In Leslie's Words

 

Dirty Den? I’m really just a bag of nerves

May 25, 2006

 

As Dirty Den he was TV's favourite lovable rogue but actor Leslie Grantham has gone posh for his latest role, in Jeffrey Archer's Beyond All Reasonable Doubt in Blackpool from May 29.

THERE'LL be no sleazy antics or muttering "Allo Princess" with a cheeky wink and a smile in Leslie Grantham's new role.

For he'll be playing the decidedly posh Sir David Metcalf QC, a distinguished gentleman accused of murdering his terminally ill wife, in Jeffrey Archer's psychological thriller Beyond All Reasonable Doubt.

And Grantham is relishing the challenge.

"It's easy for me to play all these tough guys, although I'm not really tough," he said.

"If you're tall, skinny and ugly like me you can get away with it.

"I've played an American once but I've never done really posh before.

"And my character bursts into Welsh every now and then, quoting Dylan Thomas, so that was another challenge." The play also stars celebrated stage actor Simon Ward and The Champions star Alexandra Bastedo and is Jeffrey Archer's first foray into writing for the stage.

Grantham admits he had reservations about the play when he heard who had written it.

"Put it this way, before doing this play, if I was going on a 20 hour flight to Australia, went into the bookshop and they'd only got Jeffrey Archer books left, I'd have said: "I'll take that copy of Motor Mechanics magazine," he said.

"But my opinion is different now. What we're told by the media influences things.

"After reading the script I thought 'this is really very well structured'.

"He's a very clever writer. After that, my only worry was whether I could do the part."

And can he? "When you're working with nice people and good actors it sort of brings you up," he said.

"It's a lovely company. There's no bitchiness and everyone helps each other.

"I'm not a person full of confidence and it's like any job, if you're around nice people you do well and at the end of the day you think 'Where has the day gone?'"

This hasn't always been the case, says Grantham. He doesn't want to name names but says he has worked with actors in the past who have made him feel unwelcome and driven to despair.

"I have worked at places where you think 'Get me out of here'.

"At the end of the day you're straight in the bar having a drink on your own.

"Everyone here has been a joy to work with, which is important when you're away from home.

"Alexandra is a great organiser and the guy who plays Dr Keith is too.

"When we were in Crewe they organised a trip to a country house."

One thing that may surprise people about Grantham is that he suffers badly from nerves.

"I get nervous every single night," he admitted. "It's not just because we're live in front of the audience. "I used to get nervous in EastEnders before every scene.

"If you go to grab your drink at the wrong time with TV you end up ruining a camera angle. I get nervous about that sort of thing."

His way of beating the nerves is to get out and walk it off. "I'm always the one who'll volunteer to go out to the supermarket or whatever," he said.

"Or I'll just put my head down and walk fast usually so fast I end up running into a wall or something!"

Despite only being in EastEnders for four years from 1985 to 1989 and then for a shorter spell in 2005 Grantham seems to embody the soap more than any other actor. He regularly gets stopped in the street and asked for his autograph.

"When we took the play to Darlington me and a few others rented a cottage together.

"We made the mistake of going to Sainsbury's and it was like chaos. "All of a sudden everyone seemed to be in the same aisle as us.

"I'm always friendly, though the public pay my wages. "But sometimes you do think to yourself I'm just a normal man doing his job. Why are all these people staring at me?'"

Grantham claims he doesn't watch EastEnders. But that's not a slight on the soap since he left he never watched it when he was in it either. And he is keen to dispel the myth that acting is a glamorous job. "Acting is a bit like being a builder," he said. "Once you've finished building one house, you move on to another project. "As an actor you go where the work is. It's not particularly glamorous."

But one thing he is looking forward to is coming to Blackpool. "The last time I was there I was in EastEnders and was doing a public appearance in a nightclub," he remembered. "I got on stage, they asked me a question, then a girl ran on with no clothes on so they dragged me off.

"It probably took me longer to get there than to do the actual job!"

Let's hope he's not expecting that this time.

 

 

Leslie's thrilled to be back on stage

March 28, 2006

 

To many, he will forever be soap's ultimate bad guy. Ex-EastEnder "Dirty" Den Watts did it all in his two stints in Albert Square: divorce; blackmail; adultery; fraud; violence; deception; philandering and murder.

