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burrunjor wrote:Commander Maxil wrote:The gorgeous Anneke Wills. What an absolute bombshell!
I'm going to be very controversial here and say I don't like Anneke Wills in the slightest. I don't mean looks wise, but personality wise. Well to be fair I don't know her personally, so maybe she's not as bad as I think, but she always comes across as a bit conceited, judgemental and spiteful in interviews about William Hartnell.
Now I know that William Hartnell must have been a nightmare when she worked on the show. Just about everyone who worked on it at that point says he would blow up over nothing, and ultimately the reason he left was more due to how difficult he was to work with than anything else. (As no one really knew how ill he was at that point, even Hartnell himself.)
However IMO Anneke never takes the circumstances around him into account, bad mouths him constantly, never gives him his due, yet is all too happy to cash in on her association with him when it suits her (like narrating his grand daughters biography of him or appearing at the unveiling of the blue blaque outside his house.)
The following things IMO have to be taken into consideration about Hartnell at that time in his life when Anneke tries to smear him as a horrible, nasty old racist bastard.
He was seriously ill. People I think underestimate just how ill he was. He died less than 10 years after Anneke knew him, and for most of those 10 years he was crippled by his illness.
His health was so bad that 4 years after leaving DW in 1970 he had to give up acting completely. (He had more or less retired in the late 60s with a few paltry guest appearances in 68 and 69. Even his agent said that his ill health meant that he couldn't really act anymore in the late 60s and those roles were bit parts than anything substantial.)
The Three Doctors was filmed in 1972, just 6 years after Anneke knew him and look how ill he was in that. He could barely stand on his own, and couldn't remember a single line. He also spent the last 6 months of his life in a care home too I might add.
Added to that Doctor Who was a punishing schedule. 45 weeks a year, quite a physically demanding role too (with the Doctor regularly getting into fights in his era, being beaten up, chased by monsters etc), and lots of complicated dialogue, all of which had to be filmed in one take.
All of these things undoubtedly put a severe strain on the already ill Hartnell. NONE of his previous co-stars ever had a bad word to say about him. The actors who played Ian, Barbara, Susan, Vicki, Steven all speak/spoke glowingly of him decades later, and in some cases even became very close with him.
Even Jackie Lane who played Dodo said she never had any problems with him, so again IMO his illness undoubtedly contributed to him being a nightmare on set, but Anneke never seems to take that into account.
Also and this is what really pisses me off. Anneke tries to slime Hartnell as a racist. Now again I'm not saying that he wouldn't have had any prejudices, but he was born in fucking 1908! Its not so unreasonable to assume he might have been a bit old fashioned in some of his views.
Also I think she exaggerates it. I mean he was cast by, and worked with a gay Indian man and a Jewish woman, BOTH of whom said he never treated them poorly, and became very friendly with him. In fact he held Verity Lambert up as the best producer on the series and in his last interview describes her as brilliant.
Carole Ann Ford was Jewish and she loved him, and says she gets very upset when people call him racist. Also I might add in his desert Island discs interview he describes a black soul singer as being his greatest ever hero!
Clearly he wasn't someone who couldn't work with a black person, be friends with a Jewish person or not look up to a non white person or anything like that. He was just an old man who having grown up in less enlightened times might have maybe used some language that was a bit outdated and insensitive by today's standards at times, or bought into some old outdated stereotypes which by the way was the same for Patrick Troughton too.
He wanted to BLACK UP as his Doctor ffs. That would obviously be considered racist by today's standards, yet Anneke never hurls the same accusation at him.
Also perhaps worst of all Anneke has regularly said that Hartnell contributed nothing to the Doctor. She said that anyone could have been the Doctor when he was and it would have made no difference, and that it was Troughton that laid the foundations for who the Doctor was.
IMO that's a really shitty thing to say. Hartnell created the core character of the Doctor. Troughton of course showed that someone else could play the part, and he also helped to establish the core of the character as he helped to show which parts of the Doctors personality could be junked and which were fundamental. Like for instance the Doctor has to be mysterious, he has to want to travel the universe, he has to be asexual, he has to have the same moral code, but he doesn't have to be an old man, or grumpy etc.
Still the original character WAS made by Hartnell, and to try and undo his legacy that way is really crappy of her.
I think Michael Craze, after having looked at his interview for Myth Makers came across better and as a more likable person.
Craze clearly didn't like Hartnell either and said as much, but he was more understanding. He also did give Hartnell his due and said that what he accomplished with the Doctor was brilliant and set the standard for everyone who came after.
Anneke however just comes across as nasty in her treatment of him IMO and I don't like her for it.
I can't really argue with anything you've said. She has been out of order with some of the things she has said over the years. I still appreciate her, though.
Last edited by Commander Maxil on 20th January 2019, 8:58 pm; edited 1 time in total
