Leslie Grantham

Overview

Known for
Acting
Gender
Other
Birthday
Aug 30, 1947 (77 years old)
Death date
Jun 15, 2018

Leslie Grantham

Known For

The Kingdom by the Sea
2h 27m
Movie 2024

The Kingdom by the Sea

Tensions rise in a small rural community when a grieving young girl finds solace in the unlikely friendship she forms with a reclusive actor, but things quickly spiral out of control when he is wrongly accused of sexually abusing her.

Vengeance
1h 14m
Movie 2020

Vengeance

Eric Williams has been on the run for 27 years for a murder he didn't commit. When his estranged daughter is brutally attacked in London, the police are reluctant to act, so Eric must return to a city he no longer recognises to deal with the culprits himself, relying on help from his last remaining friends.

Search and Destroy
1h 33m
Movie 2020

Search and Destroy

When American Ranger John Cutter fails to save a family being held hostage and loses his entire team in a confrontation with infamous Ukrainian arms dealer Igor Rodin, he is discharged from the army.

The Krays: Dead Man Walking
1h 19m
Movie 2018

The Krays: Dead Man Walking

Inspired by true events, the shocking story of London's most feared and notorious brothers Reggie and Ronnie Kray as they break Frank 'The Mad Axeman' Mitchell from Dartmoor Prison in December 1966.

Mob Handed
1h 35m
Movie 2016

Mob Handed

A beautiful journalist will stop at nothing to get revenge for her daughter's murder. With no help from corrupt cops she decides to take the law into her own hands and joins a vigilante gang of gangsters and football hooligans to track down the sick, sadistic killers and get her justice....

The English Neighbour
0h 54m
TV Show 2011

The English Neighbour

A middle-aged Englishman settled in a Bulgarian village, where he encounters the mentality and the tragicomic daily life of the local people.

The Uninvited
3h 20m
TV Show 1997

The Uninvited

The Uninvited is an ITV science fiction television mini-series first shown in 1997 as four fifty minute episodes. The series was made by Anglia Television. It was created by Leslie Grantham, who also features as a police officer with a secret. Steve Blake is a photographer who sees the head of British Nuclear Power killed in a horrific car crash, but then turning up alive and well. The village of Sweet Hope contains a mystery: it collapsed into the sea and the population was apparently saved by two police officers. Blake tries to investigate what has happened to the survivors who have all gone on to obtain positions of power within the British establishment. When Blake visits the submerged village he discovers a chilling secret...

Cluedo
0h 30m
TV Show 1990

Cluedo

Cluedo was a UK television game show based on the board game of the same name. Each week, a reenactment of the murder at the stately home Arlington Grange of a visiting guest was played and, through a combination of interrogating the suspects and deduction, celebrity guests had to discover who committed the murder, which of six weapons and in which room it was committed, whilst viewers were invited to play along at home.

The Paradise Club
1h 0m
TV Show 1989

The Paradise Club

The Paradise Club is a BBC television drama starring Don Henderson and Leslie Grantham as Frank & Danny Kane. Two series were produced and were broadcast between 1989 and 1990. The show focuses upon two brothers, Frank & Danny Kane. Their mother, Ma Kane, is the matriarch of a criminal gang in South London, helped by her son Danny. Frank has become a priest but leaves the church; he inherits The Paradise Club on the death of their mother and returns to London to try and steer Danny away from crime.

Biography

British actor Leslie Grantham shot to fame in 1985 as Den Watts, the original landlord of the Queen Vic, in the BBC soap opera EastEnders. The character quickly became a national favourite and gained the nickname Dirty Den mostly because of the way he treated his wife Angie, played by Anita Dobson, and the several affairs and nefarious activities he conducted. At Grantham's request the character was killed off in 1988, gunned down by the gangsters he had betrayed. He returned to the soap in 2003 where it was revealed Den faked his own death to live in exile in Spain. It was widely speculated that Grantham was lured back with a £500,000-a-year contract and some 17 million viewers watched his return - an impressive figure, but not as impressive as the 30 million who tuned in to watch Den divorce Angie on Christmas Day, 1986. Two years later, in 2005, Den Watts was killed off once and for all in an episode that drew in 16.2 million viewers. The reason for Grantham's exit this time was an online sex scandal, revealed by a Sunday newspaper a year earlier. This was not the first time Grantham had courted controversy of course. Not long after finding fame in the soap Grantham's past became front page news; on 3 December 1966, when was serving as a young British soldier in West Germany, he attempted to rob a taxi driver, Felix Reese, in Osnabrück A struggle between Grantham and the driver followed, and Reese died from a gunshot wound to the head.In his statement to the police following his arrest, Grantham said that he did not know the gun was loaded and it had gone off during the struggle, which would have resulted in a conviction for manslaughter if a jury believed this version of events. However, at his trial in 1967 he was subsequently convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. Although he had committed the murder in West Germany, he served the entirety of his imprisonment in various British prisons. This was because soldiers and officers convicted of any criminal offence that warrants a sentence of over two years are automatically transferred to Her Majesty's Prison Service, since they are also automatically dishonourably discharged. Grantham was released in 1977, having served 10 years. Whilst in prison, Grantham discovered acting and was encouraged by Labour politician T. Dan Smith and Doctor Who actress Louise Jameson to take up acting upon his release. Away from EastEnders, Grantham enjoyed a high profile career throughout much of the 1990s with the starring role of gangster Danny Kane in the BBC drama The Paradise Club, and maverick undercover cop Mick Raynor in 99-1. Other credits include the sci fi series The Uninvited (which he also produced), Fort Boyard, The Bill and The Stretch, which reunited him with Anita Dobson. He has also appeared in the films The Wedding Tackle, Charlie and Mob Handed, and starred in the titular role of The English Neighbour on Bulgarian TV in 2011. He died on the 15th June, 2018 in hospital following a short illness.

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