Background
He was born in March in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire.
He was born in March in the Isle of Ely, Cambridgeshire.
Tucker joined the British Broadcasting Corporation in 1937 to work in radio where he remained for several years before moving to television work. Amongst his work, he was a driving force during the formative stages of Doctor Who in 1963, acting as a caretaker producer prior to the arrival of Verity Lambert. Tucker"s friend, the actor and director Hugh David — whom Tucker had actually approached about playing the leading role in the series — later claimed in interviews that it was Tucker who had named the series Doctor Who, although Tucker himself credited Sydney Newman with this.
Tucker was also the director originally assigned to the first serial, An Unearthly Child, and later it had been planned that Tucker would direct more of the programme"s introductory season.
However, these commitments did not work out, and ultimately he directed only The Gunfighters in 1966. During the last episode, The O.K. Corral, a dispute arose between Tucker and then producer Innes Lloyd over the editing of the episode, leading to Tucker requesting that his cr be excised.
In 2013 the British Broadcasting Corporation commissioned a docudrama about the creation and early days of Doctor Who, called An Adventure in Space and Time, as part of the programme"s fiftieth anniversary celebrations. Tucker appears as a character in the drama, played by actor Andrew Woodall.