Les Dennis

Les Dennis (born Leslie Dennis Heseltine October 12, 1953) is an English television presenter. Dennis married actress Amanda Holden in 1995, but the pair have since divorced (November 18, 2003).

Dennis has appeared on numerous light-entertainment shows and worked originally as a "stooge" to Russ Abbott before forming a successful comedy partnership with fellow impressionist, the late Dustin Gee. Following Gee's death in 1986, he is probably best known as the host of Family Fortunes from 1987 to 2002. He has also acted in soap operas Brookside, Casualty and Crossroads. Dennis appeared in the second series of the UK Celebrity Big Brother during the period that his marriage to Amanda Holden was collapsing. He was visibly fragile, and in January 2006 he was one of only two former participants to refuse to allow archive footage of his time in the house to be used in a retrospective documentary about the first three series.

On August 11 2005 Dennis appeared as a guest star in the BBC-series Extras starring Ricky Gervais. In this appearance, Dennis played himself and made several jokes about his career, or the lack thereof. He received praise from reviewers for being so honest and open about his career (and being willing to be the punchline of jokes about his apparent lack of success), and is even rumoured to have rejected the original script, claiming that it was too tame.

Catchphrases

"If it's up there I'll give you the money myself" (from Family Fortunes)

External links

• The IMDb entry on Heseltine/Dennis