Douglas Camfield

Biography

Douglas Gaston Sydney Camfield [8 May 1931 - 27 January 1984] Director for television from the 1960s to the 1980s. Camfield studied at the York School of Art and aimed to work for The Walt Disney Company. He was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps in 1951 during his national service. Later that year, he transferred to the West Yorkshire Regiment (Territorial Army). He was promoted to lieutenant in 1952 and was training to be in the Special Air Service, but due to an injury he pulled out of the application process. It has often been noted by those who worked with him that Camfield always retained an affection for the army and brought military standards of organisation to the programmes he subsequently directed. His directing credits included Doctor Who, Z-Cars, Paul Temple, Public Eye, The Lotus Eaters, Van der Valk, The Sweeney, The Onedin Line, Blake's 7, Shoestring, The Professionals, Out of the Unknown, The Nightmare Man, the BBC dramatisation of Beau Geste, and Ivanhoe, the 1982 television movie. Camfield was known for his strict professionalism and was held in high esteem by many actors, producers and writers. Camfield died of a heart attack on 27 January 1984. He was married to actress Sheila Dunn, whom he cast in the Doctor Who stories The Daleks' Master Plan, The Invasion, and Inferno. They had a son, Joggs, who featured heavily in a DVD tribute documentary, Remembering Douglas Camfield, which was included in the 2013 DVD release of Camfield's Doctor Who serial Terror of the Zygons.