William Hartnell

Acting

William Hartnell

Born 1908-01-08 · Saint Pancras, London, England, UK

William Henry Hartnell (8 January 1908 – 23 April 1975), also known as Billy Hartnell or Bill Hartnell, was an English actor. Hartnell played the first incarnation of the Doctor in Doctor Who, from 1963 to 1966. He was also known for his roles as Sergeant Grimshaw, the title character of the first Carry On film, Carry On Sergeant in 1958, and Company Sergeant Major Percy Bullimore in the sitcom The Army Game from 1957 until 1958, and again in 1960. Hartnell entered the theatre in 1925 working under Frank Benson as a general stagehand. He appeared in numerous Shakespearian plays, including The Merchant of Venice (1926), Julius Caesar (1926), As You Like It (1926), Hamlet (1926), The Tempest (1926) and Macbeth (1926). He also appeared in She Stoops to Conquer (1926), School for Scandal (1926) and Good Morning, Bill (1927), before performing in Miss Elizabeth's Prisoner (1928). This play was written by Robert Neilson Stephens and E. Lyall Swete. It featured the actress Heather McIntyre, whom he married during the following year. His first of more than sixty film appearances was in Say It With Music (1932). Hartnell continued to play comic characters until he was cast in the robust role of Sergeant Ned Fletcher in The Way Ahead (1944). From then on his career was defined by playing mainly policemen, soldiers, and thugs. Hartnell's performance in This Sporting Life was noted by Verity Lambert, the producer who was setting up a new science-fiction television series for the BBC entitled Doctor Who; and, mainly on the strength of that performance, Lambert offered him the title role.

Acting credits

Doctor Who at the Proms poster
7.2

Doctor Who fan favourite Catherine Tate presents a concert of music, monsters and mayhem featuring soundtracks from the iconic series, a specially shot feature for the Fifteenth Doctor and a host of scary aliens as they thrill a packed audience at London's Royal Albert Hall. In a concert like no other in time and space, the much-loved music, performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, is accompanied by specially edited sequences from the series.

Doctor Who at the Proms

2024

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor poster
8.2

In 2013, something terrible is awakening in London's National Gallery; in 1562, a murderous plot is afoot in Elizabethan England; and somewhere in space an ancient battle reaches its devastating conclusion. All of reality is at stake as the Doctor's own dangerous past comes back to haunt him.

Doctor Who: The Day of the Doctor

2013

Hell Drivers poster
6.7

An ex-con trying to go clean ends up working for a crooked trucking company swindling money.

Hell Drivers

1957

An Adventure in Space and Time poster
7.7

Actor William Hartnell felt trapped by a succession of hard-man roles while wannabe producer Verity Lambert was frustrated by the TV industry's glass ceiling. Both of them were to find unlikely hope and unexpected challenges in the form of a Saturday tea-time drama. Allied with a team of unusual but brilliant people, they went on to create the longest running science fiction series ever made.

An Adventure in Space and Time

2013

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song poster
8.0

It’s Christmas Day on a remote human colony and the Doctor is hiding from Christmas Carols and Comedy Antlers. But when a crashed spaceship calls upon the Doctor for help, he finds himself recruited into River Song’s squad and hurled into a fast and frantic chase across the galaxy. King Hydroflax is furious, and his giant Robot bodyguard is out-of-control and coming for them all! Will Nardole survive? And when will River Song work out who the Doctor is? All will be revealed on a starliner full of galactic super-villains and a destination the Doctor has been avoiding for a very long time.

Doctor Who: The Husbands of River Song

2015

Carry On Sergeant poster
6.4

Sergeant Grimshawe wants to retire in the flush of success by winning the Star Squad prize with his very last platoon of newly called-up National Servicemen. But a motley bunch they turn out to be, and it's up to Grimshawe to put the no-hopers through their paces.

Carry On Sergeant

1958

The Mouse That Roared poster
6.4

The Duchy of Grand Fenwick decides that the only way to get out of their economic woes is to declare war on the United States, lose and accept foreign aid. They send an invasion force (in chain mail, armed with bows and arrows) to New York and they arrive during a nuclear drill that has cleared the streets.

The Mouse That Roared

1959

Odd Man Out poster
7.3

Belfast police conduct a door-to-door manhunt for an IRA gunman wounded in a daring robbery.

Odd Man Out

1947

This Sporting Life poster
7.0

In early 1960s Northern England, Frank Machin is mean, tough and ambitious enough to become an immediate star in the rugby league team run by local employer Weaver.

This Sporting Life

1963

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time poster
8.0

As the Twelfth Doctor nears regeneration, he stumbles on his first incarnation, also refusing to change. It takes a captain, a glass avatar and a familiar face to convince the Doctors the universe still needs them.

