departed from his role as the Doctor, as Sherlock Holmes), A Perfect Spy, The Choir, Gaudy Night, and In Suspicious Circumstances, plus appearances in long-running television productions such as Poirot, EastEnders, and The Bill.

However, Caroline never completely said goodbye to Liz Shaw. She briefly reprised the role in "The Five Doctors" in 1983 and in the BBC's Children In Need skit "Dimensions in Time" in 1993. Bill Baggs Video Productions has also resurrected the character of Liz Shaw and spun her off into her own direct-to-video series P.R.O.B.E., in which Liz and a character played by Louise Jameson investigate paranormal activities. There have been four installments so far: The Zero Imperative, The Devil of Winterborne, Unnatural Selection, and The Ghosts of Winterborne. Geoffrey Beevers also appears in the series.

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Observations

I met Caroline John for the first time at her first US convention, United Fan Con VII, and was very much taken with her. Though initially nervous about appearing onstage, she quickly relaxed and showed quite a good sense of humor and willingness to entertain. She reported that her character Liz Shaw said "What do we do now, Doctor?" 71 times and inquired about statistics on other Companions.

Her best story was about dealing with another actress onstage who was overacting terribly. Talking with the woman did no good, and she finally asked the advice of a very experienced actress she had worked with before (whose name unfortunately escapes me). The experienced actress gave her advice, to which Caroline responded, "I can't do that!" and tried to forget about it. However, the overacting actress continued her routine, and finally Caroline couldn't take it any more and decided to follow the suggestion she had been given. At the end of her scene with this woman, instead of just walking offstage, she looked at the actress, looked at the audience, heaved a huge sigh of relief, and walked off. She said she got the biggest applause of the evening - the audience wasn't any happier than she was.

At the autograph session I was fortunate enough to get to chat with her for a little while (primarily because Jason Carter, her predecessor in line, appeared to be getting the life's stories of everyone he did an autograph for). She was very gracious and, upon my mention that I ran the Elisabeth Sladen fan club, reiterated how much she liked and admired Lis Sladen. I hope UFC VII is not her last US appearance.

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