Louis Mahoney (1938 - 2020)

I was saddened to hear yesterday of the death of actor Louis Mahoney, who has passed away at the age of 81 (on 28th June). He made three appearances in Doctor Who, and is one of that select group of actors who has appeared in both the classic era of the show and its revival.
His first appearance was as a newsreader in the first episode of Frontier In Space, in 1973. Although only a small role, this was groundbreaking in that the UK did not have any newscasters from ethnic minorities at the time. The story was directed by David Moloney, and he used the actor again for the more substantial role of Ponti in Planet of Evil in 1975.
His last appearance on the programme was in 2007, when he played the older version of Billy Shipton in Blink, visited on his deathbed by Sally Sparrow.

Another well known role was as the doctor in the classic Fawlty Towers episode "The Germans".
Born in The Gambia in 1938, he moved to London in the 1950's. He was one of the first black actors to join the Royal Shakespeare Company, and for a time was vice chair of the actors union Equity. He founded the 'Performers for Equality' group within Equity, to defend the union's stance on boycotting Apartheid South Africa, and did a lot of campaigning in general to support actors from ethnic minority backgrounds.
RIP.