<span class="SFPTagline"> From SCIFIPEDIA </span>

Sylvester McCoy is the stage name of Scottish actor Percy Kent-Smith. The actor is best known as the seventh incarnation of the Doctor, the main character of the BBC's long-running program Doctor Who.

Born August 20, 1943 in Dunoon, Scotland, McCoy actually spent most of his childhood in Ireland. As a teenager in Dublin, he studied for the priesthood, but soon decided he was more interested in girls. He departed one day for a vacation in London and didn't come back. In London, he quickly found work in the insurance industry. But, by the age of 27, he had tired of this profession and went to work taking tickets and keeping the books at London's Roundhouse Theater (1970).

There, he was spotted by comedian Ken Campbell, who enlisted McCoy in his "Traveling Roadshow," whose cast at the time also included Bob Hoskins. The company performed various skits, one of which had the young Percy Kent-Smith posing as a character named Sylveste McCoy who performed outrageous stunts such as stuffing ferrets down his trousers, setting his head on fire and hammering nails into his nose. On one occasion, a member of the press mistook Sylveste McCoy for the actor's actual name. Amused by the irony, the actor quickly adopted it (and later "Sylvester") as his stage name. Some of his stage antics can be seen in 1981's The Secret Policeman's Ball, a filmed charity event starring various British comedians.

The outrageous performances gained McCoy some small fame and led to a number of other appearances in theater and television. By the early 1980s, he had become a familar face on British children's televsion, appearing on the series Vision On and as a regular on TISWAS (Today is Saturday, Watch and Smile).

McCoy also had a small role in the 1979 (Frank Langella) version of Dracula.

McCoy gained the title role in Doctor Who in 1987 and was still in the role when the series was put on "hiatus" at the end of 1989.

Since his stint on Doctor Who, McCoy has continued to work regularly in British theater and televsion. He reprised his role as the Doctor in the 1996 TV Movie in order to hand the role off to his friend Paul McGann. He has also played the Doctor in a number of the audio dramas produced by Big Finish Productions.