Talk:William Hartnell

Claims re. his racial views
Moved following to here from the page itself, because it both might be a copy paste (given the presence of left-over citation boxes) and is a heck of an uncited section.

"Among the more caustic accounts, Nicholas Courtney and Anneke Wills have accused Hartnell of being racist or anti-Semitic, though these are, by most accounts, frequently challenged by his love for his co-workers of different backgrounds. Courtney, in his audio memoirs, recalled that during the recording of The Daleks' Master Plan, Hartnell mentioned that an extra on the set was Jewish, Courtney's inference being that Hartnell was prejudiced. In an interview in 2008, Courtney claimed that Hartnell "was quite nationalist-minded, a bit intolerant of other races, I think." Wills has said, during the recording of The Tenth Planet, Hartnell was being racist on set towards black actor Earl Cameron. However, Cameron says he has no memory of Hartnell being unpleasant, and says that if such a thing happened, he was not aware of it, and says that if Hartnell was racist against him, he would only be very sorry about him having such issues. The most concrete evidence of such views actually comes from his own granddaughter, Jessica Carney, who wrote the biography ''Who's There? The Life and Career of William Hartnell'', and stated that Hartnell did express concerns about "foreigners", but that "all those loudly expressed opinions were contradicted by his behaviour on a personal level. [...] if he liked someone, they weren't a foreigner, they were a friend."[1] Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, and who is Jewish, has said that she and Hartnell "got on terribly well", saying "It upsets me when I hear people saying he was difficult to work with, he was very sweet".[16] Ford has always spoken of the warm affection between her and Hartnell, that she gets upset with Hartnell being accused of anti-Semitism and racism. Hartnell is also said to have adored Verity Lambert, who was Jewish, and had great respect for Waris Hussein, who is British-Indian. Hussein has described Hartnell as "dyed-in-the-wool Conservative British" (this colloquialism is more familiarly expressed as "an old school Tory"), and says he was "bewildered by having a woman producer" when first approached by Lambert and himself. According to Hussein, when he first met Hartnell, he felt terrible because he thought Hartnell was a very opinionated man and prejudiced, and he felt he was looked down upon because he was an Asian kid, although none of this was spoken between them. First impressions notwithstanding, Hussein eventually got on very well with Hartnell, so much so, that Hartnell was sincerely upset when Hussein left the show."

We have:
 * uncited claims about statements from Courtney
 * the difficult matter of one such item relying on unconfirmed presumption about Hartnell's meaning when he said something
 * uncited claims about statements from Wills
 * no mention of what "other accounts" is referring to
 * one definite falsehood - "Carole Ann Ford, who played the Doctor's granddaughter Susan, and who is Jewish,", as Carole has herself clarified this to be a myth
 * uncited quotes from Carney and Ford
 * No indication of who said "Hartnell is also said to have adored Verity Lambert, who was Jewish, and had great respect for Waris Hussein,"
 * uncited quotes and claims about statements from Hussein

In my opinion, this absolutely should not go back on his biography without a lot of investigation into all of these points, as it makes some significant claims on a matter with anything to back up any of the details in either direction. JDPManjoume ☎  14:37, 7 June 2021 (UTC)


 * The first half of that seems to come from, which has some additional sources which might be helpful (although some of the issues you mentioned persist). Danochy ☎  15:28, 7 June 2021 (UTC)