DOT FINALLY LEAVES ALBERT SQUARE
IN THE week EastEnders celebrates its 35th anniversary, the thoughts of many actors who’ve passed through Albert Square are turning to Walford and Louise Jameson is no exception. She found fame there as Rosa, matriarch of the Italian Di Marco clan, but will be back on our screens this Friday in a very different family drama with Amanda Redman.
Louise bonded with soap stalwart Barbara Windsor and shared laughs with co-stars Wendy Richard and Adam Woodyatt. But strangely, her most abiding memory is of an actor with whom she never appeared in the BBC soap. “In my 20s,” she says, “I was in digs in Bristol with a girl called Aileen who worked as a probation officer.
“One of her charges was a young man who, when he was released from prison, wanted to try his hand at being an actor. I was working at the Bristol
Old Vic at the time and she asked me if I’d become his pen pal and give him some advice.”
The young man’s name? Leslie Grantham.
He was serving a 12-year sentence for shooting dead a taxi driver in Germany. About 18 months after first writing to him, Louise visited him in Leyhill prison on an open day. “We got on incredibly well,” she says.
“He was a naturally funny man.
“I continued to visit him until the point he was transferred to Wormwood Scrubs for the final six months of his sentence. He’d be allowed out at weekends and come and stay with me and my then boyfriend. I’d help Leslie with speeches I’d suggested as audition pieces for drama school when he was finally released.
“I’d known for some time he had that indefinable X Factor. I’d seen him in a prison production about escaped convicts, ironically enough, and the man had stage presence.”
LOUISE had clearly coached Leslie well. He auditioned for the famous Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art and was offered a place. A few minor roles followed his graduation and then his agent put him up for a part in the soon to be launched EastEnders.
Leslie was originally seen for the role of market trader Pete Beale but the producers decided he was better suited to the womanising rogue and pub landlord “Dirty” Den Watts. “I watched him in that very first episode,” recalls Louise, “and I was so delighted for him. I knew he was going to be a huge success.”
But it nearly didn’t happen. Before the soap was unveiled, producer and co-creator Julia Smith called the principal cast into her office. There was going to be a major publicity push, she warned, so if anyone had any skeletons in their closet, now was the time to lay them bare.
The meeting finished and Leslie stayed behind, his contract in his hand. “I think you’ll be wanting this,” he said. And then he told Julia about his time in prison and the reason for it. Louise says: “But to
JUNE Brown has left EastEnders after 35 years of playing chain-smoking Albert Square mainstay Dot Cotton.
The 93-year-old actress, whose stint on the soap began in 1985, said she has left the show “for good”.
Her character had not featured since an episode last month when Dot left a voicemail saying she had moved to Ireland.
Speaking on the Distinct Nostalgia podcast, June said: “I don’t want a retainer for EastEnders, I’ve left. I’ve left for good.
“I’ve sent her off to Ireland and that’s where she’ll stay. I’ve left EastEnders.”
June arrived on Albert Square shortly after the soap began in 1985 and, aside from a break between 1993 and 1997, has been a regular ever since.
Some of Dot’s biggest story lines have explored controversial issues such as euthanasia, cancer and homophobia.
Her marriage to Jim Branning was popular among fans while she was also mother to the notorious criminal Nick Cotton. During the podcast, June said leaving EastEnders felt like a bereavement.
“I was feeling down a few days ago,” she said. “I thought, ‘What’s the matter? Why do
I feel so sad?’ It’s almost as if I’ve been bereaved.
“I’ve played two people simultaneously for 35 years. Really Dot wasn’t me, but spiritually she probably was.”
June won several awards for her portrayal of Dot, including a lifetime achievement honour at the 2005 British Soap Awards.
In 2009, she was nominated for the best actress prize at the TV Baftas.
In a statement, an EastEnders spokesman said: “We never discuss artists’ contracts, however, as far as EastEnders are concerned the door remains open for June, as it always has if the story arises and if June wishes to take part.”
her credit, Julia thanked him for his honesty, told him he’d paid his debt to society and handed him back his contract. The rest, as they say, is history.”
Leslie remained in Louise’s life on and off “like most actors do”, right up to the time of his death, aged 71, in June 2018. EastEnders bosses killed his character off in 2005, following a scandal about inappropriate online behaviour.
“What a life he had,” smiles Louise, 68. “What a rollercoaster. His story would make a great film. I’ll always remember Leslie with real fondness.”
But Louise’s own departure from Walford was equally traumatic. In August 2000, after 200 episodes, the