Frontier in Space Actor Michael Hawkins Dies

Richard Forbes is a writer at Kasterborous Doctor Who News and Reviews - All the latest Doctor Who news and reviews with our weekly podKast, features and interviews, and a long-running forum.

Michael Hawkins, who many of our dear readers may recognise as General Williams from Doctor Who’s 1972 epic Frontier in Space, sadly passed late last year in October; news of his death was rather slow to reach the fandom, first breaking only this past week.

General Williams, who Hawkins played triumphantly in Frontier in Space alongside Jon Pertwee and Roger Delgado), was a flawed, mistrustful warhawk, responsible for the Earth-Draconia war.

Tody Hadoke, writing an obituary for Hawkins, paints a picture of an underappreciated talent:

A handsome actor with a refined air about him, he was more versatile than the parts he usually got suggested – note his turn as Beavis, the beleaguered subject of cruel mental conditioning in the Doomwatch episode Hair Trigger (1972). He had previously appeared in the very first episode of that series, The Plastic Eaters (1970), and his other genre roles included an aristocrat in the early scenes of Hammer’s Hound Of the Baskervilles (1959), The Avengers (3 roles from 1961), Out Of This World (1962), as a regular in R3 (1965), Thirteen Against Fate (1966), The Baron (1967), Man In A Suitcase (1968), and another military type in Survivors (1977).

He enjoyed a busy time of it on television all through the 60s and 70s in everything from Z-Cars to George And Mildred, via I,Claudius and Crown Court, with decent stints in Brett (1971), season one of The Brothers (1972), The Scobie Man (1972), King Cinder (1977) and The Devil’s Crown (1978) propping up a hefty roster of one-off guest stints.

If you’re interested in learning more about Frontier in Space and its stars, Kasterborous recently reviewed and discussed the history of the story in depth for our 50th Anniversary series.

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