The British character actor Tom Baker, best known as the fourth incarnation of The Doctor, was born in 1934 in Liverpool, England. Tom, along with his younger sister Lulu and younger brother John, was raised in a poor Irish Catholic community by his mother Mary Jane Fleming Baker, a house-cleaner and barmaid, who was a devout Catholic and his father John Stewart Baker, a Jewish sailor, who was rarely at home. At age 15, Baker left school to become a monk with the Brothers of Ploermel on the island of Jersey. Six years later, he abandoned the monastic life and performed his National Service in the Royal Army Medical Corps., where he became interested in acting. Baker then served on the Queen Mary for seven months as a sailor in the Merchant Navy before attending Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama in Kent, England, on scholarship. Baker acted in repertory theaters around Britain until the late 1960s when he joined up with the National Theatre, where he performed with such respected actors as Maggie Smith, Anthony Hopkins and Laurence Olivier, who helped him get his first prominent film role as Rasputin in Nicholas and Alexandra. His performance in this film earned him two Golden Globe Award nominations, one for best actor in a supporting role and another for best new star of the year. A couple of years earlier, Baker had made his theatrical film debut in The Winter's Tale. Despite appearances in a spate of films, including Pier Paolo Pasolini's The Canterbury Tales, The Mutations, The Vault of Horror and The Golden Voyage of Sinbad, Baker was working as a labourer at a building site when he landed the role of the main character in the popular, long-running British television series Doctor Who, a role that brought him international fame and popularity. After his seven-year stint as Dr. Who from 1974 to 1981, Baker returned to theatre and made occasional television and film appearances, playing Sherlock Holmes in The Hound of the Baskervilles, Puddleglum in The Chronicles of Narnia story The Silver Chair and Hallvarth, Clan Leader of the Hunter Elves, in Dungeons & Dragons. Throughout his career, Baker's acting style has been to portray his characters with a "larger-than-life" air.


An image of him appeared on the episode of "The Simpsons" (1989) shown on 26 November 1995. With the death of Jon Pertwee on May 20, 1996, he is both the oldest and earliest surviving Doctor from "Doctor Who" (1963). Has performed with the National Theatre, the Bristol Old Vic and the Royal Shakespeare Company. He is a voice-over artist for television commercials in the UK. Trained at Rose Bruford Drama School, Sidcup, Kent, UK alongside Freddie Jones. Later members include actors Ray Fearon, Gary Oldman and Stephen Armourae. He was a monk for six years before becoming an actor. At 6'3", he is the tallest actor, along with Jon Pertwee, to have played the Doctor in Doctor Who (1963). He is a voracious reader of books.