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Whatever happened to Stellar from Dragonfire?

2

23skidoo

Admiral
Admiral
For reasons too complex to go into I found myself communicating earlier this week with Miranda Borman, the actress who played Stellar in the McCoy story Dragonfire. She agreed to an interview and I posted a cute little story about it to the DWIN* blog. Dragonfire comes out on DVD in early May (both UK and North America) so the timing was pretty good.

Stellar was a little girl who appeared in a couple of the episodes. Not a huge role, and she was 6 at the time, but it's something the actress still remembers vividly 25 years later.

http://dwin.org/home/blog/article/2227/

Alex

*Doctor Who Information Network, the main Canadian DW fan club
 
When the DVD producers contacted the actress going by the name she denied she was ever in Dr Who!

Then there was going around online pretending to be her!
 
Sorry to break it to you, but it sounds like you've been duped by someone who thought it would be a great idea to pretend to be said girl and has gone around tricking far too many people (including one of the people working on the Dragonfire extras) in thinking she's the real deal.

After all, given your summary of how she found you (something to the extent of her contacting you through a long-defunct Wikipedia admin profile) just a wee bit incredulous - if you wanted to make your big return to Doctor Who fandom wouldn't you get in contact with something a bit more higher-profile?
 
Rarewolf said:
When the DVD producers contacted the actress going by the name she denied she was ever in Dr Who!
Click to expand...

Hmmm ... yet the details I asked of her seemed to be in synch with the information I was able to get from other sources. And if you read the comments she gave me, this doesn't sound like something that would be fabricated. For example, I didn't include all her comments about hoping to see her scenes that were cut. And talking about the fact she was looking forward to the DVD because all she had was a tattered old VHS.

To explain more fully the Wikipedia thing. My username is the same there as it is here. And I am still and administrator. I just don't go there anymore because I got pissed off enough by tin gods running the place.

My username is the very first one on the list of administrators. As such I occasionally get query emails from people (who use the "e-mail this user" feature which I have not disabled). A few years back I exchanged e-mails with Christopher H Bidmead (writer of Logopolis, et al) this way regarding some queries about Who-related articles.

Also, even if she didn't go in that direction, I have about 30,000 edits on Wikipedia dating back to 2004. Many of them are on articles like Dragonfire. It doesn't take much to find me. She contacted me asking about whether it's possible to create a Wikipedia article on her. I said no because she isn't notable enough under Wikipedia's sometimes-draconian standards.

The fact Miranda Borman was in Dragonfire is verifiable. She's listed all over the place. The character exists - I remember Stellar.

Why did 2 Entertain have problems contacting her for the DVD? I can't say. I only have your word for it (not you, sorry, the other poster) that they contacted her. She could have told them to go away and then regretted it later. Maybe they didn't offer enough money - which is, I understand, why certain actors stopped doing commentaries and such. If the woman denied being in Doctor Who has anyone stopped to consider that they contacted the wrong person?

She did not approach me asking for an interview. I asked questions, got answers that satisfied me, and then I asked if I could turn this into an interview.

I'm sorry - unless some provides me with a bit more proof, I'm going to dispute claims that this isn't the genuine person.

Alex
 
On another forum Ed Stradling doing the DVD extras wrote this, in October.

'I tried to contact Miranda for the DVD. I found that there was a Miranda Borman living in Bristol, she was about he right age and had an acting background. But she denied being the same girl. She probably thought I was a stalker. Although maybe not as she's now following me on twitter!'

The person writing the Production Commentary Paul Scoones then followed with this

'I also had a go at tracking down Miranda, in my case while I was researching the production subtitles for Dragonfire.

I didn't find her at the time, but just recently she got in contact out of the blue. She was initially very friendly and quick to respond to my emails, but as soon as I asked a few questions specific to her time on Doctor Who she stopped responding, and I'm now doubtful that it is actually Miranda that I've been talking to. A friend has suggested that this 'Miranda' may actually be a well-known online serial hoaxer.

Edit: I've just had an email from 'Miranda' - my suspicions are confirmed, it's a hoaxer. They at least had the decency to come clean and admit this, though I'm none the wiser as to why they did this in the first place.'

the alledged fake's twitter account
http://twitter.com/#!/MirandaBorman

But then there's this website, who could be the real deal.
http://www.mindibuttons.moonfruit.com/

I'm not saying you have the fake (the photo matches, but anyone pretending could just use the recent photo too) just that there odd things going on in her name, and that shes not that hard to find. Some might say too easy!
 
Jon Preddle of the New Zealand group got in touch with me and said there'd been exchanges as well with a confirmed faker back in October. And that person used the Mindi Buttons website on her sig, too. It was enough for me to initiate inquiries and I've deleted the story from the DWIN blog for now.

Alex
 
Someone claiming to be Miranda Borman emailed me the other day:

Hi
I saw your Dr Who site

I played the little girl Stellar in the 1987 story Dragonfire


MB
Click to expand...

I didn't reply. I wasn't really sure what there was to say... She didn't even say if she liked my site!
 
the Mindi Buttons site is the real Miranda as is MindiButtons on Twitter. (it's linked to by several important people in the theatre industry, which wouldn't be the case for a faker) Miranda's graduating from University of Melbourne as mentioned on the Mindi Buttons site is easily verifiable (she's mentioned here at the UniMelb site).

