Former Doctor Who Director Fiona Cumming Has Passed Away

Dan Van Winkle

Published: Jan 5, 2015 06:00 pm

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At age 77, former Doctor Who and BBC Staff Director Fiona Cumming passed away on January 1.

Cumming began her career as an actor at the Royal Scottish Academy and later appeared in theatre and television roles before moving into production work in 1964. She worked her way up from an assistant floor manager position at the BBC to Staff Director after production assistant work on Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee—the second and third Doctor—Who stories along the way.

She directed several fifth Doctor (Peter Davison) stories in the 80s, including “Castrovalva,” “Snakedance,” Elightenment,” and “Planet of Fire.” If you’d like to pay her tribute, all of those are available from Netflix—DVD only, sadly—as well as the Doctor Who 25th anniversary story “Silver Nemesis,” in which Cumming made a cameo as a Windsor Castle tourist.

Her other work includes Blake’s 7, Emmerdale, The Walls of Jericho, God’s Wonderful Railway, and more.

(via Doctor Who News)

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Author

Dan Van Winkle

Dan Van Winkle (he) is an editor and manager who has been working in digital media since 2013, first at now-defunct Geekosystem (RIP), and then at The Mary Sue starting in 2014, specializing in gaming, science, and technology. Outside of his professional experience, he has been active in video game modding and development as a hobby for many years. He lives in North Carolina with Lisa Brown (his wife) and Liz Lemon (their dog), both of whom are the best, and you will regret challenging him at Smash Bros.