The only soap character to have been killed off twice, he was at the core of many of EastEnders' most memorable storylines - getting 16-year-old Michelle Fowler pregnant; giving wife Angie divorce papers for Christmas; burning down rival wine bar The Dagmar and returning from the dead only to be murdered by wife Chrissie and buried in the Queen Vic's cellar

But for Leslie Grantham, life on the Square couldn't have been more enjoyable. "It was definitely a lot of fun to do - but then I can honestly say that I have enjoyed every acting job I've done," he enthuses in that unmistakable Cockney tone.

"I mean, acting's not hard. It's a lot of fun. It's rehearsals that are hard."

Laid-back, chatty and obliging throughout our conversation, Leslie has a friendly air and doesn't take life too seriously. He's here to talk about his latest role - that of QC Sir David Metcalf in Jeffrey Archer's thriller Beyond Reasonable Doubt. The play is about to embark on a UK tour, starting at Wolverhampton Grand Theatre on Monday, April 10.

"It's an interesting part," he says. "My character is a sort of a George Carmen-type, very charismatic and with a long and distinguished career behind him. What happens is, he finds himself standing trial accused of murdering his wife. And of course, he conducts his own defence.

"But what I like best is that it's so clever the way Jeffrey Archer has structured it. The first half is set in the Old Bailey and you hear all the evidence but not the verdict, so it's as if the audience is taking on the role of the jury. The second act is done in flashback and outlines the events leading up to his wife's death," he adds.

Leslie is also full of praise for co-stars Simon Ward and Alexandra Bastedo. "Simon's wonderful. I remember watching him in the film Young Winston years ago and here I am now sharing a stage with him. It's tremendous," he says, a faint hint of awe creeping into his voice.

"And the lovely Alexandra, still beautiful and a wonderful organiser too."

Born in Camberwell, south London, the 58-year-old star is also delighted to be returning to the Black Country - and in particular the Grand Theatre.

"I did Dracula there, which I loved, and also Captain Hook in Peter Pan one Christmas. It's a great theatre," he says.

"Another thing about this job which I like is that you get to see this wonderful country of ours.

"I mean, as a nation we're terrible. We think nothing of getting on a plane and flying off to Spain or Portugal, yet there's so many wonderful parts of England that we don't see.

"I love Wolverhampton. I love the city, the accent, the people are friendly and you're just a short drive out into the countryside.

"Shame about the football team though!" he says with a hearty laugh before adding: "No seriously, I think they're picking up a lot."

An avid West Ham supporter, Leslie talks at great length - and with much insight - about football. "I'm happiest sitting at home in front of the box with the game on and a couple of glasses of wine.

" Trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in South Kensington, Leslie - who now lives in Wimbledon - has also appeared in The Jewel In The Crown, Doctor Who, Bulman, The Detectives, 99-1, Paradise Club and The Good Guys, as well as enjoying much success on the West End stage.

So why did he become an actor?

"Because I couldn't get a job on the Express & Star!" he retorts with a barbed laugh. "Nah, I just go out there and have fun. I never really considered doing anything else.

"I'm honoured to have worked with a lot of great actors - Michael Caine, Don Henderson, Charles Dance," he says, reeling off a list of greats.

As a young drama student, Leslie got to meet his hero, the legendary James Cagney, who told him: "Acting's about walking through the door, planting your feet and telling the truth."

With that advice in mind and a wealth of stage experience behind him, Leslie still admits to a few pre-show nerves.

When he's not acting, one of Leslie's great passions in life is wine, although he somewhat self-effacingly claims to "not know much about it" - despite hosting his own series, "Grantham's Grapes".

"You get people who will go out and pay £27 for a bottle of wine when you can get a perfectly decent bottle at the supermarket for £5 or even £3.

"I'd never pay more than £5 or maybe £7 for a good bottle of wine." In keeping with his relaxed manner, Leslie says he is looking forward to returning to Wolverhampton and checking out the city and its surrounding areas.

"I'll be staying over in Stourbridge while I'm at the Grand, and if the weather bucks up a bit I might bring the old golf clubs and play a few holes," he says with a laugh.

"I like my own company. Put me in front of an old movie with a glass of wine and I'm away."

 

 

Interview with Jane Grantham

Daily Mail, 21 October 2006

 

 

Jane Grantham had every reason to be happy with life when she woke up one sunny morning in May 2004.

