Leslie Grantham

Speaker 30:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Speaker 30:08

The programme was originally broadcast in nineteen eighty nine.

Speaker 30:11

And the presenter was Sue Lawley.

Presenter0:30

My Castaway this week is an actor. He achieved fame playing the part of the volatile and somewhat unreliable landlord of an East End pub, so much so that he became universally known as Dirty Den.

Presenter0:42

But he's now left the tribulations of television soap behind him and set out to prove his versatility as an actor.

Presenter0:49

He is a man used to the challenge of change. His present great success came in the wake of more than a decade in jail for a crime he committed as a teenage soldier. He is, of course, Leslie

Presenter1:01

And how, Leslie, are you coping with life without Den? Is it is it a relief to be rid of him?

Leslie Grantham1:07

quite a relief. It's nice to be able to, um

Leslie Grantham1:10

not suffer the trials and tribulations of going to Elstry every day, and also the treadmill of doing a soap opera.

Presenter1:17

Which is practically seven days a week, really, isn't it?

Leslie Grantham1:19

Six days basically working and one day learning your lines and therefore you don't spend much time with the the wife and family.

Presenter1:25

You must have been in practically every episode of East Enders in its four years.

Leslie Grantham1:30

410 out of 418.

Presenter1:33

Billy?

Leslie Grantham1:33

Yeah.

Presenter1:34

That's an awful lot.

Leslie Grantham1:36

Well, the money was nice.

Presenter1:39

Were you finally done in at your own request?

Leslie Grantham1:42

Yes, uh I asked to leave um november nineteen eighty seven and uh they then asked me if I would stay on and do a spin off with Anita who a couple of weeks after I put my notice in asked to leave as well.

Leslie Grantham1:56

And I said no because I felt that there wasn't anywhere that Den could go, whether it was with Ange or with any other character.

Presenter2:02

Let me ask you how you contemplate being cast away on a desert island because um I mean I presume you know a bit about loneliness.

Leslie Grantham2:11

I should imagine that one would revert to childhood, really.

Leslie Grantham2:15

When you're a kid it's a great thing to be locked in a room with all your toys and I think that uh stuck on a desert island with with these records would be a

Leslie Grantham2:23

Just the equivalent of being locked in a room with all your toys, really.

Presenter2:26

So you want to sit on the desert island and recall your childhood?

Leslie Grantham2:29

Unsack my thumb, basically.

Presenter2:32

All right, let's have the first first record.

Leslie Grantham2:35

Well the first one is the theme from the Charlie Chapman film Limelight uh which has great memories for me because uh every August Bank holiday, when we used to have a proper August Bank holiday, my father's firm uh Boots the Chemist used to have a sports day at New Eltham and my father used to organise it and that was the first record that was played of th of the day and everyone said it was my father's record and as I have a great um

Leslie Grantham2:58

Admiration and respect for my dad I think is a really nice one to kick off with.

Presenter3:32

The theme from the Charlie Chaplin film Limelight, played by Ron Goodwin.

Presenter3:37

Now, you're you're married and you have two little boys, Jake and Spike. You didn't christen him Spike.

Leslie Grantham3:42

No, no, his n real name's Michael, but um when I was travelling backwards and forwards from El Street and Jane was um pregnant, I used to say, How's it been today? and she'd say, Spikey We actually um expected a girl, we were told it was a girl, so of course Spike had to spend the first nine months in pink, but he's got over that. Um and when he was born and with bright red hair and uh

Leslie Grantham4:06

He couldn't have been anything else other than Spike. And I looked it up in the actual baby's name book and it said it's the brightest star in the whole constellation, so.

Leslie Grantham4:13

He's quite well named now.

Presenter4:14

He's a nice spike. And you're a doting father.

Leslie Grantham4:17

Oh.

Presenter4:17

And a loving husband.

Leslie Grantham4:18

And a little dark.

Presenter4:20

It's all a bit different from your image, really, isn't it?

Leslie Grantham4:22

Yes, but you've got to remember that people do put people in compartments and they want everyone to. And if you follow the popular press, it looks as if um everyone just fits into those capsules.

Presenter4:32

But you're your own person. You don't seem to me these days to mind too much about the compartment you got put in. Uh in the end you know what you are and so that's okay.

