Born to a working class family in 1934, Tom Baker's early life was spent as a Roman Catholic Monk. Losing his faith after 6 years, Baker spent two years of National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps of the British Army before taking up acting.
After several years as a member of Laurence Olivier's National Theatre company, Baker (working at the time on a Construction site to support his acting) was offered the role of the Fourth Doctor to replace outgoing actor Jon Pertwee in 1974. Baker's take on the Time travelling character skyrocketed the show to even higher popularity in the UK, cementing its place in British Popular Culture. He played The Doctor for 7 years - the longest of any of the 11 actors to play the character - before passing the part on to Peter Davison in 1981.
Although he continued to act after Doctor Who, recently Baker has been more involved in voice work, lending his voice as a Narrator to the sketch show Little Britain (in both its Radio and Television formats), as well as several audio plays for the BBC. In 2006, Baker's famous voice became the voice of British Telecom's text-to-speech service for 1 year, to raise money for Charity. 2011 saw his return to the role of The Doctor for several audio dramas for the BBC, alongside Louise Jameson as Leela, one of his several companions during his time on the show.
As well as playing The Doctor in the BBC PC title Destiny of the Doctors in 1997 (and having his likeness appear in many Doctor Who games over the past 3 decades), Baker has also lent his voice as a narrator to several video games over the years, such as an uncredited role in Sudeki, and the Warhammer 40,000 FPS, Fire Warrior. Baker also provided voice over work for the TV adverts for Perfect Dark around the time of its launch in the UK.
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