After 27 years of a rollercoaster marriage to actor Leslie, the couple were looking forward to celebrating his birthday and she honestly believed that they had never been happier.

With Leslie back on television screens as his EastEnders soap persona Dirty Den and Jane immersed in charity work and family life, things couldn’t have been sweeter - both personally or professionally.

Jane carefully applied her make-up, chose a favourite outfit and chivvied along their three sons as they got ready to go out for a celebratory birthday lunch with friends.

But then came a knock on the door. Outside was a reporter bearing a copy of a tabloid newspaper, its lurid headline shrieking Den’s Web Lust.

Jane's seemingly devoted 60-year-old husband had been captured on webcam flirting with a 23 year-old blonde.

The memory of that moment still brings tears to Jane’s eyes.

"I felt as if I had been punched in the stomach. I didn’t know I could feel pain like it. Leslie was in a terrible state, crying and begging forgiveness, but I felt so betrayed, angry and humiliated."

Jane Grantham, 50 years old and immaculate in her kitten heels, is speaking out for the first time.

After three decades in the public spotlight, she wants to put the record straight and tell of the heartache, the public humiliations, suicide attempts and separation - and how a little boy with Down’s syndrome finally pulled a broken couple back together again.

Many women would find it impossible to forgive such a public and humiliating betrayal, and at first Jane did, too.

Indeed, in the immediate aftermath the couple did separate for six months.

It is clearly a painful admission. Jane says: "I thought, 'How could you have been so stupid?' I still think that sometimes - what a silly old fool."

"What on earth is a 60-year-old man doing thinking that this attractive blonde 23-year-old is really interested in him? I can’t understand that he didn’t see she was just cashing in on him."

"Leslie had such a shock and he was in a terrible state. He completely unravelled, and one little part of me actually felt sorry for him."

 

Leslie and Jane married in 1980

 

"I was also trying to protect our two teenage boys.They had to get up, go to school and face the world."

"They did it and they were so brave and mature."

"They learned who their real friends were, but they were bitterly angry with their father."

Public humiliation and a marriage in crisis pushed the emotionally frail Grantham over the edge.

A couple of nights later he attempted to slash his wrists with a Stanley knife. He tied elastic bands around his arms and tried to hack at the veins, gashing himself and bleeding profusely.

"I walked in and found him covered in blood. It was everywhere. It was the most terrifying sight I have ever seen."

"But Leslie was beyond reach. There was nothing I could do or say. I tried to clean it up and, once I had checked he was OK, tried to persuade him to come to bed."

But a few hours later, Grantham went into the garden, found a child’s skipping rope and tried to hang himself from a tree.

The noose broke. Jane found out about this only when he told her later that night.

Jane says: "I was worried sick. I realised he felt so terrible that he couldn’t even face living any more. For a week, I found myself waking up in the night - we were sleeping in the same bed - to check that he was OK. My fear for him just took over."

Almost inevitably, the couple decided to split up.

Jane says: "To begin with, Leslie stayed at home because he wasn’t well. I don't know how he even managed to force himself to work, but he did."

"As he slowly started to cope, we decided it was best for him to move out. It wasn’t me kicking him out: it was a mutual decision. We'd both had such a terrible shock. It was an awkward and horrible time, and we just needed space on our own."

"After he left, it was just me and the boys and it was actually easier. We didn’t have reporters on our doorstep and life just carried on as normal. I didn’t honestly know if we would get back together again - and I don’t think Leslie knew either."

"He came over at weekends to take the boys out and to spend time with Danny, our Down's son, then aged nine, who was really devastated by the split."

In the end it was Danny, who bought them back together.

Jane says: "One night, Danny’s godmother was reading him a bedtime story and Danny turned to her and said: 'My Daddy broke Mummy’s heart, but he’s still my Daddy'."

"When I heard that, I nearly wept. I just thought, 'Well, that’s the beginning and the end of it really' and it made me realise just how important it was to all of us that Leslie and I were together."

"Could I throw away everything we had together - let a stupid mistake destroy our whole family?"

Jane undoubtedly had to draw on her deepest reserves to rebuild her marriage.

But it was not the first time that she had weathered an extraordinary revelation that would have made many women turn their backs on their husbands for good.

