Ian Don Marter was an English actor and writer, known for his role as Harry Sullivan in the BBCscience-fiction television series Doctor Who from December 1974 to September 1975, with a non-regular, one-serial return in November and December 1975. He sometimes used the pseudonym Ian Don. Marter died suddenly of a diabetic heart attack on his 42nd birthday in 1986.
In 1971, Marter auditioned for the regular role of Captain Mike Yates in the eighth season of Doctor Who. He was offered the part, but was unable to accept due to a prior commitment. The production team were sufficiently impressed that they kept him in mind and cast him in a supporting role in the 1973 story Carnival of Monsters, broadcast as part of the tenth season of the programme. The following year, Marter was cast in the role of Harry Sullivan, a character developed by the production team on the basis that the incoming Fourth Doctor could be portrayed by an older actor who would not be able to handle the more physical action scenes. After 40-year-old Tom Baker was cast, such concerns were allayed and Harry was written out after only one season. TV appearances
Carnival of Monsters
Robot
The Ark in Space
The Sontaran Experiment
Genesis of the Daleks
Revenge of the Cybermen
Terror of the Zygons
The Android Invasion
As author
Marter remained involved with Doctor Who after his departure from the regular cast. He co-wrote the script for a feature film version, provisionally titled Doctor Who Meets Scratchman, in collaboration with Baker and director James Hill; due to a lack of funding, the project was ultimately abandoned. Marter's plot concerned Baker's Doctor coming face to face with Scratchman ; the finale was to have been acted out on a colossal pinball table, with the holes in the table being portals to other dimensions. Eventually, in 2019, a novelization of this story by Baker and James Goss, simply titled Scratchman, was released by BBC Books, dedicated to Marter. He later became involved with the writing of novelisations of Doctor Who TV serials for Target Books, penning nine such adaptations in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Marter's novelisations were somewhat controversial, most notably when "bastard" appeared in his novelisation of the 1967 story The Enemy of the World. The last of Marter's Doctor Who novelisations was The Rescue, which had to be completed by range editor Nigel Robinson due to Marter's unexpected death. Marter was one of a small group of Doctor Who actors to write licensed fiction based on the series. Marter also wrote an original spin-off novel for Target, Harry Sullivan's War, featuring the return of his character, which was published in 1986 and was one of the earliest original Doctor Who-related novels to be released. Marter had been planning both a sequel to this novel and an adaptation of his unused Doctor Who Meets Scratchman script at the time of his death. Books written
Marter's acting career beyond Doctor Who comprised mainly roles in episodes of series such as the BBC's The Brothers, Bergerac and Granada Television's The Return of Sherlock Holmes. He also had minor roles in several films, such as Doctor Faustus, The Abominable Dr. Phibes, North and South, The Medusa Touch, and the comedy short The Waterloo Bridge Handicap. Marter lived and worked in New Zealand in the early 1980s, appearing in the soap operaClose to Home from 1982.
As author
In addition to his Doctor Who novelisations, Marter wrote adaptations of several 1980s American films such as Splash and Down and Out in Beverly Hills for Target and its imprint, Star Books. Some of these books were published under the pen nameIan Don. Other novelizations: Splash Baby My Science Project Down and Out in Beverly Hills Tough Guys Gummi Bears Picture Books: Book 1 Disney's Gummi Bears: Zummi Makes It Hot Book 2 Disney's Gummi Bears: Gummi In A Gilded Cage Book 3 Disney's Gummi Bears: The Secret of the Juice Book 4 Disney's Gummi Bears: Light Makes Right
