Leonard Fenton is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 actor

Actor

An actor is a person who acts in a dramatic production and who works in film, television, theatre, or radio in that capacity...

, best known for his role as Dr. Harold Legg in the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 soap opera

Soap opera

A soap opera, sometimes called "soap" for short, is an ongoing, episodic work of dramatic fiction presented in serial format on radio or as television programming. The name soap opera stems from the original dramatic serials broadcast on radio that had soap manufacturers, such as Procter & Gamble,...

, EastEnders

EastEnders

EastEnders is a British television soap opera, first broadcast in the United Kingdom on BBC One on 19 February 1985 and continuing to today. EastEnders storylines examine the domestic and professional lives of the people who live and work in the fictional London Borough of Walford in the East End...

.

Early life

Fenton's real family name is Feinstein. He was born and raised in the East End of London

East End of London

The East End of London, also known simply as the East End, is the area of London, England, United Kingdom, east of the medieval walled City of London and north of the River Thames. Although not defined by universally accepted formal boundaries, the River Lea can be considered another boundary...

 to Jewish parents. His parents were also English, but his ancestral roots lie in Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe

Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...

; Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 and Lithuania

Lithuania

Lithuania , officially the Republic of Lithuania is a country in Northern Europe, the biggest of the three Baltic states. It is situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, whereby to the west lie Sweden and Denmark...

.

He attended Raine Foundation Grammar School

Raine's Foundation School

Raine's Foundation School is a Church of England Voluntary Aided school in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets.Henry Raine, a very rich man who lived in Wapping, decided to create a school where poor children could get an education for free, so that they could go into skilled labour when they left....

 from 1937 to 1944. Fenton originally trained to be a civil engineer

Civil engineer

A civil engineer is a person who practices civil engineering; the application of planning, designing, constructing, maintaining, and operating infrastructures while protecting the public and environmental health, as well as improving existing infrastructures that have been neglected.Originally, a...

 at King's College London

King's College London

King's College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom and a constituent college of the federal University of London. King's has a claim to being the third oldest university in England, having been founded by King George IV and the Duke of Wellington in 1829, and...

 and during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

 he was conscripted

Conscription

Conscription is the compulsory enlistment of people in some sort of national service, most often military service. Conscription dates back to antiquity and continues in some countries to the present day under various names...

 as an army

British Army

The British Army is the land warfare branch of Her Majesty's Armed Forces in the United Kingdom. It came into being with the unification of the Kingdom of England and Scotland into the Kingdom of Great Britain in 1707. The new British Army incorporated Regiments that had already existed in England...

 engineer. He worked in this profession for five years after leaving the army, but eventually decided on a career change. He took up acting and won a scholarship to attend the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art

Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art

The Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art, formerly the Webber Douglas School of Singing and Dramatic Art, was a drama school, and originally a singing school, in London. It was one of the leading drama schools in Britain, and offered comprehensive training for those intending to pursue a...

 in London.

Career

His career in acting spans over fifty years and he continues to act occasionally on television and on stage. One of his earliest acting breaks came when he was offered a role by Orson Welles

Orson Welles

George Orson Welles , best known as Orson Welles, was an American film director, actor, theatre director, screenwriter, and producer, who worked extensively in film, theatre, television and radio...

 in his play

Play (theatre)

A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...

 Chimes At Midnight. Subsequent notable acting credits include: Up The Creek (1958); Studio Four (1962); Colditz

Colditz (TV series)

Colditz is a British television series co-produced by the BBC and Universal Studios and screened between 1972 and 1974.The series deals with Allied prisoners of war imprisoned at the supposedly escape-proof Colditz Castle when designated Oflag IV-C during World War II, and their many attempts to...

(1974); Secret Army

Secret Army (TV series)

Secret Army is a television drama series made by the BBC and the Belgian national broadcaster BRT created by Gerard Glaister. The series chronicled the history of a Belgian resistance movement during the Second World War dedicated to returning Allied airmen, usually having been shot down by the...

(1977); Z-Cars

Z-Cars

Z-Cars is a British television drama series centred on the work of mobile uniformed police in the fictional town of Newtown, based on Kirkby in the outskirts of Liverpool in Merseyside. Produced by the BBC, it debuted in January 1962 and ran until September 1978.-Origins:The series was developed by...

(1978); Play for Today

Play for Today

Play for Today is a British television anthology drama series, produced by the BBC and transmitted on BBC1 from 1970 to 1984. During the run, more than three hundred programmes, featuring original television plays, and adaptations of stage plays and novels, were transmitted...

(1981); Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet

Auf Wiedersehen, Pet is a British comedy-drama television programme about seven English migrant construction workers. In the first series, the men live and work on a building site in Düsseldorf....

(1984), and Shine on Harvey Moon

Shine on Harvey Moon

Shine on Harvey Moon is a British television series made by Central Television for ITV from 8 January 1982 to 23 August 1985 and briefly revived in 1995 by Meridian....

(1982), where he played the Austrian Jew, Erich Gottlieb.

Fenton is best known for playing Dr. Harold Legg

Dr. Harold Legg

Doctor Harold Legg is a fictional character from the British soap opera EastEnders, played by Leonard Fenton. Dr. Legg was Walford's original GP. He was widely trusted within the community, and was always on hand to dish out advice. Dr Legg appeared as a regular character between 1985 and 1989, but...

