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 Factory
0h 50m
Movie 2013

The Factory

Gene has the world - he's a successful entrepreneur, beautiful home, beautiful car, everything he could ask for except for one thing. Then he meets Gilda and the two fall in love and marry. They travel the world and live a life of pure happiness until tragedy strikes...

Leslie
0h 15m
Movie 2013

Leslie

Leslie Grantham and Lucy-Jane Quinlan portray fictionalised versions of themselves in this road trip comedy that examines family, celebrity, friendship and love. When Leslie's ex wife reveals she's dying, Leslie and his estranged daughter must make the trip to the Lake District to visit her on her death bed. But with all the trains cancelled due to bad weather, Lucy is forced to join her dad as he makes the journey by car.

DeadTime
1h 37m
Movie 2012

DeadTime

A Birmingham-based band are ordered by their unhappy record company to an old warehouse; the goal being to re-start their ailing careers with a kick-ass new promo video. Unfortunately the band and their entourage find themselves targets of a mysterious knife-wielding maniac, haunted by the voice of Satan, and out for revenge

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 Stretch
2h 56m
Movie 2000

The Stretch

When Terry (Grantham) is sentenced to a twenty-year stretch for a murder he did not commit, his wife Sam (Dobson) discovers that his apparently respectable business life has in fact been a cover for a vast criminal empire - drugs, protection, armed robbery, he was involved in it all. After the initial shock of the discovery has passed, Sam finds herself faced with a clear problem: should she leave it all behind, forget Terry and start her life afresh, or should she take charge of the business in her husband's absence?

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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