Lalla Ward - Personal Life

Personal Life

Ward was in a relationship with her co-star Tom Baker whilst working on Doctor Who, and they lived together in a flat in Deptford. The couple married in December 1980, but the marriage lasted only sixteen months. Ward attributed the separation to work commitments, different lifestyles and conflicts of interest. Regarding her marriage to Tom Baker, Ward is quoted as saying:

It's something I still feel sad about. I loved — and, in many ways, still love — Tom very much. The trouble is, our careers came to be just as important as each other, and we grew apart. I was angry at suggestions that it didn't work because I was too young, or that Tom was unreasonable to me. We just irritated each other occasionally — we weren't close enough, I suppose. It was a decision we discussed and felt was for the best.

Ward said in 2004 that her long friendship with Douglas Adams, with whom she worked on Doctor Who, meant more to her and was "more valuable and more enduring" than her marriage to Baker. In 1992, at his 40th birthday party, Adams introduced her to his friend Richard Dawkins (biologist and author of such books as The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and, later, The God Delusion). Ward and Dawkins married later that year.

Aside from acting, her other talents include book illustration, and she is particularly adept at sketching animals. One example of this was the 1985 Shell Calendar, which features embroidered pictures of sea birds. Ward also illustrates Dawkins's books, and has also been known to help create material for his lectures.