, one of the original characters from the BBC soap opera, EastEnders. The character appeared from the show's inception in 1985 until 1997, returning for brief stints in 2000, 2004 and 2007. The character was originally one of the main focal points of the programme, but over time he became less central. After the character's retirement in 1997, Fenton's appearances in EastEnders have been fewer and further between, often connected with other well-established characters like Pauline Fowler

Pauline Fowler

Pauline Fowler is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera EastEnders, a long-running serial drama about working class life in the fictional London borough of Walford. She was played by actress Wendy Richard between 1985 and 2006. Pauline was created by scriptwriter Tony Holland and producer...

, Ethel Skinner

Ethel Skinner

Ethel May Skinner is a fictional character from the British soap opera EastEnders, played by the late Gretchen Franklin. Ethel Skinner also features in a 1988 EastEnders special, entitled Civvy Street, set on Albert Square during the Second World War, where the character is played by Alison...

 and Dot Branning

Dot Branning

Dorothy "Dot" Branning is a fictional character from the BBC soap opera, EastEnders, played by June Brown since 1985. In a special episode entitled EastEnders: Dot's Story a young Dot was played by Tallulah Pitt-Brown in flashbacks. Dot first appeared in EastEnders in July 1985 as the mother of...

. He made a single appearance in 2004 at the funeral of Mark Fowler

Mark Fowler

Mark Albert Fowler is a fictional character from the popular British BBC soap opera EastEnders. Mark was an original regular character in the series starting February 1985 but became a semi-regular after his original portrayer David Scarboro was written out of the role in April 1985. Scarboro made...

, and most recently appeared on 8 June 2007 to counsel Dot Branning regarding her concerns about Romania

Romania

Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...

n 'foundling' baby, Tomas. In a "salute" to the role he played in Eastenders, Fenton has appeared in the recent advert for Daz Washing Powder as a Doctor who just happens to pass when the female main character in the advert faints after being informed by her boyfriend that he has gone out with her mother. Fenton comes forward (wearing a extremely brilliant white coat), announcing that he is a doctor.

Fenton's subsequent television credits have included Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole of the Bailey

Rumpole of the Bailey is a British television series created and written by the British writer and barrister John Mortimer which starred Leo McKern as Horace Rumpole, an ageing London barrister who defends any and all clients...

; So You Think You've Got Troubles (1991); Love Hurts (1993) and The Bill

The Bill

The Bill is a police procedural television series that ran from October 1984 to August 2010. It focused on the lives and work of one shift of police officers, rather than on any particular aspect of police work...

(1985; 2001; 2005), among others. In the West End he has played in two productions by Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Anderson

Lindsay Gordon Anderson was an Indian-born, British feature film, theatre and documentary director, film critic, and leading light of the Free Cinema movement and the British New Wave...

, Anton Chekhov

Anton Chekhov

Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...

's The Seagull

The Seagull

The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...

and Ben Travers

Ben Travers

Ben Travers AFC CBE in London) was a British playwright best remembered for his farces.Born in the London borough of Hendon, Travers was educated at Charterhouse, where today there is a theatre named for him...

' last play, The Bed Before Yesterday. Fenton also appears in the British horror movie The Zombie Diaries

The Zombie Diaries

The Zombie Diaries is a 2006 British independent horror film written, produced and directed by Kevin Gates and first-time feature film maker Michael Bartlett.The film was shot in a hand-held documentary format on DV and split into three separate parts....

(2006).

He has performed numerous radio plays including The Hobbit

The Hobbit (1968 radio series)

The Hobbit is a 1968 BBC Radio adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's 1937 children's fantasy novel of the same name.The series was adapted by Michael Kilgarriff and produced by John Powell in eight half-hour mono episodes for BBC Radio 4.-Story:...

for BBC Radio

BBC Radio

BBC Radio is a service of the British Broadcasting Corporation which has operated in the United Kingdom under the terms of a Royal Charter since 1927. For a history of BBC radio prior to 1927 see British Broadcasting Company...

. Amongst Fenton's other broadcasting work has been the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 webcast of the Doctor Who

Doctor Who

Doctor Who is a British science fiction television programme produced by the BBC. The programme depicts the adventures of a time-travelling humanoid alien known as the Doctor who explores the universe in a sentient time machine called the TARDIS that flies through time and space, whose exterior...

story Death Comes to Time

Death Comes to Time

Death Comes to Time is a webcast audio drama based on the long-running British science fiction television series Doctor Who, produced by the BBC and first broadcast in five episodes on the BBCi Cult website from 12 July 2001, accompanied by limited animation.-Synopsis:When two Time Lords are...

. On 17 February 2006 he made a personal appearance on the Channel 4

Channel 4

Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...

 entertainment show, The Friday Night Project

The Friday Night Project

The Sunday Night Project was a British comedy-variety show by Princess Productions that first aired on Channel 4 in February 2005 under the title The Friday Night Project...

.

In December 2004, at the age of 78, Fenton made his directorial debut with After Chekhov, written by four contemporary writers Alan Drury, Martin Jago, Andrew Neil

Andrew Neil

Andrew Ferguson Neil is a Scottish journalist and broadcaster.He currently works for the BBC, presenting the live political programmes The Daily Politics and This Week...

, Olwen Wymark

Olwen Wymark

Olwen Wymark is an American writer and playwright.-Early life:Olwen Margaret Buck was born on February 14, 1932 in Oakland, California her parents being Philip W. and Barbara Buck...

 in the 100th anniversary year of Chekhov's death. The piece, produced by Little London Theatre Company was performed at The Soho New Writer's Theatre.

Personal life

Fenton and his first wife, cellist Madeline Thorner, have four children. Aside from acting he is also a professional painter and has held several exhibitions.
Before the 2010 general election campaign Fenton came out in support for the Labour Party

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

, after appearing in their election broadcast.

External links

• Dr. Legg BBC character profile