Tom Who? (Who on Earth is Tom Baker? - Tom Baker)

Name: wyrdsister

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Product:	Who on Earth is Tom Baker? - Tom Baker
Date:	01/02/02 (60 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: funny, honest, unexpected

Disadvantages: none

Back in the seventies and early eighties, he was the idol of millions of children. He was the Doctor. Most people will remember Tom Baker as Doctor Who. But Who on Earth is Tom Baker? Well why not let the man himself tell you the story of his life in this intriguing autobiography.
Born in a God fearing Irish community in Liverpool, Tom Baker grew up during the war. His teachers thought he was thick, and he loved the smell of his church. Tom had few ambitions then: to be an orphan, a sinner and to have a wooden leg, not necessarily in that order. He volunteered to do most things and that eventually earned him a place in a Trappist monastery where he spent six years of his life thinking about other monks’ clogs, murder and how to get out of being in a monastery. After recovering from his desertion from God, he went on to do his military service in the medical corp., where his ambitions to become an actor first arose. After his spell in the Army, he went to acting school and got married to a girl called Anna Wheatcroft, he had two children and was despised by his in-laws for being from a poor background. After the failure of this first marriage, he left and went off to be an actor. He managed to scrape a living until he got a chance audition with Sir Laurence Olivier. A few plays and a couple of films later, he was still looking for Fame and she had not found him. He was working on a building site and living on bread pudding when opportunity knocked. He opened the door and walked through.

Who on Earth is Tom Baker feels more like a reflection on an actor’s life rather than a straightforward autobiography.
Although Baker talks about his experiences with Doctor Who, he does not dwell on it too much, so whether or not you are a fan of the cult series, you will find some interesting anecdotes and impressions about this period of his life.
More interestingly is the aftermath of his time at the Beeb when Baker ceased to be a household
name and sunk back to the semi-anonymity he had known before Doctor Who. Not entirely out of work but scared professionally by his involvement with the series, Baker seems to spend most of his time in the Soho Pub life, around famous and eccentric characters such as Jeffrey Bernard. The big names keep popping in unannounced and unpretentious and some weird and sometimes morbid stories crop up during this episode of Bakers life.

This intelligent and well-written book is not strictly linear, as Baker likes to deviate as if following a train of thought prompted by a memory just remembered. It has a conversational feel to it. It seems at times that one is listening rather than reading. It’s unusual and refreshing. From reading this book, you get the feeling that Tom Baker never achieved much. Certainly, that’s what Baker seems to think. It is true that he seems to reflect more on the failures in his life, professionally and sentimentally, than on the successes which have made him a household name to this day. Perhaps he did not reach his full potential as an actor, who knows? This is one of the funniest and most honest autobiographies I have read, yet there is a certain air of sadness in this book… or is it irony?

Summary: