Jacqueline Hill

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Jacqueline Hill

Jacqueline Hill (17 December 1929 – 18 February 1993) was a British actress best known for her role as Barbara Wright in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. As the teacher of Susan Foreman, the granddaughter of the Doctor, she was one of the first companions to appear in the show in 1963. She continued to play the role for nearly two years, leaving the show in 1965 but returning for an appearance in the 1980 Doctor Who story Meglos, as the priestess Lexa.

Hill trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and made her stage debut in London's West End in The Shrike. Many more roles followed, including, on television, Shop Window, Fabian of the Yard and An Enemy of the People. In 1958 she married the director Alvin Rakoff, having the previous year appeared in his BBC adaptation of Rod Serling's American television play Requiem for a Heavyweight.^[1] That production had starred former bit-part actor Sean Connery, who had been cast by Rakoff at Hill's suggestion, as she felt he would be popular with female viewers.^[1]

She was asked to play Barbara Wright in Doctor Who after she and producer Verity Lambert, whom she knew socially, discussed the role at a party. Soon after leaving the series in 1965 she gave up acting to raise a family. However, she resumed her career in 1979 and gained further TV credits in, amongst other programmes, Tales of the Unexpected and as Lady Capulet in the BBC Television Shakespeare version of Romeo and Juliet in 1978.