Leslie Grantham

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Leslie Michael Grantham (30 April 1947 – 15 June 2018) was an English actor, best known for his role as "Dirty" Den Watts in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

He was a convicted murderer, having served 10 years for the killing of a West German taxi driver, and had significant press coverage resulting from an online sex scandal in 2004.

Early and personal life

Grantham was born in Camberwell, London, the son of Adelaide (née Flinders) and Walter William Grantham (1915–1998). He enlisted in the Royal Fusiliers regiment of the British Army in 1965, at the age of 18.

Grantham married Australian Jane Laurie in 1981. The couple had three sons and divorced in 2013. His son Daniel Laurie is also an actor, and plays Reggie Jackson in Call the Midwife.

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Career

On being released from jail, Grantham decided to pursue a career in acting and studied at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Matthew Robinson, a television actor, appeared in a play at the Battersea Free Theatre written by him. In 1982, Grantham made his television debut as Boollie in a BBC2 Playhouse version titled "Jake's Conclusion." He appeared as Frank on a short lived sitcom Goodnight and God Bless the next year. In the Doctor Who serial Resurrection of the Daleks (1984), Grantham was then played by Matthew Robinson as Kiston, the henchman of Davros. In episode 12 of the television mini-series The Jewel in the Crown (1984), he appeared as a signal sergeant and wrote a play entitled A Reason To Live, which received the Gloucester Drama Festival award for best original performance. Grantham made a brief appearance in the Mike Hodges film Morons from Outer Space (1985), but by the time the film was released, he had gained his most well-known role.

Grantham auditioned for the BBC in 1984 for its latest soap opera EastEnders, which aired in February 1985. Matthew Robinson, who was supposed to be a key member of the EastEnders production team, was recommended to him. Grantham had applied for the position of market trader Pete Beale, but Den Watts was not offered the role. The landlord of The Queen Victoria public house quickly became a national favorite, earning the nickname Dirty Dengie, played by Anita Dobson, in one of his many affairs beginning at the age of 39, when he fathered a child with 16-year-old Michelle Fowler played by Susan Tully.

Grantham's character served his on-screen wife with divorce papers on December 25, 1986, with the cliche "Happy Christmas, Ange" greeting. Over half of the British population watched the episode on a record 30 million viewers – over half of the population. The character departed from main plotlines in 1988 to Frank Butcher, played by Mike Reid, and then faded out of key plotlines until finally releasing in February 1989, though his final scenes had been shot the previous fall. Grantham had announced that he wanted to leave the soap early in 1988, just around the time when it was announced that Dobson would be leaving. However, the series's producers did not want to deal with the double blow of losing its two key characters so close together, and instead laid down an extensive block of filming that would allow Den to remain on screen until 1989, while allowing Grantham to stay on EastEnders only until the previous fall.

Over the summer of 1988, Denen was working with "The Firm," a felony group, and the only alternative was to leave The Square. Following a spell of remand in detention and a dramatic escape from the police and from members of The Firm who assaulted him on his way to court, viewers watched a mysterious gunman shoot at Den with a pistol hidden in a bunch of daffodils before seeing a splash. In the hopes that Grantham might be persuaded to return to his role, a shot depicting Den's death was edited from the final scene. A body suspected of Den's was discovered in the canal the next year.

Grantham appeared Danny Kane in the crime television series The Paradise Club (1989-1990) with Don Henderson.

He went on to appear in the fourth season of Cluedo as Colonel Mustard. He had previously appeared as a contestant on the 1990 Christmas special. Col. Mike Mustard shot and killed former colleague and property developer Sir Nigel Hussey (Ian McNeice) with a G-string in the kitchen in the second episode of the fourth season. The producers received a letter from one Felix Reese, who himself was a taxi driver who was shot in the head by Leslie Grantham when he was a soldier stationed in Germany, a short time after the episode aired. The Reeses found it unfavorable that someone who carried out an unlawful killing as a soldier would be portrayed as someone who carried out an unlawful killing as a soldier.

He appeared on The Detectives (1993) and 99-1 (1994–95). He narrated volume one of Frank Harris' erotic masterpiece My Life and Loves in 1994. He created and appeared in The Uninvited, a sci-fi mini-series from 1997.