For Jane Grantham, whose philosophy in life is 'it isn’t the mistakes you make that count, it is how you deal with them,' had already accepted the bombshell news that her husband had once served life for murder.

They two of them had met at drama school when she was just 21 and he was 32.

She was already deeply in love with this dark, mysterious actor when he sat her down over coffee and explained that he was on parole after serving a 12-year-jail sentence for shooting a man dead.

With that, he promptly stood up and walked out of the cafe - leaving Jane to digest the news.

She says simply: "I was so shocked. I did not have a clue that he had been in prison when we first started going out."

She pauses and adds with a sardonic smile:"‘Well, 'You haven't done a life sentence in jail, have you?' isn’t the usual sort of opener when you go on a first date, is it?"

For the remainder of her lunch hour, Jane dissected the shocking news with a friend.

"I realised it explained so much about Leslie. He was the tall, brooding, silent type - always slightly guarded, with an air of mystery which I found intriguing."

"Part of what I fell in love with was his incredible enthusiasm for life."

Other students would sit in a group and moan about not having any money, or the fact that it was raining, but Leslie would be thinking 'It’s fantastic, we’re actually sitting here having coffee - and the rain feels great'."

She pauses and her eyes fill with tears.

"Of course the rain felt good. It would feel good after being locked up in a prison cell. Everything did back then - and in small ways, it still does, too."

"Leslie still possesses that incredible joie de vivre and he gets such pleasure out of small, ordinary things."

"He loves to cook, and even after a long day filming, he’ll buy my favourite fresh fish on the way home and cook it because he wants to pamper me."

But after that shocking lunchtime revelation, did Jane ever consider dumping her swaggering, charismatic, working-class boyfriend?

She shakes her head emphatically: "Not for one second. I reasoned that he had served his sentence, paid his price — and I just knew instinctively that he was not a bad man."

"Both my parents were extremely concerned then I told them, and I think they had their doubts until they met Leslie."

"But they could see how extremely happy he made me - and they liked him."

"Even by the time she had finished her coffee and walked out of the cafe, Jane had simply accepted that she would stand by her man."

"It has been a decision she was to repeatedly make over the next three decades, in a rollercoaster marriage that could come straight from the plotline of a television soap opera."

Jane was 19 when she started at the Weber Douglas drama school in Kensington, West London.

One of five children born to a wine-maker and his wife in Adelaide, South Australia, she bought a one-way ticket to England, arrived with a backpack and an audition for the drama school -and never looked back.

It was a year before she noticed Leslie, a fellow student.

He’d served 12 years in jail for shooting dead a taxi driver during a bungled robbery as a young squaddie in Germany, had recently been released and was relishing his freedom.

"We met when we started working on a college theatre show together," Jane recalls.

"Everyone went to the pub after rehearsals and we started talking. He just seemed different from everyone else — not just older, but slightly awkward, as if he wasn’t used to talking to girls."

"He was not sophisticated at all but he was terribly good fun."

Two years later, on October 29, 1980, they were married. They decided against having children for a while so they could throw themselves into their acting careers.

Jane, in particular, enjoyed tremendous success -0 appearing in the TV series Lytton’s Diary, the costume drama Last Place On Earth, and the film The Return Of The Soldier.

Then, in the summer of 1985, Leslie was offered a small role as a barman in a forthcoming BBC drama to be called EastEnders.

By then pregnant with their first child, Jane had no idea that her husband was about to be rocket-launched to national fame — and that their lives were about to change for ever.

She says: "It was only intended to be a very small role, but they gradually started writing more and more plotlines around the character of Dennis Watts."

"The cast had been working tirelessly in rehearsals for six months when the show was first aired and we just didn't have a clue what would happen next."

"We just expected our lives to go on as normal.

"When EastEnders was first aired in February 1985, Leslie and I lived in Fulham, West London, and we walked everywhere together or we would catch a bus."

"But suddenly more and more people started recognising Leslie, until it got to the stage that catching a bus became impossible."

Leslie - a man haunted by the past and driven by his desire to live each moment in freedom to the full - delighted in meeting fans.

Jane says: "He loved signing autographs and meeting people. He still does. I was just so happy for him and I guess that life was really good."

Then, in August 1986, with the birth of their baby just four weeks away, the Granthams' world collapsed. Newspaper headlines screamed that the new darling of television soap was a convicted killer.

