Born: 6th July 1935 (as Derrick John Goodwin)
Died: 2022 (aged 86 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1977

Derrick Goodwin was born in Hendon, London. During the Fifties, he served with the Royal Air Force as a dog handler in the Federation of Malaya. After returning to the United Kingdom, Goodwin became a stage manager at the Royal Court Theatre. He was soon both acting and directing for the stage, and he co-founded Leicester's Living Theatre Company in 1960. During a stint as the artistic director of the Dundee Repertory Company, Goodwin began a relationship with actress Nell Curran. He moved into television during the late Sixties, joining the BBC to direct for Thirty Minute Theatre. However, it wasn't long before Goodwin had gone freelance, and he was soon directing, writing and producing Dear Mother... Love Albert. He frequently worked as a producer-director, including on On The Buses, The Train Now Standing and Thick As Thieves. Amongst Goodwin's other directing assignments were Six Days Of Justice, New Scotland Yard and several episodes of Z Cars, on which he met script editor Graham Williams.

Williams was made the producer of Doctor Who soon thereafter, and he invited Goodwin to direct 1977's The Invisible Enemy, which featured Tom Baker as the Fourth Doctor and introduced the robot dog K·9. Goodwin accepted the offer with great reluctance, since he had little interest in science-fiction. Nonetheless, he made his mark by casting his friend John Leeson as the voice of K·9. Curran also appeared in The Invisible Enemy, playing a nurse. Williams subsequently invited Goodwin to return to Doctor Who, but scheduling conflicts made this impossible. He rounded out the Seventies by directing and producing two more series: Mixed Blessings, for which he also wrote, and Lovely Couple.

Goodwin and Curran were married in 1980. His work during the decade included episodes of Holding The Fort -- whose star, Peter Davison, became the Fifth Doctor partway through the programme's run -- as well as Now And Then, South Of The Border and Ffizz. A sojourn to Winnipeg, Manitoba saw Goodwin working with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Back home, his final directorial assignment came on French Fields in 1989, while the last show he produced was 1991's Taking The Floor. Goodwin continued to work in the theatre thereafter, and he also began teaching. In 2010, he released a comic novel called I Got You Babe as a free e-book. Goodwin died in early 2022.