Remembering John Pertwee

John Devon Roland Pertwee was born on July 7, 1919 in London, England. John was the son of noted screenwriter and actor Roland Pertwee [1885-1963] and distant cousin of actor Bill Pertwee [1926-2013]. Pertwee’s mother, Avice Scholtz, separated from his father Roland when Pertwee was young. His father remarried, and his mother found a new partner, with whom Pertwee did not build a good relationship.

 
Pertwee was educated at Frensham Heights School, and at Sherborne School in Sherborne in Dorset, and at some other schools from which he was expelled. After school, he went to the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA), from which he was also expelled after he refused to play a Greek "wind" during one of the lessons, feeling it was a waste of both his time and his father's money.

Pertwee then became an officer in the Royal Navy, spending some time attached to the highly-secretive Naval Intelligence Division during the Second World War, working alongside James Bond author Ian Fleming and reporting directly to Prime Minister Winston Churchill.
 
After the war, he made a name for himself as a comedy actor on radio in ‘Waterlogged Spa’. From 1959 to 1977, he had a long-running role as the conniving Chief Petty Officer Pertwee in ‘The Navy Lark’ on BBC Radio.
 
Jon Pertwee is best known for his portrayal of the Doctor, on the BBC science fiction television series ‘Doctor Who’ (1963). He portrayed the Doctor from 1970 to 1974.
 
Pertwee appeared in only one Euro-western as Sheriff Albert Earp in “Carry on Cowboy” (1965).
 
Pertwee died from a heart attack on May 20, 1996 in Timber Lake, Connectiuct.
 
Today we remember Jon Pertwee on what would have been his 95^th birthday.