Mary Tamm, dies of Cancer at 62

   She appeared in the 16th series, in 1978-79, in the character of
Romanadvoratrelundar (Romana for short), a Time Lady who helped the Doctor (Tom Baker) in his quest to find “The Key to Time” — a quest set for him by The White Guardian of the Universe.

   Over the six episodes, during which, among other adventures, Romana encounters a giant squid, she and the Doctor successfully track down the six segments of the key which, when put together, resets “the equilibrium of the universe”.

   Initially Mary Tamm had been reluctant to take the part, assuming that she would be required to represent a stereotypical “damsel in distress”. But she relented when it became clear that Romana, as a “female Time Lord”, was conceived as something rather more substantial. “There was a bit of snobbery there,” she later admitted. “In those days it was seen as a children’s programme.”

   Having decided to leave Doctor Who after only one series, Mary Tamm appeared alongside Malcolm Stoddard in The Assassination Run (1980) and its sequel The Treachery Game (1981), both series for the BBC. In 1983 she played Blanche Ingram in a television adaptation of Jane Eyre, and the next year, also for the BBC, she starred opposite Ian Lavender in the comedy series The Hello Goodbye Man.

   The daughter of Estonian refugees (her first language was Estonian), Mary Tamm was born on March 22 1950 in Bradford, where her father worked at a local mill. She was educated at Bradford Girls’ Grammar School, went on to Rada and in 1971 joined Birmingham Rep.

   Before landing her role in Doctor Who, Mary Tamm had appeared in a number of other television series, among them The Donati Conspiracy, Coronation Street, Warship and Return of the Saint.

   Meanwhile, on the big screen, she had already been seen as Jon Voight’s love interest, Sigi, alongside Maximilian Schell and Derek Jacobi in the film of Frederick Forsyth’s novel The Odessa File (1974), and as Christina, the Finnish girlfriend of Terry Collier (James Bolam) in the 1976 film The Likely Lads.

   Most of Mary Tamm’s subsequent work was for television, in shows such as Agatha Christie: Poirot; Casualty; Brookside, in which she played Penny Crosbie; Heartbeat; and Jonathan Creek. In 2002 she played Yvonne Edwards in five episodes of Paradise Heights, about three brothers who struggle to keep their discount warehouse business afloat; and more recently she had appeared in Wire in the Blood, starring Robson Green, and as Orlenda, a Russian con woman, in EastEnders.

   Her theatre credits include a dramatisation of Agatha Christie’s Cards on the Table; The Maintenance Man; Abigail’s Party; Present Laughter; and Stage Struck. In 2006 she took the lead role of Amanda in Noël Coward’s Private Lives, which enjoyed a successful tour of the Far East.

   In 2009 she published an autobiography, First Generation, and she was working on a second volume (to be called Second Generation) at the time of her death.

Mary Tamm married, in 1978, Marcus Ringrose, who survives her with their daughter.