Leslie’s past had caught up with him. Jane says: "It was Leslie’s deepest darkest secret coming out into the light for everybody to judge."

"He had always had his own dark place, but he was coping and doing a highly pressured job. Now, with the story out and the Press camping on our doorstep, it totally unravelled him."

"I felt utterly helpless. I tried to reassure him that it really wasn’t the end of the world - but nothing I could do or say made any difference. He was unreachable."

One night, exhausted from filming and horrified by the stories now appearing daily about his past, Leslie swallowed a bottle of sleeping pills."

"At 3am, Jane found her husband unconscious on the bathroom floor. After trying to make him vomit, she called an ambulance. She still shudders at the memory."

"Leslie did come round, but it was very hard because I knew he was only still alive because the pills hadn’t worked."

"And the thought that he could do it again was, of course, absolutely terrifying."

"He was still terribly down when Spike [their first son] was born in September 1986. There wasn't an immediate moment when he snapped out of the depression, but he held our baby, we started life as a family and I think that gradually he made a determined effort just to keep going."

With her son just a few weeks old, the BBC received death threats against Jane and the baby.

"That day, when I took the baby for a walk in his pram, I didn’t realise that a police patrol car was following my every move."

"When Leslie came home that night, he told me exactly where I had strolled that day. As I looked at him in astonishment, he produced the police report and told me about the death threats."

"They didn’t know if it was a deranged fan but the police were taking it seriously."

"Was I scared? Of course. The next day, there was a temptation to just cuddle the baby and stay in the safety of the house. But it was sunny and I remember looking out of the window and thinking that no one was going to keep me away from such a beautiful day."

"So I put my new baby into his pram and went for a gloruious walk. For the next few weeks I would have police cars following me everywhere, but nothing ever happened."

By the time the couple’s second son, Jake, was born in September 1988, Grantham’s screen character Dirty Den had become a television legend - making incognito family outings an impossibility.

Jane says: "Everywhere we went, Leslie was stopped. It just became part of day-to-day life. We’d enjoy long, exotic holidays in faraway places where Leslie would be unrecognised and we could just play at normal families - but that didn’t always work."

"We were in Disney in Florida and we paid to have a 'character' breakfast where the boys could meet Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck."

"We'd barely sat down when a huge coach tour from England arrived."

"They spotted Leslie and we spent the rest of the breakfast with Mickey Mouse waffles in one hand, Leslie signing autographs with another, and a long winding queue of people around our table."

Then, in June 1994, at the age of 39, Jane discovered she was pregnant with their third child.

She'd flown to Australia for a camping and trekking holiday with Spike and Jake and her parents, leaving Leslie back in England.

"One evening, I looked out of our little tent to the river below and in that split second I suddenly knew that I was pregnant and that the baby would have Down’s Syndrome."

"It was a moment of total revelation and I just felt strangely calm. I knew without question that my gut instinct was right, and that we would simply cope."

"I decided not to ring Leslie and tell him. He would have wanted me to return home straight away. Instead, I waited until we were home and took Leslie out to dinner."

Then I told him I was expecting another baby - and that I was sure it had Down’s Syndrome.

"He was shocked, because a third child had simply never been on the agenda, but when I suggested perhaps we should have a test to find out about the Down’s Syndrome, Leslie shook his head and said firmly: 'Whatever we get, it’s our baby'."

"He was so sure, and I needed the reassurance because I did have a bit of a panic when I arrived back in London and back to the real world. I thought maybe it wouldn’t be all right and I worried if I could love the baby."

Leslie with Danny

"I deliberately didn't even have a scan until I was four-and-a-half months pregnant because I didn’t want anyone to put any pressure on me or even to discuss the option of an abortion."

"I didn’t want to know. The lady who did my scan placed it on my tummy and suddenly I saw his dear little face on the screen - and it was obvious that he had Down’s Syndrome."

"I started howling and the lady doing the scan started crying too."

"I got into the car and thought: 'I’ll go and see a girlfriend' but then I suddenly pulled myself together and thought 'Why do I need to talk this through? Just get on with it'."

"So I just drove home and got on with life."

Danny was born in March 1995. Jane says: "Any fears I may have had about not being able to love him went in a split second. I just looked into his eyes and saw a bottomless pool of endless love."

