RIP Elisabeth Sladen :(
I am so utterly shocked by this - entirely unexpected; desperately saddening. I absolutely loved her performance as Sarah Jane - the quintessential Doctor Who companion - and was delighted by the renewed fame she found in The Sarah Jane Adventures. She really deserved to be a far bigger star on British TV than she was for most of her career.
I met Lis Sladen once, briefly, at a convention in 2002, and she was absolutely lovely to me - she said, apropos of nothing, "you have a lovely voice". Seeing as I hate my voice, you can probably imagine the smile this put on my face :)
The vast majority of the time, when I hear about the death of somebody in the public eye, I think, "oh that's sad" and then get on with things. But I felt really, properly upset when Linda Smith died in 2006 - and I feel really, really upset now. She should have had so many more years of adventures in time and space ahead of her.
RIP Lis :(