It’s sad to think the people, or characters, who influenced us as children could possibly be mortal. I logged onto Twitter one last time tonight, only to see a tweet by Stephen D. Sullivan (@SDSullivan) saying Elisabeth Sladen was dead. Among her many roles, Elisabeth played Sarah Jane Smith on Doctor Who and the Sarah Jane Adventures. She was 63 and passed away after a fierce battle with cancer.
I remember the first Doctor Who episode I ever saw, "Ark in Space." A classic fourth Doctor episode with a female supporting character that screamed, like many other female supporting cast, but didn’t back down from a challenge or lay back whining while waiting for a savior.
I grew up in the seventies. I remember the day the feminists chained themselves in the Illinois state capital building (my dad used to work there). I remember all sorts of radical ideas and thoughts being passed around about the rights of women, including equal jobs for equal pay, but there weren’t that many shows on television that portrayed women as the complicated creatures we are. Either the women were passive and victims, or they were aggressive and lonely. There were a few shows, and a few stories, that tried to make women more than that, yet most of what I read and saw always ended up with the woman making the choice between the feminine and the masculine side of her personality.
Until the day I saw Sarah Jane Smith scream in horror at the mutants on Skarro, then tromp across an irradiated landscape to stop Davros from launching a horrible attack ("Genesis of the Daleks"). I distinctly remember Sarah being trapped in a nuclear missile silo, with the missile about to launch, and the character just picked herself up and escaped the evil villain’s trap. Elisabeth didn’t play a simple woman when she acted this role. She brought to life a complex woman who could be a woman, and a career woman at that, and be "Sarah Jane" without any apologies or any intimidating aggression. And I loved it.
At the time, I didn’t understand any of this. Sarah Jane was just a cool character, Doctor Who was a cool show, and the narrator was hilarious.
But now I’m older, and I know how profoundly this character changed my outlook on life, how "Sarah Jane," and by extension, Elisabeth Sladen, enabled me to become the person I am, without apologies, without doubt. So when I found out she’d died of cancer at 63, I was crushed.
I didn’t know her. Of the Doctor Who actors I’ve met over the years, Elisabeth was not one of the ones I’d run into on the con circuit. I wish I had. I would have liked to talked to her, bought her a drink, and thank her for all her wonderful characters and performances over the years. Actors should bring meaning to our lives, giving us a chance to be the people we want to be by allowing us to live vicariously through their characters. Elisabeth Sladen did that for me and I will forever be grateful.
I send out my condolences to her husband and her family.
