Obituary - Leslie Grantham, actor and star of EastEnders

Died: June 15, 2018

LESLIE Grantham, who has died aged 71, was once one of Britain’s most loved actors when he starred in BBC soap EastEnders, from its conception in 1985, but his was a career that included the peaks of huge national television fame and the troughs of personal trauma and controversy.

Dirty Den Watts was a garrulous, arrogant, philandering, sometimes monster of a man who, when paired against screen wife Angie ( Anita Dobson) offered up one of the best on-screen love-hate, sniping, bitching relationships since Burton and Taylor in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (and indeed real life).

Young Leslie Grantham was born into a large family in Camberwell, London, and dreamed of becoming an actor. But the dream was long to materialise. He was a star netball player, enlisted in the army at 18 and rose to the position of lance corporal. But while on national service in Osnabrück in 1966, he shot and killed a taxi driver during a botched robbery. Grantham claimed it was accidental, but he was sentenced to life imprisonment, and was released after a decade.

During his spell in prison Grantham appeared in a number of plays and was encouraged into professional acting by Labour Party politician T. Dan Smith and the Doctor Who? actress Louise Jameson. Upon his release, he joined a London drama school, where he met the Australian actor Jane Laurie. They married in 1981 and had three children.

Grantham landed minor roles in TV, such as as a henchman of the Dalek leader Davros in Doctor Who. In 1984, he was then offered the role of Den Watts, which became iconic.

The actor left EastEnders in 1989, his character having been killed off, lured by a number of primetime shows, including The Paradise Club and police drama 99-1. But he never managed to recapture the fame he enjoyed as a soap actor. By the end of the millennium, he was consigned to pantomimes and presenting game shows, such as Fort Boyard, which he co-hosted with the model Melinda Messenger. However, the fact he had been killed off in EastEnders didn’t stand in the way of his return in 2003.

Grantham returned to haunt Albert Square just as he had in years gone by; scriptwriters came up with the storyline that he had faked his death.

However, during a Christmas TV break he appeared as Captain Hook in panto and became engaged in a webcam sex session with a fan. But the “fan” turned out to be an undercover newspaper reporter. To make matters worse, the actor had insulted several of his TV co-stars, including Jessie Wallace and Shane Richie.

The one time landlord of the Queen Vic pub had pulled his last pint. Dirty Den was killed off for the second and final time - by his second wife Chrissie (Tracy-Ann Oberman) - in 2005. More than 14 million viewers watched his demise.

What was fascinating was the realisation that where TV audiences had once been able to forgive his committing murder, the mores of the modern world deemed he had crossed the line with webcam sex.

Grantham later said he tried to kill himself three times in the wake of the scandal.

But he continued to work. He returned to the stage, starring in an adaptation of the Jeffrey Archer play Beyond Reasonable Doubt and had a recurring role in the police drama The Bill.

Yet, his personal life collapsed from under him when he and Jane Laurie, the mother of his three sons, divorced in 2013 after being married for more than 30 years.

He said at the time: “I don't know what I'm doing at the moment. I've got great friends but I'm in limbo. I'm at an age where most people are retired but I'm living in a friend's spare room. I know B&Q have a policy of hiring old people but I don't really want to go and work there.”

In later years Grantham focused on touring theatre work and panto. However, he did make his return to soap television, in Bulgaria in 2010. He loved the country so much (the role required him to speak Bulgarian) he announced he would retire there.

In 2016 he published a children's fantasy novel Jack Bates And The Wizard's Spell. And while he was offered reality shows the actor turned down what he called "humiliation TV".

Leslie Grantham’s life did not run to expectation but he was philosophical. "Life isn't a straight line,” he once said. “It's like travelling the motorway. Every now and then, you have to take a diversion. Unfortunately, some of my diversions have been quite catastrophic. But I'm safe in the knowledge that what I do now is good." Ill health brought him back to Britain where he died.

BRIAN BEACOM