Verity Lambert

Verity Lambert, (27 November 1935-22 November 2007) the first Producer of Doctor Who, was born in London. She served as Producer from An Unearthly Child to Mission to the Unknown. Her work on Doctor Who was the first time she had been a full producer, and was one of the first times a woman had such a role in television. The day after her death was the 44th anniversary of the show's debut.

Ms. Lambert owned her own production company, Cinema Verity. She was awarded an OBE in 2002 for services to film and television, making her the first producer of Doctor Who to be made an OBE. She was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Women in Film and Television Awards in December 2007, but died before the award could be presented to her. It was awarded posthumously.

As of late 2009, the 2005 revival of Doctor Who has paid on-screen tribute to Lambert on at least three occasions. In the 2007 episode Human Nature, the Tenth Doctor, in his guise as the human John Smith, identifies his mother by the name Verity. The 2007 Christmas special Voyage of the Damned ends with an on-screen dedication to Lambert, who had died a month earlier. Most recently, the 2009 episode The End of Time included a character named Verity Newman (as an homage to both Verity Lambert and series creator Sydney Newman), the great-granddaughter of Joan Redfern from Human Nature and the author of A Journal of Impossible Things.