A Doctor Who original and Corrie viewer heartbreaker

Versatile William Russell also starred as Sir Lancelot and acted alongside Alec Guinness on stage in his 70-year career

- ANTHONY HAYWARD

The actor William Russell, who has died aged 99, enjoyed a long screen career memorable for three television characters he played in different decades.

First, as King Arthur’s bravest knight and champion of Queen Guinevere, he swashbuckled his way into viewers’ hearts in the title role of The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956-57), an early ITV series.

Sir Lancelot du Lac was seen riding to the rescue of kidnapped princesses, queens and knights in a programme notable for its dramatic fight scenes and attention to seventh-century period detail.

When Doctor Who began, with the grandfatherly William Hartnell taking the part of the 720-year-old Time Lord, Russell played his assistant, Ian Chesterton (1963-65). Together, they travelled all over space and time in the Tardis, a faulty timetravel machine that looked like an old police phone box, and encountered enemies such as the Daleks.

The square-jawed Chesterton, as the science teacher of the Doctor’s granddaughter (played by Carole Ann Ford), provided scientific and historical information for young viewers and was at times in the early days more central to the story than the Time Lord. But it was Hartnell’s character that really caught the viewers’ imaginations.

A quarter of a century later, Russell metamorphosed in Coronation Street into Ted Sullivan (1991-92), who won newsagent Rita Fairclough’s heart.

Although his run in the serial was short, it was notable for his understated performance as the kindly, widowed confectionery sales rep who retired and married Rita, his former customer, keeping from everyone else the tragic secret that he had a terminal brain tumour.