EastEnders and Grange Hill icon Lee MacDonald diagnosed with cancer
Lee shared an update with his fans (Picture: Ken McKay/ITV/REX/Shutterstock)
Grange Hill legend Lee MacDonald, best known for his role as Zammo McGuire in the cult BBC One Soap, has announced he is battling skin cancer.
The actor, 56, appeared as troubled school pupil Zammo for five years between 1982 and 1987, and during that time was the star behind one of it’s most controversial storylines.
The plot, which saw him spiral into a heroin addiction, and later overdose on a bathroom floor, inspired a campaign against drug abuse peer pressure.
Inspired by phrase coined by then-First Lady of the USA Nancy Reagan, the cast recorded a Top 10 hit called ‘Just Say No’, that would later be performed in The White House in 1986.
Zammo was one of Grange Hill’s most iconic characters (Picture: BBC/PA)
His shock diagnosis was met with a number of supportive comments who wished him well.
In 2007, during an interview with fansite Grange Hill Gold, Lee spoke of his struggle to secure further acting work as a result of the drugs story backlash.
‘After [the new series] was out, my agent said “Nobody wants you any more because it’s a drugs related character. So nobody wants to use you”‘
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‘I lost loads of work because adults didn’t want me at the club because it was drugs related. But that’s the power of telly – more so in the 80s when there was only a couple of channels.
‘Things were taken a lot more seriously than they are now. There’s so much stuff that kids watch now that is outrageous.’
In more recent years he’s stepped away from the spotlight and owns his own locksmith company in Surrey.
Lee married his girlfriend of ten years Jess in 2022, sharing the news on Twitter with the words: ‘Finally got hitched.’
Grange Hill, which ran for thirty years, ended on CBBC in 2008. However, last year, creator Phil Redmond announced a feature-length movie was in the works.
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