Michael Hayes 1929-2014

The director Michael Hayes has died, aged 85. He helmed three stories during the 1970s, Season 16's The Androids Of Tara, The Armageddon Factor, and the following year's City of Death.

Initially reluctant to take on the show, seeing it as "a children's show with dodgy effects", he was persuaded to do so by his friend Graeme MacDonald (Head of Serials) and producer Graham Williams, during which he also became friends with the lead actor Tom Baker. With his final contribution to Doctor Who, Hayes took the show to its first overseas location, filming in the streets of Paris - he also contributed to the story both with a cameo as a passenger on the Metro seen to follow the Doctor and Romana of the train at Boissière station, and to provide the voice of one of the gendarmes who inform the Doctor that the Mona Lisa has been stolen from the Louvre.

As well as Doctor Who, he directed a number of episodes of popular series such as Thirty-Minute Theatre, Z Cars, The Onedin Line, When The Boat Comes In, and All Creatures Great And Small, leading up to his last credited production, Skorpion, in 1983. He also produced and directed (and cameoed in) the 1961 sci-fi series A For Andromeda.