Dennis Spooner (1 December 1932-20 September 1986[1]) was a script editor for Doctor Who and the author of several television stories.
Career[]
Spooner's writing debut was an episode of Coronation Street, after which he wrote scripts for various Gerry Anderson puppet series such as Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds.
Soon after leaving as script editor on Doctor Who, he and Terry Nation served as the principle writers of the ITC action adventure series The Baron. Spooner spent the majority of the next five years at ITC, for which he co-created Man in a Suitcase. Along with Monty Berman, he helped create various successful series for ITC, such as The Champions, Department S, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased) and Jason King. He served as script consultant on all four, but only wrote for the latter. During this time he wrote an episode of The Avengers, having previously written two scripts for it in 1961.
In the 70s and 80s, Spooner wrote scripts for Doomwatch, Paul Temple and Bergerac for the BBC, UFO and The Protectors for ITC, Thriller for ATV and The Professionals for LWT.
Death[]
Spooner died of a heart attack in 1986[2].
Legacy[]
The documentary Dennis Spooner: Wanna Write a Television Series? celebrated Spooner's life and career. It was released on the DVD release of The Romans.
An interview with Dennis from a 1981 edition of Doctor Who Magazine (then Doctor Who Monthly) was read by an actor for the documentary The Power of the Daleks - From Script to Screen.
Bibliography[]
- The Reign of Terror
- The Romans
- The Time Meddler
- The Daleks' Master Plan Episodes 6, 8-12
- The Power of the Daleks, uncredited (DWM 180)