Leslie Grantham4:41

And if the public want me to play this rather rough, tough, volatile, um, unstable characters, fine it didn't hurt Peter Laurie, it certainly hasn't hurt uh several other actors.

Presenter4:51

Heartless, untrustworthy.

Leslie Grantham4:53

There you go.

Presenter4:54

Double daily.

Leslie Grantham4:55

No. But it asked me to a tea, you know.

Presenter4:58

Tell me about your early background. Now, where were you born?

Leslie Grantham5:01

I was born in Camberwell in London uh 1947 and then we moved to um Alpington or just near there, first off to St Paul's Cray and then St Mary Cray and I s was there until I was what, um sixteen, seventeen, eighteen.

Presenter5:14

And you had lots of brothers and sisters.

Leslie Grantham5:16

I had two brothers and one sister, um lots of mates.

Presenter5:20

So you are a bit of a lad?

Leslie Grantham5:22

People say I was a bit of a lad. I thought I was rather boring really. I didn't ever have any girlfriends. Um yeah, I did things like Plan Truant and uh Postman's Knock, you know.

Presenter5:31

I can't imagine that you were a teacher's pet exactly.

Leslie Grantham5:36

Uh

Presenter5:36

Uh

Leslie Grantham5:36

No, no, I I used to get the cane quite regularly. In fact, I remember one incident where I got the cane. I think it was the thing I didn't do.

Leslie Grantham5:43

Um which was usually the case. Uh any trouble, get out, get Grantham out, he'll suffer. And the deputy head broke his braces. And when he was leaving I sort of um gave him a new pair of braces. Um

Speaker 15:49

Um

Leslie Grantham5:55

as a present and I think he was more touched by that than than anything else, that this little tearaway that he used to cane nearly every morning uh actually should remember the broken braces.

Leslie Grantham6:05

Yeah, I suppose I wasn't terrible.

Presenter6:07

Let's have another record.

Leslie Grantham6:09

This is a great memory from the first holiday I remember was a place called Jaywick. It was terrible, but when you've got four kids and that was I think the best that my parents could come up with and at least we got to the seaside. And it was one of those places where there was more sand in the bath afterwards than there was on the beach. But this was a record that was played continuously all the time. It's Slim Whitman Rosemary.

Leslie Grantham6:32

And yeah.

Speaker 36:32

And if I should lose you

Speaker 36:39

Wouldn't it

Speaker 16:40

In my very love

Speaker 16:47

Of all the queens that ever lived at you.

Presenter6:55

Uh

Speaker 16:56

Uh

Presenter6:56

My role

Presenter6:58

Who's Marian?

Presenter7:02

Slim Whitman singing Rosemarie. So there you were, Leslie, in the swinging sixties in St. Mary Cray, in Kent, by this time. Bit of a flash, Harry. The comb in the back pocket, yeah?

Leslie Grantham7:12

Well I had more hair then I suppose I would keep the comb in my back pocket.

Presenter7:15

but quite concerned about how you looked.

Leslie Grantham7:18

Well, mods, um, rockers were the the thing and I didn't really want to have greasy hair on that. Um

Leslie Grantham7:24

So I quite liked the clothes that Mods wore and also was very much into soul music.

Leslie Grantham7:31

The black um musicians from Detroit and Memphis were really my heroes.

Presenter7:36

And you'd been on the stage at this time, hadn't you?

Leslie Grantham7:39

Done a couple of uh Sunday school plays. Um

Leslie Grantham7:43

And everyone thought, you know, if he could only take his head out of the little thing he's got to read, he'll be fine. But uh yeah, I got the bug for it and I used to emulate the people on television, the old variety shows, and if the Clark brothers were dancing and I would try and do that and slide across the floor in a in my pyjamas um without ripping the knees.

Presenter8:00

But what did you think then that you were going to do with your life? What what did your parents want you to do?

Leslie Grantham8:06

My father, although at that time worked for Boots a Chemist, he actually was a printer before the war. He I think he wanted me to go in the print.

Leslie Grantham8:13

And I didn't, and I became a junior laboratory technician for Barrows Wellcome.

