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One of the Fourth Doctor's Companions. Leela came from an unnamed planet far in the future. Her ancestors a crew from Earth who were marooned on the planet after their ship crashed. Her tribe - the Sevateem - were originally the Survey team. Over the generations, they had lost their technological knowledge, and had reverted to a near barbaric state.

Leela both looked and behaved like a glamorous female Tarzen. As strong and deadly as any manwhen it came to fighting. She was initally baffled by the Doctor's humanatarianideals, but her savage skills were gradually harnessed under his influence for more woethwhile purposes.

Leela, as a primitive warrior of the Sevateem was quick to kill her foes with a knife or her favored janis thorn, much to the Doctor's disapproval. Heightened over years of training, her instincts saved both her and the Doctor on many occasions.

She was also very naive in the ways of the universe - playing Eliza Doolittle to the Doctor's Henry Higgins - making for one of the most successful combinations in Doctor Who.

She was a member of the Sevateem tribe who refused to believe Xoanon was a god, and she found herself exiled from the tribe. She helped the Fourth Doctor fight the Tesh and cure Xoanon, then she slips into the TARDIS and joins the Doctor's adventures (4Q).

She helped the Doctor fight the Robots of Death, Magnus Greel in Victorian London, a Rutan on the island of Fang Rock, the Nucleus of the Virus of the Purpose (when she first met K9 Mark I), and to which she was naturally immune (4T), the Fendahl, the Usurians, and the Oracle.

Finally when she was taken to Gallifrey, the Doctor knew that her senses would detect that he was only pretending to help the Vardans, so Leela was placed with the Outsiders, where she helped to spur them on to fight the Sontarans. It was there that she fell in love with Commander Andred of the Chancellery Guards, and decided to stay on Gallifrey along with K-9 Mark I (4Z).

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Louise Jameson came from a family that did not have a very large background in the acting field. Louise attended RADA from 1969 until 1971. She landed her first job - four lines in "Cider With Rosie" - quickly, and to this day she treasures her royalty check for six pence which she was paid when it was sold to Iceland.

Louise's first big film part was playing a randy virgin sacrifice who had her heart torn out by the Devil and spent most of the film walking around like a zombie.

Louise spent two years with the Royal Shakespeare Company, during which time she performed in "Romeo and Juliet", "The Taming of the Shrew", "King Lear", and "Blithe Spirit".

Then along came Doctor Who, in which Louise played one of the most divergent companions in the show's history - Leela, a female warrior who clad herself in skimpy animal skins and killed anything that

threatened her.

One of the troubles that Louise encountered on the show was her red contact lenses, intended to turn Louise's blue eyes into Leela's brown. They were very effective for the show's purposes - but not for Louise's.

Immediately after she left "Doctor Who", Louise took on the role of Portia in "The Merchant of Venice". She has also added a large number of television credits to her name. The first of these was "The Omega Factor" (a psychic-occult series), followed by "Tenko" (a wartime drama in which she played Blanche) and "Bergerac" (a detective serial in which she played Susan). Louise has also appeared in "Casualty", "The Bill", and "The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole", among others. Louise has also occupied the director's chair once, for a show entitled "Falling Out". During all these projects, Louise found the time to have two children.

Although Louise declined to rejoin the program for the fifteenth anniversary special "The Five Doctors", fifteen years later she did

come back in "Dimensions in Time", during which she had the opportunity to act opposite Sylvester McCoy.

Louise has also made another return to the world of "Doctor Who", albeit not in the same format - she has been taking part in Bill Baggs' series of fan-produced videos. Her first was "The Terror Game", followed by "The Zero Imperative" and "The Devil of Winterbourne".

She was recently back on television in a big way, taking on the role of Rosa Di Marco in Britain's most watched programme, the soap opera "Eastenders".

Since leaving Eastenders two years ago, Louise has focused almost exclusively on her theatre work. In August 2002, she played the boozy landlady, Mrs. McGeein, in Gerald Moon's award-winning play "Corpse!" at the Theatre Royal in Bath. This production of the suspense-filled comedy set in 1936 London also featured Mark McGann, brother of Paul McGann, as Evelyn and his evil twin and Colin Baker as the genial, but shady Major Powell.

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