Martin Potter

Posted on by Tony CrawleyCategories:Actors
  1. Malcolm McDowell, Voyage of the Damned, 1975.    In a Nazi propaganda exercise – “Nobody loves Jews – so leave them to us”- Germany ships Jews to Havana, in the full knowledge that Cuba won’t accept them. Nor will any other nation. They return home, by which time WWII has begun, and of the 937 passengers, more than 600 die in concentration camps!  ThIs is no retread of Katharine Anne Porter’s Ship of Fools, although similar and both featuring José Ferrer and Oskar Werner (in his final film here). No, this is a terrible true story, stuffed with stars, too many to deal with. Denholm Elliott has one scene, Orson Welles, four; luckier than the jettisoned Janet Suzman and Jack Warden.  A good guy this once, Malcolm McDowell was among the crew instead of (take a breath)… fellow Brits Jon Finch, Anthony Hopkins, Simon MacCorkindale, Ian McShane, John Moulder-Brown. Martin Potter and Hollywood’s  Keith Carradine, Jeff Conaway, Raul Julia, Martin Kove, Joe Mantegna, Ryan O’Neal, Robert Redford, John Ritter, John Travolta, Jon Voight.
  2. Paul Shelley, Doctor Who #117: Four To Doomsday, TV, 1981.        Potter was not persuaded to play the Minister of Persuasion. Nor were Colin Baker (soon to be Doc6), Michaels Cashman and Cochrane, Tom Chadbon, Jack and James Warwick. This was Doc5 Peter Davison’s second outing. “And I didn’t know what I was doing!”
  3. Michael Cochrane, Doctor Who #120: Black Orchid, TV, 1982.         Not a rehash of Sophia Loren’s 1958 Hollywood melo, but an adventure (with cricket!) in 1925 England for for Doc5 Peter Davison. In the baker’s dozen list for Lord Cranleigh were Potter, Cochrane, Nicholas Ball, Michael Cashman, Christopher Cazenove, Keith Drinkel, Peter Firth, Nigel Havers, Paul Jerricho, Jeff Rawle, Patrick Ryecart, James Warwick – and   Simon Williams, often a lord or knight.

  4. Keith Drinkel, Doctor Who # 122: Time Flight, TV, 1982.        As many as 25 casting (or dart) board regulars were up for any (or all!) of three characters in Doc4 Peter Davison’s tale about a missing Concorde. Potter, Dallas Adams, Sean Arnold, Colin Baker, Andrew Burt, Tom Chadbon, Michael Cochrane, Ian Collier, Forbes Collins, Eric Deacon, Jack Galloway, Richard Heffer, Paul Jerricho, Ian McCulloch, Clive Merrison (BBC Radio’s Sherlock Holmes), Terry Molloy (aka Davros), Edward Peel, Jeff Rawle, Carl Rigg, Patrick Ryecart, Malcolm Stoddard, Donald Sumpter, Robert Swann Malcolm Tierney, Stephen Yardley – they were all up for Flight Engineer Scobie…    
  5. Michael Cashman, Doctor Who # 122: Time Flight, TV, 1982.     …and for First Officer Bilton
  6. Michael McDermott   Doctor Who # 122: Time Flight, TV, 1982.     … plus Sheard – which wasn’t even offered to another Whoverse favourite, Michael… Sheard.  The following hear, Potter was Eirak in #126: Terminus, 1983.

  7. Peter Firth, Lifeforce, 1984.
  8. Aubrey Morris, Lifeforce, 1984
  9. Nicholas Ball, Lifeforce, 1984.
  10. Chris Sullivan, Lifeforce, 1984.

  11. Eric Deacon, Doctor Who #141: Timelash, TV, 1985.         Director Pennant Roberts shuffled nine potentials for Mykros in the Doc6 Colin Baker adventure. Potter (a long way from Fellini), Deacon, Tom Chadbon, Michael Cochrane, brothers Christopher and Dominic Guard, Patrick Ryecart, Paul Shelley and James Warwick.

 Birth year: Death year: Other name: Casting Calls:  10