Peter Davison mini-bio: Peter Moffett, now better known by his stage name Peter Davison, was born on
13 April 1951 in the Streatham area of London. In 1961, he and his family -
parents Sheila and Claude (an electrical engineer who hailed from British
Guiana) and his sisters Barbara, Pamela and Shirley - moved to Woking in
Surrey, where Davison was educated at the Maphill School. It was here that
he first became interested in acting, taking parts in a number of school
plays, and this eventually led to him joining an amateur dramatic society,
the Byfleet Players. On leaving school at the age of sixteen, having
achieved only modest academic success with three O Levels of undistinguished
grades, he took a variety of short-lived jobs ranging from hospital porter
to Hoffman press operator. He was still keen to pursue an acting career,
however, and so applied for a place at drama school. He was accepted into
the Central School of Speech and Drama and stayed there for three years.
Davison's first professional acting work came in 1972 when, after leaving
drama school in the July of that year, he secured a small role in a run of
"Love's Labour's Lost" at the Nottingham Playhouse. This marked the start of
a three-year period in which he worked in a variety of different repertory
companies around the UK, often in Shakespearean roles. He then made his
television debut, playing a blond-wigged space cowboy character called Elmer
in "A Man for Emily", a three-part story in the Thames TV children's series
"The Tomorrow People" (1973), transmitted in April 1975. Appearing alongside
him in this production was his future wife, American-born actress Sandra
Dickinson, whom he had first met during a run of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
in Edinburgh. They married on 26 December 1978 in Dickinson's home town of
Rockville in Maryland, USA. Davison spent the following eighteen months
working as a file clerk at Twickenham tax office. He also took the
opportunity to pursue an interest in singing and song-writing, which led him
to record several singles with his wife. He later provided the theme tunes
for a number of TV series, including "Mixed Blessings" (1978) and "Button
Moon" (1980). Davison played the romantic lead, Tom Holland in _"Love for
Lydia" (1978) (mini)_, a London Weekend Television (LWT) period drama serial
transmitted in 1977. His greatest acting success came when he played Tristan
in the BBC's "All Creatures Great and Small" (1978), based on the books of
country vet James Herriot, a highly successful series, which ran initially
for three seasons between 1978-1980. His success in "All Creatures Great and
Small" brought him many other offers of TV work. Amongst those that he took
up were lead roles in two sitcoms: LWT's "Holding the Fort" (1980), in which
he played Russell Milburn, and the BBC's "Sink or Swim" (1980), in which he
played Brian Webber. Three seasons of each were transmitted between 1980 and
1982, consolidating Davison's position as a well-known and popular
television actor. He announced he was taking the lead role in "Doctor Who"
(1963) on the BBC's lunchtime magazine programme "Pebble Mill at One", on 3
December 1980, when he discussed with the presenter a number of costume
ideas sent in by viewers and was particularly impressed by a suggestion from
one of a panel of young fans assembled in the studio that the new Doctor
should be 'like Tristan Farnon, but with bravery and intellect'. His
appearance in "The Hitch Hikers Guide to the Galaxy" (1981), was recorded on
19 December 1980 and transmitted on 2 February 1981, by which time the
viewing public were well aware that he would soon be taking over the lead
role in Doctor Who. There was in fact only a month to go before he would
make his on-screen debut in the series - albeit a brief one, in the
regeneration sequence at the end of "Logopolis". His first full story was in
"Castrovalva", the first story of season nineteen transmitted on 4 January
1982. His final story was season twenty-one's story "The Caves of
Androzani". The final episode of this story was transmitted on 16 March
1984. He became a father when on Christmas day 1984 his wife gave birth to a
daughter, Georgia Elizabeth, at Queen Charlotte's Hospital in London. Ten
years later, however, his marriage to Dickinson broke down and they
separated. Although he has taken occasional roles in theatre, radio and
film, most of the actor's work has been in the medium for which he is best
known: television. His credits have included regular stints as Henry Myers
in "Anna of the Five Towns" (1985) (mini), as Dr. Stephen Daker in "A Very
Peculiar Practice" (1986), as Albert Campion in "Campion" (1989) and as
Clive Quigley in "Ain't Misbehavin" (1994) all for the BBC, and as Ralph in
Yorkshire TV's "Fiddlers Three" (1991). In addition, he has reprised his
popular role of Tristan Farnon on a number of occasions for one-off specials
and revival seasons of "All Creatures Great and Small". He has also returned
several times to the world of Doctor Who. In 1993 he appeared as the fifth
Doctor in "Dimensions in Time", a brief two-part skit transmitted as part of
the BBC's annual Children in Need Charity appeal, and in 1985 he narrated an
abridged novelisation of the season twenty-one story "Warriors of the Deep"
for BBC Worldwide's Doctor Who audio book series. In addition, he has
appeared in a number of video dramas produced by Bill Baggs Video. In 2003
and 2004 he appeared as quiet and unassuming detective 'Dangerous' Davies in
"The Last Detective" (2003), the Meridian TV adaptations of Leslie Thomas's
novels.
