Born March, 25, 1920 in London. Troughton was in Long Island, NY in acting school when the Second World War broke out, he returned to Great Britain on a Belgian ship. The ship hit a mine and sank off the coast of Britain but Troughton escaped in a lifeboat. He joined the Royal Navy and attained the rank of Commander captaining a Gun Boat on duty in the North Sea.
Well done, Patrick.
After the war, Troughton returned to acting in the theatre and in this new-fangled television thing. He played in quite a few adventure shows, mostly in supporting roles, but he did get the part of Robin Hood in a 1953 BBC serial.
After he was cast as the second Dr Who, Troughton considered various ways to differentiate his Dr Who from Hartnell's amiable-yet-tetchy patriarch. Doctor Who creator Sydney Newman suggested that the Doctor could be a "cosmic hobo" in the mold of Charlie Chaplin, and this was the interpretation eventually chosen. Troughton also added a feature to the show that has appeared in almost every episode since, lots of running. You can't blame William Hartnell for not doing that since he was almost as old as he looked in his Dr Who episodes.
In 1969, after three years in the role, Troughton was finding his Doctor Who schedule of 40 to 44 episodes per season gruelling, and decided to leave the series. His decision was also motivated in part by fear of typecasting, something that could be a problem for a character actor. Several of the later doctors did have problems with typecasting but Patrick seems to have avoided that problem, in the years that followed he played a wide assortment of roles in a wide assortment of movies, TV, and plays.
On 27 March, 1987, Troughton was a guest at the Magnum Opus Con II science fiction convention in Columbus, Georgia, USA. Although he had been warned by his doctors before leaving the UK not to exert himself because of his heart condition, Troughton appeared to be in good spirits and participated vigorously in the day's panels, and was looking forward to a belated birthday celebration which was planned for the coming Saturday evening, as well as a screening of the Doctor Who story The Dominators, which Troughton had requested personally, on the Saturday afternoon. He was also scheduled to appear on stage the following Monday with Doctor Who producer John Nathan-Turner and Sylvester McCoy, who had been announced as the Seventh Doctor earlier that month. Troughton suffered a fatal heart attack at 7:25 a.m. the next day (28 March, 1987), Jon Pertwee ultimately took the place that had been intended for him on the panel.