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Les Dennis

Les 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, Les was best known as the host of ‘Family Fortunes’ from 1987 to 2002. He has also acted in soap operas ‘Brookside’, ‘Casualty’ and ‘Crossroads’.

On August 11, 2005 Dennis appeared as a guest star in the BBC series ‘Extras’, starring Ricky Gervais. He 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. In September and October 2005 he appeared in Ant & Dec's ‘Gameshow Marathon’, in which he appeared at the winners' homes to present the prizes they had won.

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.