Peter Hawkins

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Peter Hawkins in 1996

Peter John Hawkins (3 April 1924 – 8 July 2006) was a British actor and voice artist, whose voice may be more familiar than his name.

A native of London's Brixton, Hawkins' long association with British children's television began in 1952 when he voiced both Bill and Ben, the Flower Pot Men. He also provided all the voices for the animated series Captain Pugwash and Bleep and Booster, the latter of which was a regular feature of the long-running children's magazine series Blue Peter in the 1960s and early 70s.

He voiced several characters on Doctor Who in the show's early years, most notably the Daleks and the Cybermen. (download sample of the Dalek voice.) He was also the original voice of Zippy on Rainbow during the first year of its run (1972). Ironically his replacement on Rainbow, Roy Skelton, also went on to voice the Daleks (Hawkins and Skelton also voiced the Cybermen in their first appearance).

A little known fact is that he provided a voice for Gromit, in Wallace and Gromit. It was unused in the end as animating his mouth would have taken too long. It was apparenly high pitched, pretty much repeating everything Wallace said in A Grand Day Out though no-one apart from Nick Park has ever heard it.

Hawkins was the original voice for the character of Frankie Mouse in the fourth radio episode of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, originally broadcast in March 1978.

Hawkins was also the owner of a fine art collection, including works by Monet, Pissarro, Sisley, Sutherland, Epstein and Elisabeth Frink. He also owned a collection of Japanese sword guards and was very keen on Japanese delicacy.

Hawkins retired from the acting profession in 1992 due to illness [1], which also prevented him from contributing to any DVD release of Doctor Who outside of archive footage. He died in London, aged 82, on 8 July 2006, coincidentally the same day that the 2006 season finale of Doctor Who, Doomsday, the first to feature Daleks and Cybermen confronting each other, was transmitted.

Nicholas Briggs, the current voice of the Daleks, paid tribute to him in Doctor Who Magazine, praising him as the best Dalek voice artist, saying "...all of us who've provided Dalek voices over the last 40 years owe him a massive debt. None of us have been as good as Peter, but he supplied our inspiration. He was truly the Emperor of the Daleks."^[1]