Born: 17th July 1925 (as David Williams Hughes)
Died: 11th September 1987 (aged 62 years)
Episodes Broadcast: 1966-1968

David Williams Hughes was born in Aberystwyth, Wales. He began his television career as an actor in the mid-Fifties, adopting the professional name “Hugh David”. David's early credits included The Invisible Armies, The Young Lady From London, How Green Was My Valley and A Matter Of Degree. In 1960, David married actress Wendy Williams (later Vira in 1975's The Ark In Space). The same year, he was cast as one of the main characters in the crime drama Knight Errant Limited, but he grew to dislike the high public profile. For this reason, when Doctor Who's interim producer, Rex Tucker, invited him to play the First Doctor in mid-1963, David declined.

Indeed, at this stage, David started to wind down his acting career, making a few further appearances over the next couple of years in shows like Suspense and Moonstrike. Instead, he completed the BBC's directors' training course, initially working on episodes of Swizzlewick in 1964. David then moved on to programmes such as Compact, The Newcomers and The Further Adventures Of The Musketeers. Doctor Who came calling again in 1966, when David was assigned to direct The Underwater Menace, an early serial for Patrick Troughton's Second Doctor. When David received the scripts, he declared them unfilmable on a Doctor Who budget; he would instead make the preceding story, The Highlanders. A little over a year later, David also directed Fury From The Deep.

Further Sixties television included The Man In The Iron Mask and Z Cars. During the Seventies, David directed everything from Jude The Obscure to Owen, MD to The Pallisers to Blue Peter Special Assignment. He both produced and directed the children's adventure serial Dominic in 1976. A rare genre outing was a 1970 episode of Doomwatch. David's career wound down in the Eighties. His final credits came on the 1988 Victorian drama Sophia And Constance, which aired posthumously following his death on September 11th, 1987.