Mark Eden: 1928-2021
Actor Mark Eden, who played “Marco Polo” in the 1964 story has passed away at the age of 92.
Eden was born in London in 1928 and decided to become an actor in his teens after falling in love with Shakespeare.
However, he was unable to launch a career until he was almost 30, he told the Daily Express newspaper in 2013.
“I contracted tuberculosis, spent two years in a sanatorium, worked on the fairgrounds, got married… in fact, I was almost 30 by the time I joined Everyman Theatre Group in Ramsgate,” he said.
“The East Kent Times gave me a rave review for my first play and that was all the encouragement I needed.”
His first screen credit was in 1958, with a role in Quatermass And The Pit; and he later played Marco Polo in the first series of Doctor Who.
Marco Polo is the fourth serial of Doctor Who. It was first broadcast on BBC TV in seven weekly parts from 22 February to 4 April 1964. It was written by John Lucarotti and directed largely by Waris Hussein. Eden made his final television appearance in a Doctor Who related episode when he played Donald Baverstock, controller of BBC1 in the 2013 docu-drama “An Adventure In Space And Time” which was written by Mark Gatiss and celebrated the 50th anniversary of the series.
Other roles came in the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago, starring Julie Christie and Omar Sharif, TV show The Avengers and the 1970s detective serial Lord Peter Wimsey.
Later in his career he appeared in Doctors and Casualty.
He is survived by his wife Sue, his daughter Polly, his stepson Saul and grand-daughter Emma.