Of all the actors and actresses who have played Dr Who assistants only a handful have gone on to achieve greater fame after their time on the programme came to an end. In some instance, the reason why they did not achieve greater fame in acting is because they chose to pursue alternative careers. Wendy Padbury and Janet Fielding left acting to represent fellow professionals as agents; one of Fielding's clients is Paul McGann. Ian Marter began a career as a writer, and his work included several Target Dr Who range. Lalla Ward became an illustrator, and her commissions have included designing a calendar or the RSPB and illustrating her husband Richard Dawkins' book River Out of Eden. Both Caroline John and Jacqueline Hill gave up acting for over a decade shortly after their respective stints on Dr Who in order to raise a family.
There have, however, been instances of some Dr Who assistants achieving fame after leaving the TARDIS. Frazer Hines and Mary Tamm became celebrities thanks to regular roles in TV soap operas. Frazer gave over two decades of service to Emmerdale Farm. Mary Tamm's stint on Brookside was not half so long, but it undoubtedly helped to raise her public profile. Peter Purves became a long serving presenter of the BBC children's magazine programme Blue Peter in the seventies. And then there is Louise Jameson.
Louise Jameson was born in Wanstead. After she left school she trained to be a secretary. She gave that up to enrol at the Royal Academy Of Dramatic Art. She completed two years study at RADA and then found work in several theatrical productions, including a spell with the Royal Shakespeare Company. Her early credits include a stage production of Romeo and Juliet in 1973 and television appearances in Cider with Rosie (1971) and a guest role in Emmerdale Farm (1973).
She was one of eight actresses who auditioned for the part of Leela, the new Dr Who assistant, on 10th August, 1976. Between 17th and 25th August a further 18 actresses auditioned for the part, and of these 26 players, four were given a second audition (Louise's second audition took place on 25th August).
There had been extensive discussions on the character of Leela by the production team. Philip Hinchcliffe had toyed with the idea of a cockney waif character like that of Eliza Doolittle in Shaw's play Pygmalion, and this idea was to some extent carried through in to the series with the Doctor trying to educate Leela in the ways of science and culture after her upbringing with the primitive Sevateem tribe. This aspect of the Doctor - assistant relationship is best seen in The Talons Of Weng Chiang, but it is detectable in other stories of that period. The character of Leela had first appeared in Chris Boucher storyline The Mentor Conspiracy, which although initially rejected by the production team, was eventually developed into The Face of Evil (The idea of a giant sculpture of the Doctor's head which gave the story it's name came from Philip Hinchcliffe).
Chris Boucher has explained that Leela was named after Leila Khaled, a Palestinian terrorist, who was "something of a celebrity. She was very glamorous and very bright." In her debut story, The Face of Evil, it is revealed that Leela is a renegade from the tribe of the Sevateem, descendants of an Earth survey team that had visited the planet several generations ago and whom the ship's computer, Xoanan, had allowed to  descend into savagery. Louise had to wear special contact lenses which changed her eyes from blue to brown. This impaired her eyesight and in one scene in The Robots of Death when she had to throw a knife at a robot, her accuracy was so bad she almost knifed a luckless cameraman. When Louise was contemplating leaving the series at the end of Season 14, she only agreed to renew her contract on the condition that she no longer had to wear the contact lenses. Consequently at the end of the Horror of Fang Rock, the first story of Season 15, she sees the explosion of the Rutan spaceship which temporarily blinds her, and permanently