{"id":141662,"date":"2018-06-15T13:31:12","date_gmt":"2018-06-15T13:31:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/leslie-grantham-eastenders-dirty-den-dies-aged-71\/"},"modified":"2018-06-15T13:31:12","modified_gmt":"2018-06-15T13:31:12","slug":"leslie-grantham-eastenders-dirty-den-dies-aged-71","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/english\/leslie-grantham-eastenders-dirty-den-dies-aged-71\/","title":{"rendered":"Leslie Grantham: EastEnders&#8217; Dirty Den dies aged 71"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure>                                  <img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Leslie Grantham\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/320\/cpsprodpb\/12CEE\/production\/_101983077_grantham1_bbc.jpg\"\/><figcaption>Image caption                                      Grantham had been living in Bulgaria prior to his death                              <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p class=\"caps\">EastEnders actor Leslie Grantham, best known as the roguish &quot;Dirty&quot; Den Watts in the BBC One soap, has died aged 71.<\/p>\n<p>Grantham had the opening line in the first episode of EastEnders and was at the heart of Walford life until 1989.<\/p>\n<p>He returned in 2003 before leaving for good two years later, following a tabloid scandal.<\/p>\n<p>Tributes have been paid by his EastEnders co-stars. Anita Dobson, who played Den&#039;s first wife Angie, said she was &quot;deeply shocked and saddened.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>His agent said he died on Friday morning and that a private funeral would be held. <\/p>\n<p>The announcement of his death follows news earlier this week that Grantham had returned to the UK to receive medical attention.<\/p>\n<p>Dobson said in a statement: &quot;I loved working with Leslie and I will never forget our time together on EastEnders.&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Obituary: Leslie Grantham<\/li>\n<li>In pictures: Leslie Grantham<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Grantham shot to fame when he was cast as the landlord of the Queen Vic, the east London public house around which the action in EastEnders revolves.<\/p>\n<p>More than 30 million viewers tuned in to watch a Christmas Day episode in 1986, in which his character handed divorce papers to his on-screen wife Angie.<\/p>\n<p>But Grantham&#039;s life was not without controversy. In 1966 he was convicted of murdering a German taxi driver while serving as a soldier.<\/p>\n<p>And in 2004 he was revealed to have taken part in webcam sex sessions from his EastEnders dressing room at Elstree Studios.<\/p>\n<figure>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/images\/ic\/720x405\/p06b5kh4.jpg\"\/>Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionLeslie Grantham played Dirty Den alongside Anita Dobson&#039;s Angie in this famous EastEnders scene<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Dirty Den was an EastEnders stalwart from its first episode - and stayed for four years, despite having only signed up for 10 episodes. <\/p>\n<p>Viewers were gripped when he was revealed to be the father of teenager Michelle Fowler&#039;s baby and by his apparent canalside death in 1989.<\/p>\n<p>After returning to Albert Square 14 years later, Den was definitively killed off in 2005 and his body buried in the Queen Vic&#039;s cellar.<\/p>\n<p>Grantham stayed busy after leaving EastEnders, appearing in pantomimes and stage plays, as well as writing a fantasy novel for children.<\/p>\n<p>He was reported to have been living in Bulgaria before his death, having gone there to appear in a TV series called The English Neighbour.<\/p>\n<figure>             Media playback is unsupported on your device<figcaption>Media captionLeslie Grantham&#039;s first scene in The English Neighbour<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Tributes have been paid to the actor by other EastEnders cast members, among them Michael Cashman and Tracy Ann Oberman.<\/p>\n<p>Cashman, who played Colin Russell in the soap, said Grantham was &quot;a lovely guy&quot;, while Oberman, who played Dirty Den&#039;s second wife Chrissie, called him &quot;a very very good actor&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Craig Fairbrass, aka Dan Sullivan, said Grantham had been &quot;a strong role model&quot;, while Ricky Norwood - &quot;Fatboy&quot; on the show - hoped he would &quot;rest in peace&quot;. <\/p>\n<p>Other tributes have come glamour model Linda Lusardi, who said he was &quot;such a character&quot;, and the broadcaster Paul Ross, who remembered him as a &quot;talented, kind and very funny man&quot;.<\/p>\n<p>Follow us on Facebook, on Twitter @BBCNewsEnts, or on Instagram at bbcnewsents. If you have a story suggestion email entertainment.news@bbc.co.uk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Image caption Grantham had been living in Bulgaria prior to his death EastEnders actor Leslie Grantham, best known as the roguish &quot;Dirty&quot; Den Watts in the BBC One soap, has<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":141663,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-141662","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-english"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141662","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141662"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141662\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141663"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141662"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141662"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/freeonlinetranslators.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141662"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}