Leslie Grantham8:19

And part of the job was killing horses and I didn't really want to kill horses so I walked out one day and um went into an armory recruitment office and thought well I'll wind up this poor old bugger in here and um

Leslie Grantham8:30

And in fact I then joined the junior leaders, so I which my father had been in the Royal Fusile Leaders, so it was nice for him.

Leslie Grantham8:37

At the time.

Presenter8:39

and it was full of cockney lads.

Leslie Grantham8:40

Very much Londoners, yes. Although I didn't have that pronounced Cottony accent when I was a kid, I think I I I accrued that, um, working for Her Majesty.

Leslie Grantham8:50

In various shapes and sizes.

Presenter8:51

Well, it's coming useful so that's it.

Leslie Grantham8:52

What's the air fan?

Presenter8:53

But did you like it in the army, or was it a bit slow fewer? Did you take to the discipline easily?

Leslie Grantham8:58

But I enjoyed it at the time and I think we all want to be

Leslie Grantham9:01

soldiers or whatever when when we're kids, if you're not don't want to be a train driver.

Leslie Grantham9:06

Yes, I enjoy it.

Presenter9:06

So you were a good soldier? You were a soldier.

Leslie Grantham9:08

Yeah, they seem to think so. They seem to think that I was destined for great things.

Presenter9:13

So off you went to Osnabruck in West Germany, quite convinced that the army was the career for you. Let's pause there for another record.

Leslie Grantham9:21

I've gone for Danny Boy and I haven't gone for uh traditional um

Leslie Grantham9:26

Rendition of it.

Leslie Grantham9:28

And the reason I've chosen this is because um my mother's brother, uh his name was John, but he always answered to the name of Danny.

Leslie Grantham9:35

And he was a great influence on me and helped me um in the early part of my life and in the later part of my life. And unfortunately he died a couple of years ago and I think this would be a wonderful memory of him.

Speaker 39:55

The pipes, the pipes are cold.

Speaker 310:05

From Glen to Glen

Speaker 310:10

And the dark.

Speaker 310:13

Out on the mountainside

Presenter10:16

Danny Boy, sung by Jackie Wilson. It's a a well publicised fact, Leslie, that one night as a a young soldier in Germany you attempted to rob a taxi driver, and in threatening him with a gun you killed him. You were found guilty of murder and you were sentenced to life.

Presenter10:33

But can we just talk for a moment about the background to that crime? Why were you in such desperate need of money? Why did you go out to find it?

Leslie Grantham10:43

Unfortunately, um just recently it's become a a fact um and and a well-known fact that there is a lot of um bullying and and that going on in in the in the army. Um

Leslie Grantham10:53

And suddenly everyone's got their arms up in the air as if it's something new. It's just happened overnight. It's actually been there since um the army began.

Leslie Grantham11:01

And

Leslie Grantham11:02

I suppose, um

Leslie Grantham11:05

Like, um

Leslie Grantham11:07

a lot of people now, there was this sort of resentment that I was an NCO and and one night um an incident happened that um

Leslie Grantham11:14

There's there was a lot of uh what we call uh or called bed barring where they take these metal

Leslie Grantham11:21

Bed ends off and smashed some unfortunate chap across the head. Well, the chap that they were going to do that night wasn't in, and I was.

Leslie Grantham11:29

in my room and an inst incident happened where I was burnt with a steam iron. And I think I went slightly um strange and um a few things happened that led to

Leslie Grantham11:39

me being in this predicament and

Leslie Grantham11:42

And there's no justification for what I did and and it's one of the things that I I never really talk about and

Leslie Grantham11:48

Unfortunately someone uh lost their life and I I spent um

Leslie Grantham11:53

a time in prison and uh I don't think that I'll ever

Leslie Grantham11:57

Have wiped the slate clean, but I think I'm trying to do something with my life. It's um

Leslie Grantham12:03

Yes, it was just a a a tragic and unfortunate chapter in my life really, which is something I'm not proud of and and never will forget.

Leslie Grantham12:10

out of my system. But it's on obviously it's a as I said, a very regrettable incident. And not just for me but for um everyone involved. But the true story will will will will

Speaker 112:18

But the

Leslie Grantham12:21

never come out and and that's um that's maybe a good thing because it would then open up a whole can of worms which should be left buried really.

