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Leslie Grantham



Grantham has since appeared in two UK tours of Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a stage adaptation of a Jeffrey Archer play, alongside Simon Ward and Alexandra Bastedo, and remains a popular Christmas pantomime villain. He directed and starred in a pantomime of Peter Pan at the St. Albans arena during Christmas 2005, which was a sell-out and received excellent reviews.

In January 2005 a newspaper report claimed that Grantham was in the process of writing his autobiography, which he denied. However in June 2006 he confirmed he was in fact working on the book, titled Life And Other Times, for which he had been offered a "substantial sum" by Timewell Publishing. The book went on sale in bookshops across the UK on 18 October 2006. He discussed his book in an interview with Digitalspy,[6] where he also mentions that his return to Eastenders was only ever going to be 18 months long, as bosses want his exit to tie in with the 20th anniversary of the popular soap. This put paid to endless speculation that he had been forced out the show as punishment for the internet sex scandal.

In October 2006 it was announced that, in his first television role since leaving EastEnders, he would appear in the long-running ITV1 police drama series The Bill, playing the role of Jimmy Collins on the run from prison. The episode aired on February 8, 2007. This was Leslie's second appearance in The Bill as he previously appeared in a few episodes in 1998 also coincidentally playing a character named Jimmy.

In February 2007, he began a tour of the UK with the Donald Churchill play, The Decorator. In April 2007 it was announced that he will play Private Walker in a stage production of Dad's Army leading the Daily Mail to comment that "At least there'll be one member of the cast who has actually shot a German" - in reference to Grantham's killing of the German taxi driver some 40 years earlier.

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Popularity

Grantham's role as Den Watts had earned him iconic status among TV fans by the time of his first departure at the beginning of 1989, and he built on this success by appearing in other high-profile television roles during the 1990s, though none of these attracted the media attention or public popularity that he had enjoyed as "Dirty Den".

He had made a handful of bit-part roles on other television programmes prior to joining EastEnders, most notably Doctor Who, but was virtually unknown to the British public when he made his first appearance as Den Watts on 19 February 1985. Interestingly, his most famous character was referenced on the revived series of Doctor Who in 2006. In the episode "Army of Ghosts" the Doctor and others watch a piece of an episode of EastEnders wherein the ghost of Den Watts is supposedly returning to the pub. It is promptly told to leave before the channel is changed.

Four days later, however, the Daily Mirror revealed that Grantham had spent a decade behind bars for killing a German taxi driver. He had warned BBC bosses about his criminal past when agreeing to join the new series in late 1984, but they had vowed to stand by him even after the media went public with Grantham's past. Grantham had also volunteered to quit the show if his colleagues were unhappy with him, but they backed him up and he remained with the show for the next four years.

The character of Dirty Den was still an icon in the eyes of many viewers by the time of his "return from the dead" in 2003, and Grantham was by now one of the most recognisable actors on British television. The decision to bring back a supposedly dead character was controversial, but it boosted EastEnders viewing figures for a while, and the character of Den was at the centre of many notable storylines for several months afterwards.

The internet sex scandal in May 2004 brought great public shame on Grantham, particularly in the tabloid press. There were constant calls for him to be sacked, but he returned after a two-month suspension without pay. Later that year it was confirmed that Grantham would be leaving the series, and that the character would once again be killed off - but this time there would be no comebacks. Den was finally killed off in February 2005, and it was not until the autumn of the following year that he silenced the speculators who were still claiming that he had been sacked as punishment for the webcam incident, by confirming that his return to EastEnders was only ever going to be for 18 months, to tie in with the show's 20th anniversary

During the 2007 Christmas holiday season, Grantham appeared in the pantomime Dick Whittington, as 'Dirty Rat'.

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Trivia

 Trivia sections are discouraged under Wikipedia guidelines.
The article could be improved by integrating relevant items and removing inappropriate ones.
  • He is a keen cricketer and often plays in celebrity tournaments. In March 2006 it was announced that he would be a contestant in a celebrity poker tournament on Challenge alongside another former EastEnder, Michael Greco (who played Beppe di Marco from 1997 to 2002).
  • He is a keen football supporter and follows West Ham United. During his first spell in EastEnders, Den would attend West Ham games to be met with the chant "There's only one Den Watts". He revealed this in his autobiography.

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Selected filmography

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References

  1. ^ My Life and Loves, Audio BookAccessed March 6, 2007

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External links




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