Back to the TARDIS.
Carole Ann Ford hurt her back in 1977 while making an advertisement. She suffered an extreme reaction to the painkillers she was given and found it difficult to work for a very long time. (She has since become a proponent of alternative medicine.) These days she is a voice coach for actors, businessmen, and politicians. She returned to Doctor Who and the role of Susan in "The Five Doctors" in 1983 and again in "Dimensions in Time" ten years later.
William Russell remains active as both an actor and in Equity, the actors' union. In the eighties he was a regular on the long-running soap opera, Coronation Street, and has made many stage appearances.
Jacqueline Hill died on 18 February 1993 after a long bout with cancer. She had retired from acting for a time to raise her family, but returned to the profession in 1978 and Doctor Who in 1980, as the high priestess Lexa in "Meglos."
Maureen O'Brien , though seldom-seen by Americans, is considered to have one of the most successful post-Who careers of any Companion actress. She spent three years on Canadian television, then returned to Britain in the late seventies to do theatre, television, film, and radio, winning a Best Radio Actress award in 1979.
Peter Purves went on to another classic British childrens' programme, Blue Peter, and has done extensive presentation work for that and other programmes. And when the soap opera EastEnders some years ago needed an actor to play a presenter, he was called upon. He has also been managing director of a video production company.
Adrienne Hill died of cancer on 6 October 1997. She was a drama teacher and did some acting.
Jean Marsh co-created and starred in the classic series Upstairs, Downstairs, and was behind the nineties series House of Eliot. She has played evil sorceresses in Return to Oz, Willow, and the Doctor Who story "Battlefield." She has also written several novels.
Jackie Lane gave up acting shortly after Doctor Who, first working as a secretary in the Australian embassy in Paris and then running an antiques business. She now works as an agent for London Management, specializing in voice-overs, with Tom Baker being one of her clients.
Anneke Wills retired from acting shortly after Doctor Who to travel to Belgium, India, the United States, and Canada. She now runs an arts-and-crafts shop in British Columbia and divides her time between there and England.
Michael Craze continues to do the occasional acting part, most notably appearing in Kenneth Branagh's Frankenstein, but for the most part he manages a pub in west London.
Frazer Hines went from the long-running Doctor Who to the long-running Emmerdale Farm (later Emmerdale) , finally departing in 1994. He now manages a stud farm and makes occasional acting appearances. He returned to Doctor Who in "The Five Doctors" and "The Two Doctors."
Deborah Watling has worked mostly in the theatre since Doctor Who but also appeared in Danger:UXB as Naughty Norma.
Wendy Padbury played a different Companion, Jenny, in the 1974 stage production Doctor Who and the Keys to Doomsday. She also returned in "The Five Doctors." Since 1992 she has been an actors' agent.
Nicholas Courtney has returned to Doctor Who again and again since the heyday of UNIT: "Mawdryn Undead, "The Five Doctors, "Battlefield." He has worked mostly on stage since then, including The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Mousetrap. He has also made guest appearances in television series including All Creatures Great and Small and Yes, Prime Minister.
Richard Franklin continued acting after Doctor Who and also branched out into writing and directing. He had a guest role in Blake's Seven, a regular part in Emmerdale, and also wrote and appeared in the Doctor Who spinoff play Recall UNIT in 1984. He made a brief return appearance in "The Five Doctors."
John Levene now lives in America, working under the name John Anthony Blake. He set up his own audio-visual company in 1977 and followed that by working as an entertainer and bingo-caller on cruise lines. He reprised the role of Benton in the 1988 video Wartime.
Caroline John has appeared in an assortment of roles since Doctor Who, and has reprised the part of Elizabeth Shaw in "The Five Doctors" and the video The Zero Imperative.
Katy Manning continued acting on stage, television, and film after Doctor Who, then moved to Australia in 1982, where she has continued to both write and act.
Elisabeth Sladen returned to the theatre after Doctor Who, but has also appeared on television in programmes including Stepping Stones, Take My Wife, and Gulliver in Lilliput. Since 1985 her primary focus in life has been her daughter Sadie. She has returned to the role of Sarah Jane in the one-and-only official spinoff, K9 and Company, "The Five Doctors," the Children in Need production, the radio plays "Paradise of Death" and "Ghosts of N-Space," and the video Downtime.
Ian Marter died on 30 October 1986. He had continued acting but had also started writing well-received novelizations of both Doctor Who stories and movies (Baby, Splash, My Science Project ).
Louise Jameson has done extensive work in the theatre as well as the television series The Omega Factor, Tenko, Bergerac, and the Adrian Mole series.
John Leeson has continued to do voices and acting. He returned as K-9 in K9 and Company and "The Five Doctors" and appeared in the flesh in the video Downtime.
David Brierley has provided the voice to numerous radio characters, including Doctor Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles and has also appeared on stage.
Mary Tamm has appeared in films including The Odessa File and television series including Poirot. She has also appeared in the theatre and in advertisements, as well as teaching improvisation and direction at the Academy of Live and Recorded Arts.
Lalla Ward did some acting after Doctor Who, but also wrote and illustrated several children's books. She married noted biologist Richard Dawkins in 1992 and gave up acting to concentrate on her family and on writing.
Matthew Waterhouse has primarily worked in the theatre since Doctor Who, most notably a well-received one-man show, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which he adapted himself from Mark Twain's classic novel.
Sarah Sutton worked mostly in the theatre following Doctor Who, and with the birth of her daughter, Hannah, has mostly retired from acting until her daughter is older.
Janet Fielding made a few stage and television appearances following Doctor Who, including a small part in the Masterpiece Theater import The Irish M.P. She eventually left acting to work as an administrator for the lobbying and pressure group Women in Film and Television. These days she is a director of Marina Martin Associates, an agency representing actors, producers, and choreographers. She has been outspokenly critical of Doctor Who's portrayal of women, most notably at the Panopticon convention in 1993.
Mark Strickson emigrated to Australia in 1988 with his wife, Julie Brennan (who appears in "Paradise Towers") and took a break from acting to study for a degree in zoology. He returned to Britain in 1995.
Gerald Flood died in April 1989.
Nicola Bryant went to the stage after Doctor Who but may be seen in Blackadder's Christmas Carol. She spent several months in Los Angeles in 1992, then returned to Britain and appeared in the Children in Need skit in 1993. In 1995, she appeared in the children's series The Biz.
Bonnie Langford has had and continues to have a tremendously successful career in stage musicals, including the London production of Cats.
Sophie Aldred has remained active on stage and screen doing children's series such as Corners and Melvin and Maureen's Music-a-grams. In 1993 she broke out of children's television by playing the buxom Marjorie Pinchwife in the musical Lust in London's West End. Lately she has been working for satellite network The Children's Channel and co-hosting the lonely-hearts programme Love Call Live for Anglia Television. She has also just finished writing her portion of the book Ace!, which should be out in March of 1996.