Presenter12:30

Well, it was some time ago now, anyway, and as you say, you spent you paid your price, you spent eleven years inside.

Leslie Grantham12:33

You spent it

Leslie Grantham12:35

Well yeah, maybe I'd I'm not say I'm sure that I'd pay my price. I still think that um being deprived of a liberty and um

Leslie Grantham12:43

Punished is

Leslie Grantham12:45

some way towards it. It doesn't wipe the slate clean inside your head or or whatever. So you have to carry that's you still carry on your prison sentence, um, uh every day, really. I'm just lucky that, um

Leslie Grantham12:58

I've been given the um opportunity to start again.

Presenter13:03

How did you take it? Can you remember when you were sentenced to life? I mean, you had no idea, presumably, at that time, how long that could mean.

Leslie Grantham13:10

Mm. N yeah, it was quite I think it was qu

Leslie Grantham13:13

shocked that the actual um

Leslie Grantham13:16

The verdict was um

Leslie Grantham13:18

I felt at the time, as uh severe as it was, but at the same time, um

Leslie Grantham13:22

I think my parents and my family took it worse. I can become detached about things so I can actually shut myself off um and and overcome it. Um

Presenter13:31

But w were you always able to be detached, or was it at that point that you thought, well, the unknown lies before me now, I've just got to live from day to day and control my

Leslie Grantham13:42

I had to survive and um

Leslie Grantham13:44

My way of surviving is to shut up shop, really, and

Leslie Grantham13:49

Just go through with a purpose.

Presenter13:52

So you were inside from the age of of nineteen to the age of thirty?

Leslie Grantham13:55

Thirty one. Thirty one was not yet.

Presenter13:58

It's a long time, isn't it? Hold of your twenties.

Leslie Grantham13:59

How did you

Leslie Grantham14:01

Yeah, but, you know, it's um it had to be done and

Leslie Grantham14:04

I survived. I came out without too many chips on my shoulder.

Presenter14:08

Should we have another record?

Leslie Grantham14:09

Yes, um

Leslie Grantham14:11

This is uh Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams. Um it's the test pilot sketch from Hancock's Half Hour. I just think two of the greatest comedians, sadly both departed um from a great era of um BBC radio uh comedy.

Speaker 114:27

H. B. Hancock calling control tower.

Speaker 114:29

Levelling out at eighteen hundred miles per hour

Speaker 114:32

Everything kind of plan.

Speaker 114:34

Fine plane, tell the designer Chappie.

Speaker 114:39

Control tower. Control tower to Hancock. We're worried about possible sabotage. The mechanic who was working on your aircraft is missing.

Speaker 114:49

Think you should come down. Land immediately. Repeat, land immediately.

Speaker 114:57

Nonsense, she's going beautifully. I don't know a thing about any mechanic.

Speaker 115:00

Taking her up to 2,400 miles an hour.

Speaker 115:06

Uh

Leslie Grantham15:06

Hank off to the control tower, something strange is happening. There's a peculiar knocking sound on the windscreen.

Leslie Grantham15:14

Seems to be coming from outside the plane. I'm slowing down to 1800 miles an hour.

Speaker 115:19

Oh.

Leslie Grantham15:20

Uh

Speaker 115:20

The side cockpit open to see what's wrong.

Speaker 115:24

Good evening.

Presenter15:28

Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams and Hattie Jakes, I think.

Leslie Grantham15:31

Uh the radio controller, yeah.

Presenter15:32

A test pilot sketch from the BBC radio series Hancock's Half Hour.

Presenter15:37

Well, now, Leslie Grantham, it was while you were in prison that you took up drama. How did that happen?

Leslie Grantham15:42

There was a drama group there, um, they used to put shows on and I went, um

Leslie Grantham15:46

One night to see it and

Leslie Grantham15:48

I have to tell this tacky story to lead up to it, but what happened, it was the day I moved from the boys' wing, under 21, to the man's wing. You know, you have to have a medical when you leave the boys' wing to go to the man's wing, you have to have a medical when you go to the men when you get into the men's wing, having just left the boys' wing. Then there's a pile of chairs outside the MO's room, and there's one chap sitting one end.

