Tom Baker says he quit ‘Doctor Who’ over a feud with a producer.
The 84-year-old actor portrayed the fourth Doctor for seven years but quit after one season of working with John Nathan-Turner because he said the producer "diminished him".
Speaking in a new interview for the ‘Doctor Who: The Collection’ season 12 Blu-ray set, he said: "I didn’t like his approach to anything very much. His approach as a producer, to the scripts and to my performance… he managed somehow – how terrible – to diminish me. He made assumptions about how I should do things, or what lines meant, or how it should be shot, which diminished me, and I found that unbearable.
"He nudged me towards the realisation it [‘Doctor Who’] had run its course and I should go somewhere else. I think, in a way, when I said when I wanted to go, he was relieved, that he wouldn’t have to have that fight. He could get his stamp on it.
"There was a lot of tension [before that]. But as soon as I resigned, everything was perfect – he adored me, because he’d won I suppose."
He was also furious by the redesign of the Doctor’s outfit.
He said: "[That idea] struck me as being insufferably vulgar and cheap. It was silly of me not to have faced him and spoken to him."
However, Tom admitted leaving the role behind was extremely difficult.
He said: "Going back to ordinary life, which was a bit muddled in those days… I was happier when I was being unreal. When I was real, I was sad.
"It wasn’t always like that – I had wonderful periods where I was ecstatically happy… but the part really became my life – actually doing it, thinking about it. Real life, you know, is not my speciality… [but] I’m happier now than I have ever been in my life."
Tom Baker’s Doctor Who feud
