On This Day... 27th March

The opening instalment of The Crusade - The Lion - was first broadcast today in 1965.

Its star was Julian Glover, portraying King Richard I - and today also marks his 87th birthday. 

Glover returned to the programme to play Count Scarlioni / Scaroth in City of Death in 1979. 

In 1983 his wife Isla Blair featured in The King's Demons (a story which just happened to revolve around King Richard's brother John) as Lady Fitzwilliam. 

Their son Jamie Glover played William Russell in An Adventure in Space and Time, and has since played Ian Chesterton on audio.

The only other episode to make its debut today was the third part of The Claws of Axos, in 1971.

Today we remember actor and fight arranger Peter Diamond. He arranged stunts on a number of stories throughout the 1960's and '70's, but also had two substantial roles to perform. The first was as Delos, Ian's friend in The Romans, and the second was as the principal Morok soldier in The Space Museum.

In The Dalek Invasion of Earth he was the Roboman who walks into the Thames at the very start of the first episode, and later in the same instalment performed the stunt where Ian almost falls to his death when he barges through a door. Much later, he's the Morris Dancer who attacks Benton and Miss Hawthorne in the pub in The Daemons.

Outside of Doctor Who, Diamond worked on the Star Wars movies amongst many other high profile movies. He's the Tusken Raider who attacks Luke Skywalker just before the entrance of Obi-Wan Kenobi. He also featured in Raiders of the Lost Ark, a number of Hammer horror and Bond movies and two of the Christopher Reeve Superman sequels.

Diamond passed away today in 2004, aged 74.

He played opposite comic actor Derek Francis in The Romans, and Francis, who featured in a few of the Carry On... films, also passed away on this date - in 1984, aged 60.

Two other figures who we lost on this date were actor Richard Beale (Bat Masterson in The Gunfighters, and the Ecology Minister in The Green Death, and who also provided voices for The Macra Terror and The Ark). He died in 2017, aged 96. 

The other figure of note is director Derek Martinus. He helmed a number of hugely significant stories: Galaxy 4, Mission to the Unknown, The Tenth Planet, The Evil of the Daleks, The Ice Warriors and Spearhead From Space. He passed away in 2014, aged 82.