Leslie Grantham16:10

and there's a huge gap in between and two other chaps sitting and there's another chair. So I go to sit down next to this chap and the bloke from the other end says, Don't sit there, he's got a dose

Leslie Grantham16:20

The button.

Leslie Grantham16:21

She says, Come and sit here.

Leslie Grantham16:23

So I said, What do you mean he's got a dose? He said, He's got V D.

Leslie Grantham16:26

I thought, oh, terrible And he said, That's the guy who's given it to him, is the other guy sitting next to him, you see.

Leslie Grantham16:31

So for one?

Leslie Grantham16:32

Be very careful in here, wouldn't I? Uh and that night it happened to be a play on I think it was called Norman.

Leslie Grantham16:38

and the play was going through and suddenly the chap with the dose walked on stage.

Leslie Grantham16:43

Anne had to say to this woman

Leslie Grantham16:46

Why won't you marry me?

Leslie Grantham16:47

And seventeen hundred prisoners screened out.

Leslie Grantham16:51

And so I thought, Oh, I could do better than this and then someone uh said to me, uh, Well, why don't you do it then? Why don't you just get up and do it? So I applied to join the drama group and unfortunately they were all

Leslie Grantham17:02

the other side of the coin. Um so I've got to make the tea.

Leslie Grantham17:05

And one night uh the leading actor was off having his electric shock treatment.

Leslie Grantham17:10

And they asked me to read. It was Tommy and the Anniversary of McElwraith's play and I

Leslie Grantham17:16

Went back the next night to making the tea, and suddenly Voice said, Where's Leslie? Where's Leslie?

Leslie Grantham17:20

So I'm making the two. I said we know you're playing Tommy.

Leslie Grantham17:24

I thought fine I did it and um we then rehearsed and um learnt all the lines and the women's parts as well and then two weeks before we actually went on for the prisoners um they brought the the actresses in who um

Presenter17:36

Professional actresses from the outside.

Leslie Grantham17:37

This was the outside or semi-professional and Pamela Salem came in to play my girlfriend.

Presenter17:40

Where

Leslie Grantham17:43

And

Leslie Grantham17:44

Seemed to be a great success, so they asked me to do more plays. And then the second play I did um was with a a wo a lovely actress called Gay Hamilton, who's still around, and a wonderful old musical star called Ethel Revnall, who I don't think quite knew how long I was in for,'cause she wanted to adopt me and find agents for me and all that sort of thing.

Presenter18:02

So all these actresses from the outside were telling you, Leslie, this could be your future?

Leslie Grantham18:07

Yes. But I thought that people just felt sorry for you because of the environment you were in and uh you know if you actually got on stage and peed I think Nureev had choreographed it.

Presenter18:16

But you were writing as well, weren't you?

Leslie Grantham18:18

Yeah, I wrote a couple of plays with an another guy, um

Presenter18:21

Didn't you write a version of porridge at something?

Leslie Grantham18:23

Well yeah, we were we were writing a thing and it I called it Comedy of Errors, not knowing that some other chap a few years before had actually written one already called Comedy of Errors. This was about guys in in prison. Um

Leslie Grantham18:34

Everyone read it, thought it was very funny and we thought right we'll send this off to someone and then lo and behold, we didn't send it off but lo and behold on came the screen came porridge. So that was torn up and thrown out the window.

Presenter18:43

But it must have been very difficult um performing these productions because presumably you were always performing in front of the other inmates, I mean a whole audience that knew you very well. Did they not laugh at you?

Leslie Grantham18:53

Yeah, they always try to put you off and in the end it w people you say, Oh, when's the next play? and you know, I think they looked to me a bit funny'cause most of the chaps were all, as I said, the other side of the coin and I was the only one that didn't want to go there for the frocks and the make up. But I was always the one that lost his trousers or had to be in drag, swing from chandeliers.

Leslie Grantham19:10

And then subsequently I wrote a play which won an award at the um Gloucester Festival. Then I met Louise Jamieson then who actually said

Leslie Grantham19:18

Yes, you should be an actor. I mean, I thought I thought, Well, these people I don't know and I don't think they're being nice. So I then applied for drama schools and um Weber Douglas took me.