Grantham, co-host of Fort Boyard from 1998 to 2001, alongside Melinda Messenger. He appeared in Lily Savage's Blankety Blank in 2001. He reunited with his EastEnders co-star Anita Dobson in the two-part mini-series The Stretch, which premiered on Sky One in 2000 and 2004's British gangster film Charlie (2004).

Grantham was approached by BBC executives more than once about a potential return to EastEnders during the 1990s, but most of these offers were turned down, with some fearing that the storyline at the time would not be the right one for any future comeback.

Grantham, however, would return to EastEnders later this year to reprise his role as Den after 14 years. His return to EastEnders on September 29, 2003, was broadcast on television, with him arriving at the nightclub E20, now owned by his adopted daughter Sharon, who was portrayed by Letitia Dean.

Den survived the shooting and fled to Spain with the help of former mistress Jan Hammond (Jane How), although the body discovered a year later in the canal had been wrongly identified a year later. On September 29th, one of the year's most awaited television shows of the year appeared as Den Den Den on the famous phrase, "Hello, princess."

Since Den's departure as to whether the character was dead, there had been a lot of misunderstanding in the media, particularly after the initial search of the canal site where he was shot failed to find any trace of him. Den's return had been on the agenda almost every year since the actor's departure in 1989, according to BBC bosses, and the first plea for him to return had been made as long ago as 1991. Grantham turned down every bid until he was made in early 2003, feeling that his character had no links to the show from 1995 to 2001, leaving Den's daughter Sharon without a family in the cast. His daughter Vicki, played by Scarlett Alice Johnson, had rejoined the cast and Dennis Rickman, a previously unknown boy played by Nigel Harman, was also in the film, the result of an affair involving Den and a young woman named Paula Rickman, 30 years ago.

Den managed a scam to recover The Queen Vic from Sam Mitchell (Kim Medcalf), 16 years after he had sold it to Frank in December 2004.

Grantham's father and masturbating while sucking his finger in a sexually suggestive manner through a webcam from his dressing room to an undercover reporter named "Amanda." Grantham was also accused of dressing as Captain Hook when refraining from pleasuring himself, and a few cast members of EastEnders, including Shane Richie (Alfie Moon), Wendy Richard (Pauline Fowler), Kim Medcalf (Sam Mitchell), and Jessie Wallace (Kat Moon). "I am completely ashamed of my conduct and feel that I have let down my coworkers, as well as my friends and relatives," Grantham said in a tweet. "I want to make a donation to charity as a token of my regret," Trump said in "some small recompense." In later interviews, he said he was'set up.' As a result of the scandal, he attempted suicide three times. In addition,, it was reported that he had been arrested by police for sexually assaulting a school girl in 2018, but the perpetrator did not press charges.

Grantham will leave EastEnders in the New Year, according to the publication in November 2004. Bosses predicted that the character would be killed off, but that "the coffin lid would be nailed shut" this time.

On February 18, 2005, 16.2 million viewers tuned in to watch his character's second demise, this time at the hands of second wife Chrissie, portrayed by Tracy-Ann Oberman, who slapped him over the head with a dog-shaped iron doorstop during a contest in the Vic.

Grantham appeared in two tours of Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a stage version of a Jeffrey Archer play starring Simon Ward and Alexandra Bastedo, and appeared as a Christmas pantomime villain. During Christmas 2005, he directed and appeared in a pantomime of Peter Pan at the Alban Arena in St Albans, which attracted raves and raved about. After Grantham left EastEnders in 2005, he spoke out against the show, criticizing its over-the-top, far-fetched storylines, saying, 'there was a murder every week, that's not real life'.

Jimmy Collins, who was on the run from prison, was announcing in October 2006 that he would appear in his first television appearance since leaving EastEnders. The episode aired on February 8, 2007. This was Grantham's second appearance in The Bill after he appeared in a few episodes in 1998 and 1999, he was also playing Jimmy, a playback of another character.

Grantham appeared on BBC Three in February 2010 to commemorate the show's live episode and its 25th anniversary. Kirsten O'Brien, a barist at The Queen Victoria pub, where his character had once resided, was interviewed. In the UK thriller film DeadTime, Grantham was cast as the lead role.

In the Lincoln Theatre Royal's production of A Christmas Carol, Grantham appeared as Ebenezer Scrooge from November 28 to December 10. In the Bulgarian television series The English Neighbour, based on a book of the same name, he played the main character John. He appeared in the film Mob Handed (2016 Release) directed by Liam Galvin as a detective in 2015.

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