"I could swaddle him in his blanket and he would be happy to lie in my arms, gazing up at me."

"When he was just a few days old, Leslie looked down at the baby and said: 'You know, there are some hard things in life, but this isn’t one of them'."

"I knew exactly what he meant. Somehow, this tiny baby who was so dependent on us just drew us closer together than ever."

But the early weeks and months were tough.

"Danny wouldn’t feed easily, so it took hours. And he would stop breathing at night - sometimes seven times a night, sometimes 27 times. I would lie awake, waiting for his monitors to go off, so that I could race in and gently massage his chest or tickle his feet to get him breathing again."

"He became so precious to me. I was so determined not to let him die."

She believes that her devotion to Danny came at a huge cost, though.

"It was really hard on Spike and Jake, because for four and a half years I really had to throw all my energies into Danny and I was totally and utterly exhausted."

"Leslie was fantastic. He took the eldest two boys firmly under his wing, and the three of them formed a special bond which they have to this day."

Jane learned sign language to help encourage her son to talk - and he was three years old when he took his first tottering steps.

She says: "I took him to a music class each week, and the other children would all run over to choose the instruments."

"But Danny was always too slow to get the instrument he wanted, and he minded that SO much."

"One day, when he was just over three, he wanted that wretched instrument so much that he stood up and he walked."

"He was walking so slowly, but he was actually walking, and the tears were just running down my face."

Jane's devotion to her son remained tireless. For ten years, she ran an early intervention group for children with Down’s Syndrome, offering friendship and practical advice to other mothers.

When Danny was five, Jane wanted to adopt a little girl with Down’s Syndrome - but Leslie’s criminal past caught up with them.

"I saw a little girl in the paper for whom they wanted adoptive parents. I wanted to be her mother so badly."

"I just knew I would love her. So I rang the number."

Jane pauses, then adds: "But Leslie doesn’t look good on paper, does he? We couldn’t adopt."

As a young girl, flushed with love and buoyed with confidence, she had accepted Leslie’s jail sentence as something that had been and gone.

A past which would no longer affect either of them. She says now: "I was so naive, because Leslie’s past did come back - time and time again."

"Even travelling on the Tube or being in crowded places was hard for Leslie. I think he was always worried in case trouble flared up and he would be unwittingly caught up in something."

But it wasn’t to be the shadows of the past which proved to be the couple’s greatest test.

It was an internet sex scandal which exploded on to the front pages and nearly cost Leslie his career, his marriage and his life.

In his new autobiography, Leslie admits to discovering the illicit and seedy world of internet sex.

During long, boring hours between takes on the EastEnders set, he scoured websites and struck up a flirtatious and sexually-charged relationship with a young blonde.

Blissfully unaware, Jane was happily planning a birthday dinner for Leslie in May 2004 when a reporter knocked on their front door.

"He asked me what I thought about the stuff in the paper and I asked what he meant. With that, he just handed me a newspaper."

The front page headline screamed: Den’s Web Lust.

Their marriage could so easily have crumbled - but for Danny.

"Danny really thinks about what he says, and he has an uncanny habit of cutting straight to the truth."

"When he said that Leslie would always be his Daddy, no matter what, he made me realise that this was the beginning and the end of the whole story. I realised then that I could forgive Leslie and we could carry on."

After six months apart, it was Leslie himself who took the decision to move back in.

Jane says: "He turned up in his car, all loaded up with his stuff, and said: "If you don’t let me back into the house I’m going to sleep outside."

"I remember saying 'I think we need to work out some strategies' - but we just carried on as before."

Jane now believes the whole humiliating episode has strengthened her marriage.

"It was absolutely terrible to see it all on the front pages - so shameful and so public - but it forced us to deal with the situation and to address the problem."

She pauses. "Everybody makes mistakes. I don’t think it is the mistakes themselves that matter as much as what you do afterwards."

So life in the Grantham household is pretty much business as usual.

Leslie has been filming for The Bill. Spike and Jake are on the cusp of new careers, though Jane won’t say what, and Jane is balancing school runs with charity events.

Meanwhile, she is taking Danny to a sleepover, and as she leaves she has one final apology.

"I’m sorry my story hasn’t been more interesting."

That really is the one thing that Jane Grantham doesn’t have to worry about.