Leslie Grantham19:28

And

Presenter19:29

Shall we have your fifth record?

Leslie Grantham19:31

Yes, this is Buddy Holly singing Heartbeat. I think it's the first record I ever bought and this has great childhood memories.

Speaker 319:39

Uh

Presenter19:40

I think

Presenter19:41

Why do you miss when my baby kisses me?

Speaker 319:52

Heartbeat, why does a long kiss stay in my memory?

Presenter20:05

Liddly Pat, I know that new love thrills me.

Presenter20:10

Buddy Holly, singing Heartbeat. All your music, Leslie, is is is really from, as you were saying, very early on in your life. Do you sometimes feel as if your life is divided totally into two, that there was the kind of nineteen years before you went into jail and then a second life that began

Presenter20:25

Eleven years ago you came out.

Leslie Grantham20:26

Well, I do have fond oh uh lots of memories of of being young and lots of memories of being old and

Leslie Grantham20:32

Being sort of um in between. There are a lot of happy memories even in in in places such as um worm of scrubs and and and that sort of thing. Um

Presenter20:40

But the world must have looked a very different place when you came out. I mean, a lot had happened between the late sixties and the late seventies. Do you remember being frightened or excited or both?

Leslie Grantham20:50

Because I'd actually been to an open prison and actually gone out, um I used to go to college one day a week and um organise the drama group there and go to Brislovik and look at and watch plays.

Leslie Grantham21:02

I had actually seen um a bit of the world, although obviously escorted by a prison officer.

Leslie Grantham21:08

But I remember the first day of coming out, going into a shop.

Leslie Grantham21:12

And someone said, Can I help you? And I said, Yes, and I grabbed uh something off the shelf and paid for it and I was till the cat food and I thought I haven't got a cat really, have I?

Speaker 121:18

Yeah.

Leslie Grantham21:19

What do I want this for? So I was all wasted thirty-nine P on um on tinner cat food that uh I didn't really need

Leslie Grantham21:25

Because I was confused about, you know, suddenly someone's asked me a question, you normally jump to attention and give an answer, you know.

Speaker 121:32

Pooh's

Leslie Grantham21:34

And I really was browsing. I suppose also

Leslie Grantham21:37

Maybe they thought I was being furtive.

Presenter21:40

Yeah.

Presenter21:41

Anyway, drama had its grip on you. Off you went to the Weber Douglas Drama School as a mature student where you met two women who were to become very important in your life. Julia Smith, first of all, who was to become the producer of East Enders and give you your big break. And you also met a lady called a fellow student, Jane Laurie.

Leslie Grantham22:00

Yes, um I think Jane came first.

Leslie Grantham22:04

I was working on a show that she was doing. Uh every student has to sort of um do the lights or the sounds and um we went out together and um we've been together ever since really.

Presenter22:15

And Julius Smith, of course, eventually gave you the first big break.

Leslie Grantham22:20

I don't think she remembers me from drama school'cause I um

Leslie Grantham22:23

actually was working on a show and the leading actor didn't want to do it so I suddenly was doing the lights and queuing the actors and playing the lead part and at the end she went round and said to have a marvellous darling marvel and never said a word to me and um subsequently uh three years later I think it was I went up to see her for a part of East Senders.

Presenter22:40

That was nineteen eighty four.

Leslie Grantham22:41

Yeah.

Presenter22:42

The B B C was casting for its new show.

Presenter22:44

Shall we pause there for another record?

Leslie Grantham22:47

Yes. This is um happy memories of uh

Leslie Grantham22:51

drama school and living in Chel a house in Chelsea. We had a party tape and this was one of the ones that always used to be great fun and people used to l love hearing and it's Love Walked In.

Speaker 123:06

And I have

Speaker 123:09

Oh my future apple

Presenter23:36

Love walked in from the film The Goldwyn Follies sung by Kenny Baker and Andrea Leeds.

Presenter23:42

So, Leslie, you went for Pete Beale, in fact, the fruit and veg man, didn't you? And you got Dennis Watts, the landlord of the Queen Vic.

Presenter23:50

Did you know at the time that this was going to be the big one?

