Leslie Michael Grantham (30 April 1947 – 15 June 2018) was an English actor who was best known for his role as "Dirty" Den Watts in the BBC soap opera EastEnders.

He was a convicted murderer, having served 10 years for the killing of a West German taxi driver, and had significant press coverage resulting from an online sex scandal in 2004.

On 3 December 1966, Grantham attempted to rob a taxi driver, Felix Reese, in Osnabrück, Lower Saxony, by threatening him at gunpoint and demanding money.

[7][8][9] 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 had a jury believed this version of events.

The character, landlord of The Queen Victoria public house, quickly became a national favourite, and gained the nickname Dirty Den, mostly because of the unpleasant way he treated his wife Angie, played by Anita Dobson; one of his many affairs occurred at the age of 39, when he fathered a child with 16-year-old Michelle Fowler.

However, the series' bosses had not wanted to suffer the double blow of losing its two biggest characters so close together, and set about an intensive block of filming that would allow Den to remain on screen into 1989, while enabling Grantham to continue on EastEnders until autumn 1988.

After spending time on the run in Manchester, Den spent several months on remand in custody for his role in arranging the arson attack on The Dagmar pub (an act of revenge against James Wilmott-Brown for the rape of Kathy Beale), and a dramatic escape from the police and from members of The Firm who ambushed him on his way to court, viewers watched a mysterious gunman shoot at Den with a gun hidden in a bunch of daffodils, before hearing a splash at the end of the episode which aired on 23 February 1989.

In the second episode of the fourth season, Col. Mike Mustard murdered former comrade and property developer Sir Nigel Hussey (Ian McNeice) with a G-string in the kitchen.

A short time after the episode aired, the producers received a letter from the family of Felix Reese, the taxi driver shot in the head by Grantham while he was a soldier stationed in Germany.

[19] He also reunited with his EastEnders co-star Anita Dobson in the two-part mini-series The Stretch which aired on Sky One in 2000, and in the British gangster film Charlie (2004).

[20] During the 1990s, Grantham was approached more than once by BBC bosses about a possible return to EastEnders, but rejected each of these offers, often feeling that the storyline at the time would not be the right one to suit any potential comeback.

It was revealed that Den had survived the shooting and fled to Spain with the help of former mistress Jan Hammond (Jane How), while the body found a year later in the canal had been wrongly identified.

"[22] There had been much speculation in the media after Den's departure as to whether the character really was dead, particularly after the original search of the canal site where he was shot failed to uncover any trace of him.

In May 2004, a Sunday newspaper printed photographs of Grantham exposing himself and masturbating whilst sucking his finger in a sexually-suggestive manner via a webcam from his dressing room to an undercover reporter named "Amanda".

[30] On 18 February 2005, 14.34 million viewers tuned in to view his character's second demise, this time at the hands of second wife Chrissie, portrayed by Tracy-Ann Oberman, who hit him over the head with a dog-shaped iron doorstop during a confrontation in the Vic.

Grantham later appeared in two UK tours of Beyond Reasonable Doubt, a stage adaptation of a Jeffrey Archer play, alongside Simon Ward and Alexandra Bastedo, and performed as a Christmas pantomime villain.

[37][38] That evening's episode of EastEnders featured a tribute to Grantham, whilst his co-star and on-screen wife Anita Dobson described him as "a wonderful and special actor, witty and very talented."