Leonard Fenton
Fenton as Harold Legg in EastEnders
Born
Leonard Finestein

(1926-04-29)29 April 1926
London, England
Died29 January 2022(2022-01-29) (aged 95)
Education
Occupations
  • Actor
  • director
  • painter
Years active1958–2019
TelevisionEastEnders
Spouse
Madeline Thorner
​
​
(m. 1967, separated)​
Children4

Leonard Fenton (né Finestein; 29 April 1926 – 29 January 2022) was a British actor, director and painter, best known for his role as Dr. Harold Legg in EastEnders.

Early life

Fenton was born Leonard Finestein[1][2] in Stepney, the son of Fanny (Goldberg) and Morris Feinstein, a women's garment maker. His parents were Ashkenazi Jews with ancestral roots in Eastern Europe (Riga in Latvia and Lithuania).[2] He attended Raine Foundation Grammar School from 1937 to 1944.[3] Fenton originally trained to be a civil engineer at King's College London and during World War II he was conscripted as an army engineer. He worked in this profession for five years after leaving the army, but eventually decided on a career change.[2] He took up acting and won a scholarship to attend the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London.[4]

Career

His career in acting spanned over sixty years.[5] One of his earliest acting breaks came when he was offered a role by Orson Welles in his play Chimes at Midnight.[6] Subsequent acting credits include: Studio Four (1962); Colditz (1974); Secret Army (1977); Z-Cars (1978); Play for Today (1981); Auf Wiedersehen, Pet (1983), and Shine on Harvey Moon (1982), where he played the Austrian Jew, Erich Gottlieb.[7] In the theatre, Fenton played the role of Willie to Billie Whitelaw’s Winnie in Samuel Beckett’s Happy Days at the Royal Court Theatre in 1979, directed by Beckett himself.[8]

Fenton was best known for playing Dr. Harold Legg, one of the original characters in the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. The character appeared from the show's inception in 1985 until 1997, returning for brief stints in 2000, 2004, 2007 and 2018 until 2019. The character was originally one of the main focal points of the programme, but after 1989 he became less central. After the character's retirement in 1997, Fenton's appearances in EastEnders were infrequent.[9] He made a single appearance in 2004 at the funeral of Mark Fowler, and in June 2007 to counsel Dot Branning regarding her concerns about Romanian 'foundling' baby, Tomas.[10]

Fenton's subsequent television credits included Rumpole of the Bailey; So You Think You've Got Troubles (1991); Love Hurts (1993) and The Bill (1985; 2001; 2005), among others.[7] In the West End, he performed in two productions by Lindsay Anderson, Anton Chekhov's The Seagull and Ben Travers' last play, The Bed Before Yesterday.[7] He performed in many radio plays, including The Hobbit as the Elvenking, and The Lord of the Rings as Daddy Twofoot, both for BBC Radio 4.[7] Amongst Fenton's other broadcasting work was the BBC webcast of the Doctor Who story Death Comes to Time.[7] On 17 February 2006, he made a personal appearance on the Channel 4 entertainment show, The Friday Night Project. His film credits included roles in Up the Creek (1958), The Devil-Ship Pirates (1964), Robin Hood Junior (1975), Give My Regards to Broad Street (1984), Morons from Outer Space (1985), and the British horror movie The Zombie Diaries (2006).[7]

In December 2004, at the age of 78, Fenton made his directorial debut with After Chekhov, written by four contemporary writers Allen Drury, Martin Jago, Andrew Neil and Olwen Wymark in the 100th anniversary year of Chekhov's death. The piece, produced by Little London Theatre Company was performed in the Soho Theatre Studio.[11] In 2012 and again in 2013, Fenton appeared in a production of Cross Purpose, directed by Stephen Whitson at the King's Head Theatre, London.[12][13]

On 25 July 2018, it was confirmed that Fenton would reprise his role as Dr. Harold Legg in EastEnders in late 2018.[14] This stint lasted until 15 February 2019, when the character died after a long battle with pancreatic cancer.[15]

Personal life and death

Fenton and cellist Madeline Thorner[16] married in 1967. They had four children and later separated.[2][1] Aside from acting, he was also a professional painter and held several exhibitions.[2] Before the 2010 general election, Fenton came out in support of the Labour Party, after appearing in their election broadcast.[17]

He died on 29 January 2022, at the age of 95.[18][19] His former co-star June Brown memorialised him as "A charming man in all ways, first as a person and then as an actor, extremely polite and kind".[20]

Partial filmography

References

  1. 1 2 Hayward, Anthony (1 February 2022). "Leonard Fenton obituary". The Guardian. Retrieved 3 February 2022.
  2. 1 2 3 4 5 "Leonard Fenton ", Something Jewish. URL last accessed on 25 September 2006 Archived 30 April 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ↑ "The Old Raineians' Association Archived 16 June 2008 at the Wayback Machine", DavidSpencer.com. URL last accessed on 4 July 2007
  4. ↑ Lynch, Tony (1986). EastEnders Special. BBC books. ISBN 978-0-86227-384-2.
  5. ↑ "EastEnders actor Leonard Fenton dies aged 95". ITV News. 31 January 2022.
  6. ↑ Live, Coventry (19 June 2008). "Leonard puts in the leg work at the RSC". CoventryLive.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 "Leonard Fenton". bfi.org. Archived from the original on 21 October 2020. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  8. ↑ "Leonard Fenton, who played Dr Legg in EastEnders, has died aged 95". Sky News.
  9. ↑ "Dr Legg dies – EastEnders confirms date of tragic final scenes". Radio Times. 5 February 2019.
  10. ↑ "Leonard Fenton". IMDb. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  11. ↑ Phillips, Katie (16 December 2004). "After Chekhov review at Soho Theatre Studio London". The Stage. Retrieved 26 July 2018.
  12. ↑ "Lea, Simon. "Cross Purpose". The Camus Society, 2012". Archived from the original on 7 October 2013. Retrieved 27 September 2016.
  13. ↑ "IndieLondon: Cross Purpose returns to the King's Head Theatre - Your London Reviews". indielondon.co.uk.
  14. ↑ "EastEnders: Original character Doctor Legg to return". BBC News. 25 July 2018. Retrieved 25 July 2018.
  15. ↑ "EastEnders' Dr Legg returns for reunion with Dot". Digital Spy. 18 October 2018.
  16. ↑ Kingsley, Hilary (1990). The EastEnders Handbook. BBC books. ISBN 9780563362920.
  17. ↑ "EastEnders: Jewish actor Leonard Fenton to return as Dr Legg". 26 July 2018. Retrieved 31 August 2018.
  18. ↑ "EastEnders actor Leonard Fenton dies aged 95". The Independent. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  19. ↑ "Leonard Fenton, actor who played Dr Legg in EastEnders, dies at 95". The Guardian. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
  20. ↑ "BBC EastEnders Dot Cotton icon June Brown leads tribute as co-star Leonard Fenton dies aged 95". Manchester Evening News. 31 January 2022. Retrieved 31 January 2022.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.