Leslie Grantham23:52

No, um

Leslie Grantham23:54

It was basically that the Watses would be, um

Leslie Grantham23:58

Subsidiary role, a bit like Dave in Minder, although integral to what was going on because obviously the pub.

Leslie Grantham24:03

had to be the focal point uh where people met.

Leslie Grantham24:06

Basically it was about the Fowlers and the Beals, the twins and their relationship with Lou Beal and and that sort of stuff.

Presenter24:13

Hmm.

Leslie Grantham24:14

And

Leslie Grantham24:15

Suddenly at twelve episodes a year I think I was initially penciled in for, which was great because I could then go off and do other stuff.

Presenter24:21

But I know you've given the uh the credit, as it were, for um Den and Ange becoming so popular to Anita Dobson, your screen wife, Ange. She was very determined that you two would be the stars, wasn't she?

Leslie Grantham24:34

I think she was determined that uh she was gonna make a success of it because Anita um had I think been around for twelve or

Leslie Grantham24:43

eleven years and obviously this was her real big chance, was it everyone's big chance, although she's done quite a lot of stuff before. And I think she just walked in and she just grabbed it and she just went for it and

Leslie Grantham24:56

Powers at Bee liked it and the writers liked what she did with it and because of her I became

Leslie Grantham25:02

Household name?

Presenter25:03

But you um you also knew right at the beginning, didn't you, when you were being offered the part that it was only a matter of time before your past came to haunt you, so you you kind of owned up, as it were.

Leslie Grantham25:14

I think I was very naive about certain things and, um I think

Leslie Grantham25:18

I should have

Leslie Grantham25:20

Maybe change my name, but anyway that that that would have been um just

Leslie Grantham25:24

prolonged it, I think. And I went to Julia and said, Look, before I sign the contract there's this problem and

Leslie Grantham25:30

If you want to recast, fine. You know, I understand. I don't want to um jeopardize anything.

Leslie Grantham25:36

And she said no no no no, as far as I'm concerned uh you've got the job on merit and

Leslie Grantham25:42

Wilchester

Leslie Grantham25:43

Take it as it comes.

Presenter25:44

Did you think they might drop you like a hot brick when you told them?

Leslie Grantham25:47

Mm, I think that's possible. I I I very rare I don't sort of go around uttering from the rooftops to people and I obviously have very close friends who who I've known.

Leslie Grantham25:57

or have known where I've come from. But yes, I did expect the BBC to drop me and they didn't.

Presenter26:04

And it was all credit to you that um Den got dirtier and dirtier. And the dirtier he got, the more the women of the nation fell for him, yes.

Leslie Grantham26:13

That's the sort of characters that they seem to like, and that's

Leslie Grantham26:16

Better for me because that's the only parts I can play really.

Presenter26:19

But you developed that, didn't you? I mean, you made him nastier than he was originally written.

Leslie Grantham26:21

You may

Leslie Grantham26:24

Yes, there was the things like um when I was supposed to be living in bed and breakfast and I was actually staying with Jan and Angus. Yes, and Angie was making sandwiches for me and as I walked down the road I just threw them away.

Presenter26:32

Oh.

Speaker 126:32

Angus.

Leslie Grantham26:37

in the gutter. Um and also when she said, Oh, I am the only one you love and I said, Yes, dear and I bit her custard cream and then switch changed channels and

Leslie Grantham26:47

And those sort of things.

Presenter26:48

It is amazing. I mean, the night you admitted to being the father of Michelle's illegitimate baby, the audience went up by three million.

Leslie Grantham26:55

Hm. And the day I gave the divorce papers to Ange was thirty million.

Presenter27:00

Can you explain?

Leslie Grantham27:02

No, I just think it's like everything else. It was new, it was vibrant, it reached the parts that other soaps didn't and um the audience was hooked and it's like everything else, you know, it peters out, it has a hook of seventeen, eighteen million and we'll trough at that and will peak at twenty-five million.

Presenter27:19

Some more music, please.

Leslie Grantham27:21

This is another one from uh my dinner party tape. In fact, Love Walked In and this one were a couple I tried to sing for auditions. I didn't get the job in musical so obviously I didn't sing them very well and this is the object of my affection and it's sung by Pinkie Common.