Miranda is also mentioned here as having been nominated for a musical theatre guild award while living in Australia.
 
I meant to post an update but I actually couldn't find the thread again so thought it might have been deleted for some reason (bizarre). I confirmed that the individual I was in contact with was the same hoaxer who also targeted the Canadian and New Zealand groups, so the story I posted was pulled last week.

Has anyone notified "Mindi Buttons" that she's the victim of identity theft? I'm planning to do so if no one else has been in touch with her, but I'm getting mixed messages as to whether she might have been already notified.

I really wish law enforcement would find a way to nail these assholes to the wall when they pretend via e-mail - or even worse, via Twitter - to be someone else.

(The recent DWM with Jenna-Louise Coleman on the cover has an article on DW actors on Twitter and includes a caution about the fakers. It's one reason I haven't bothered going on Twitter myself - I mean, do we know for 100% certain that those Twitter posts attributed to Moffat, Sophia Myles, Karen Gillan, etc are REALLY from them?)

Anyway, I'm happy if this thread continues regarding discussion of hoaxes. But since the basic topic has now been rendered moot if a mod wants to close it I'm OK with that too. But I don't want to interrupt good discussion so carry on if you like!

Alex
 
23skidoo said:
(The recent DWM with Jenna-Louise Coleman on the cover has an article on DW actors on Twitter and includes a caution about the fakers. It's one reason I haven't bothered going on Twitter myself - I mean, do we know for 100% certain that those Twitter posts attributed to Moffat, Sophia Myles, Karen Gillan, etc are REALLY from them?)

Alex
Click to expand...

For celebrities, Twitter does to a verification. Generally it'll have like a green or blue check mark next to the name, meaning it's been a verified profile. So, yes, 100% certain.
 
Professor Zoom said:
23skidoo said:
(The recent DWM with Jenna-Louise Coleman on the cover has an article on DW actors on Twitter and includes a caution about the fakers. It's one reason I haven't bothered going on Twitter myself - I mean, do we know for 100% certain that those Twitter posts attributed to Moffat, Sophia Myles, Karen Gillan, etc are REALLY from them?)

Alex
Click to expand...

For celebrities, Twitter does to a verification. Generally it'll have like a green or blue check mark next to the name, meaning it's been a verified profile. So, yes, 100% certain.
Click to expand...

Well sort of - it's been fooled a number of times, there is an Italian writer who has a hobby of pretending to being various authors and celebs and he says it's very easy to do - moreover, someone had a fake Wendy murdock account that was verified and was faked.
 
JoeZhang said:
Professor Zoom said:
23skidoo said:
(The recent DWM with Jenna-Louise Coleman on the cover has an article on DW actors on Twitter and includes a caution about the fakers. It's one reason I haven't bothered going on Twitter myself - I mean, do we know for 100% certain that those Twitter posts attributed to Moffat, Sophia Myles, Karen Gillan, etc are REALLY from them?)

Alex
Click to expand...

For celebrities, Twitter does to a verification. Generally it'll have like a green or blue check mark next to the name, meaning it's been a verified profile. So, yes, 100% certain.
Click to expand...

Well sort of - it's been fooled a number of times, there is an Italian writer who has a hobby of pretending to being various authors and celebs and he says it's very easy to do - moreover, someone had a fake Wendy murdock account that was verified and was faked.
Click to expand...

Alright... 99%? ;)
 
Professor Zoom said:
For celebrities, Twitter does to a verification. Generally it'll have like a green or blue check mark next to the name, meaning it's been a verified profile. So, yes, 100% certain.
Click to expand...

I was tongue-in-cheek in my reference, however there are still a number of bogus profiles out there and not everyone is aware of the check mark verification. We hear about bogus announcements being made all the time in famous people's names. Which has led to a few people (Jenna-Louise Coleman being one) having to announce publicly that they don't have a Twitter account. And you still end up with scenarios like Nicola Bryant needing to use "The Nicola Bryant" as her username because of others using just "Nicola Bryant" (though to be fair that's also often because someone with the same name is legitimately registered; I couldn't tell you if this was the case with Nicola). And there's nothing stopping someone joining a forum (maybe not this one or Gallifrey Base because we have enough people in the know here and there who could probably suss out a faker pretty quickly, but there are millions of forums out there) claiming to be Peter Davison or, well, Miranda Borman.

There are enough sources that can be used to verify, for example, which Karen Gillan is real on Twitter. Or Moffat. But it's still hardly a foolproof system. Ditto Facebook.

Alex
 
I just got contacted by this person in the same way as 23skidoo (via my Wikipedia page, as a listed member of the Doctor Who WikiProject there). At least, I'm 99% sure that it's the faker. But what a bizarre person to choose to impersonate! I suppose the logic is that if you choose someone sufficiently obscure, it'll be more difficult for people to find you out... but I'd heard something vague about this hoax before, so she'll have to either move on to the next target, or perhaps choose a new person to pretend to be.

By the way, 23skidoo, did you ever contact the real Miranda Borman about this?
 
This person might have moved on to the fanfiction.net site. She sent me a private message using the username of Miranda Borman.

I had my doubts when she said she was a child star and had played Stellar in this Dr. Who ep so I did a search on Google and found this site and this thread.

Just thought I'd contribute to the discussion.
 
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