Elisabeth Sladen died on April 19th, 2011. She was 63 years old and was taken from us far too soon. The British actress was best known for her role as Sarah Jane Smith in Doctor Who. She played Sarah Jane on a recurring basis during the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker years of the show during the 1970's. She reprised her role several times over the course of the 80's and then again with the new series of Doctor Who opposite David Tennant.
Sarah Jane Smith is one of my all time favorite companions from the series. This is not unusual and you will see many posts on-line from other fans who feel the same way. Elisabeth Sladen made iconic the role of Who companion and many who think of the Doctor Who will always think of Tom Baker and Elisabeth Sladen.
From what little I have been able to learn over the Internet it sounds like she suffered a long battle with cancer that she kept very secret. I do not know what "long" means. Up until her death she was filming new episodes of her Doctor Who spin-off show - The Sarah Jane Adventures. She was (without question) battling cancer during this time period. But was she battling it longer than that? The world may never know. It is obvious that her condition was something very private to her and perhaps even in death she would not want her private medical history to be spread across the news.
Having said that there are millions of people who now morn her parting and as one of those fans I hope to learn more. We all grieve in different ways and some of us like to have a better understanding of what happened. How did she live her life in those final days? I think there is no question she lived it courageously until the very end.
The irony of her death is that I was just having a discussion the other day about why some people take the death of a celebrity so hard - such as Princess Diana or Micheal Jackson. I said that those people never truly knew that celebrity and while it was news it was certainly nothing to get too emotionally involved over. I must now eat my own words because I am taking the death of Sarah Jane very hard.
Sarah Jane Smith, you will be missed!
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