The actor
Gareth Hunt, who played Arak in Jon Pertwee's regeneration story
Planet of the Spiders in 1974, died of pancreatic cancer today at home in Redhill, Surrey. He was 65.
Hunt was probably most famous for the role of Mike Gambit in
The New Avengers in the 1970s. He also took part in a long-running Nescafe coffee advert campaign on TV.
Among his many other roles, he played the footman Frederick Norton in
Upstairs, Downstairs, which was co-created by
Jean Marsh, Pertwee's former wife who played companion character Sara Kingdom in
The Daleks' Masterplan.
Click
here for his career summary from Funky Beetroot Celebrity Management Ltd.
Reported at
BBC News,
The Times and the
Daily Mirror, with obituaries at
telegraph.co.uk and
timesonline, the latter of which (at the time of posting this) mistakenly says his Doctor Who role was in 1963.
Click
here for a BBC picture gallery of aspects of Hunt's career, which includes an image from
Planet of the Spiders.