Speaker 327:35

Now I'm not afraid that she'll leave me No, because she's not that kind who takes a dare

Speaker 327:43

But instead I trust her implicitly.

Speaker 327:46

She can go where she wants to go, do what she wants to do, and I sure won't care, Cause the object of my affection Can change my complexion From white to rosy red.

Speaker 327:58

Or any time she holds my hand

Speaker 328:01

Tells me that she's mine.

Presenter28:04

Pinky Tomlin and the object of my affection. I didn't know you could sing, Leslie.

Leslie Grantham28:08

Well, judging from the East Ender's album, no, but actually um I have done a musical only in the chorus and Little Night Music at Coventry, but uh yeah I quite like uh singing in the shower, that's probably the only place that uh people will settle me.

Presenter28:21

Well now your your mini series for I T V finished recently, Winners and Losers. The criticism there was that to an extent playing a cockney boxing promoter that you're still dirty dead.

Leslie Grantham28:33

Unfortunately, because I am

Leslie Grantham28:35

A persona and personas only get asked to play personas, um there is going to be a a lot of that criticism.

Leslie Grantham28:45

But if it's what the public wants, then I'll give it to them.

Presenter28:47

Yes, but there's a softer character in you, isn't there? I mean, there is you could play the soft romantic

Leslie Grantham28:53

Yeah, I could play the homosexual vicar or um

Leslie Grantham28:57

That will come later. That will come.

Leslie Grantham28:59

Once

Leslie Grantham29:01

I have financial security for my wife and my children and myself.

Leslie Grantham29:06

And when I'm in a position to actually say I will pick

Leslie Grantham29:10

What I want to do.

Leslie Grantham29:12

It's nice to go out into the real world and find out what it's like working for another company. And if I'm accused of being dirty dent and no one accuses Robert Mitchum of uh being the Americano for in everything he does. No one accused Humphrey Bogart of being, you know, Humphrey Bogart in every part.

Presenter29:27

Should we have your last record?

Leslie Grantham29:29

This is great, it's cold poulter, every time we say goodbye, but I think it's sung by probably the best white group in England at the moment.

Leslie Grantham29:38

Simply rail and it's a nice one to finish on.

Leslie Grantham29:40

I can hear a lock somewhere Waiting to sing about it

Leslie Grantham29:52

There is no love song

Speaker 329:54

Final

Speaker 329:57

But how strange the change

Speaker 330:01

From Major to Minor.

Speaker 330:04

Every time we say

Presenter30:11

Coalporters every time we say goodbye, sung by simply read.

Presenter30:15

Well, now, is there one of those records, Leslie, that you would need to have with you more than the other seven?

Leslie Grantham30:22

Yeah, the Tony Hancock and Kenneth Williams test pilot, I think that would make me laugh. When things were depressed and ships had gone past and hadn't heard my plaintiff little pleas, I could put that on and think

Leslie Grantham30:33

Yeah, well everything's all right with the world.

Presenter30:35

Still something to laugh about.

Leslie Grantham30:36

Yeah.

Presenter30:37

And your book. What book would you like to have? You've got the Bible and you've got Shakespeare.

Leslie Grantham30:41

Good.

Leslie Grantham30:42

I said earlier about reverting to one's childhood and a book that, um

Leslie Grantham30:47

Very evocative for me is uh

Leslie Grantham30:49

Robinson Crusoe, and I think that you could live out your childhood fantasies.

Presenter30:54

And a luxury, what can we give you?

Leslie Grantham30:56

Because it'd be I think it'd be pretty boring at times and you you don't want to and you can only read the Bible so many times and you can only read Shakespeare so many times and you can only read Robinson Crusoe so many times and live out the book.

Leslie Grantham31:08

Um

Leslie Grantham31:09

I think to keep me occupied I'd like to take a metal detector.

Leslie Grantham31:13

And this again is reverting to um childhood. So I could imagine that I was stuck on this desert island of Blackbeard or whoever had

Leslie Grantham31:21

Pulled into and buried treasure. So I could fill my days up just going around listening for treasure.

Presenter31:26

Listed Grantham, thank you very much indeed for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Leslie Grantham31:31

Thank you.

Speaker 331:39

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Islandists archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk slash radio four.

Speaker 332:28

Uh