Doctor Who: Twice Upon a Time

2017

Footsteps in the Fog poster
7.0

A Victorian-era murder mystery about a parlour maid who discovers that her employer may have killed his first wife.

Footsteps in the Fog

1955

Private's Progress poster
6.6

Stanley Windrush has to interrupt his university education when he is called up towards the end of the war. He quickly proves himself not to be officer material, but befriends wily Private Percival Cox who knows exactly how all the scams work in the confused world of the British Army. And Stanley's brigadier War Office uncle seems to be up to something more than a bit shady too - and they are both soon working for him, behind the enemy lines.

Private's Progress

1956

No artwork available
10.0

No synopsis available yet.

The Lure

1933

Shake Hands with the Devil poster
6.5

In 1921 Dublin, the IRA battles the "Black & Tans," special British forces given to harsh measures. Irish-American medical student Kerry O'Shea hopes to stay aloof, but saving a wounded friend gets him outlawed, and inexorably drawn into the rebel organization by his former professor Sean Lenihan, who has "shaken hands with the devil" and begun to think of fighting as an end in itself. Complications arise when Kerry falls for a beautiful English hostage, and the British offer a peace treaty that is not enough to satisfy Lenihan.

Shake Hands with the Devil

1959

That's Carry On! poster
5.8

Celebrating twenty years of classic Carry On films, two of the films’ best-loved stars, Kenneth Williams and Barbara Windsor return to Pinewood film studios to unwrap some rib-tickling moments from the series. From the original, military mayhem of Carry On Sergeant, through to the really ancient archaeological gags of Carry On Behind, our saucy hosts get their titters out for this laugh-a-second gallop through the most successful series of British comedy films ever made.

That's Carry On!

1977

Heavens Above! poster
6.6

A clerical error leads to the appointment of a left-leaning small-town priest to a rich village, where he immediately horrifies his snobby parishioners by appointing a dustman and a black man as vicar's wardens and throwing open the vicarage to the sprawling, disreputable Smith family, who have just been evicted from their caravan site. He converts the dowager aristocrat to works of absurd charity but he soon has the town and much of the country in uproar.

Heavens Above!

1963

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst poster
7.3

While sailing lawfully up the Yangste in 1949, the British warship Amethyst found its return to the open sea blocked by Communist Chinese shore batteries that unexpectedly opened fire. In charge, Lietenant Commander Kerans was not however prepared for his crew and his ship to remain as a hostage for the Chinese to use as an international pawn.

Yangtse Incident: The Story of H.M.S. Amethyst

1957

The Crimson Circle poster
5.6

Based on the novel by Edgar Wallace, detectives at Scotland Yard try and track down The Crimson Circle, a secret society of blackmailers

The Crimson Circle

1936

What's a Carry On? poster
7.7

Documentary commemorating the 40th anniversary of the 'Carry On' comedy film series. Archive clips and out-takes are mixed with interviews with the cast.

What's a Carry On?

1998

The Way Ahead poster
6.5

A mismatched collection of conscripted civilians find training tough under Lieutenant Jim Perry and Sergeant Ned Fletcher when they are called up to replace an infantry battalion that had suffered casualties at Dunkirk.

The Way Ahead

1944

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor poster
7.4

The Doctor arrives in Victorian London. It's Christmas, but snow isn't the only thing descending on the tranquil and jubilant civilization, as familiar silver giants from an alternate reality are amassing in numbers. The Cybermen are on the move again, and the only beings who can stop them are the Doctor and... another Doctor?

Doctor Who: The Next Doctor

2008

Doctor Who: The Chase poster
6.5

The Doctor and his companions are pursued through time and space by the Daleks on the desert planet Aridius and beyond.

Doctor Who: The Chase

1965

Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks poster
7.9

Captured in a time corridor, the Doctor and his companions are forced to land on 20th century Earth, diverted by the Doctor's oldest enemy - the Daleks. It is here the true purpose of the time corridor becomes apparent: after ninety years of imprisonment, Davros, the ruthless creator of the Daleks, is to be liberated to assist in the resurrection of his army. Not even the Daleks foresee the poisonous threat of their creator. Indeed, who would suspect Davros of wanting to destroy his own Daleks - and why? Only the Doctor knows the truth. Will he descend to Davros' level of evil to stop him?

Doctor Who: Resurrection of the Daleks

1984

The Lost People poster
6.0

Set in a German theatre after the Second World War, two British soldiers are holding a disparate and hostile band of refugees in this theatre, prior to returning them to their homelands. The soldiers have difficulty dealing with the rivalries between Serb and Croat, resistance fighter and collaborator, Pole and Russian, etc. The threat of plague briefly unites them, but eventually even this wears off and the refugees unite in their hostility to the British.

The Lost People

1949