Mark Lester (born Mark A. Letzer^[1] July 11, 1958), is an English former child actor known for playing innocent-looking boys in British and European films of the 1960s and 70s. Image File history File links No higher resolution available. ... For the song by James Blunt, see 1973 (song). ... is the 192nd day of the year (193rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Jan. ... This article is about the English as an ethnic group and nation. ... This article is about motion pictures. ... Year 1960 (MCMLX) was a leap year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The 1970s decade refers to the years from 1970 to 1979, also called The Seventies. ...

Film career

Lester is the son of actor and producer Michael Lester and actress Rita Lester. He attended the independent Halliford School in Shepperton, Middlesex and the independent Corona Academy stage school in Hammersmith, London, and had supporting roles in several British television series, including The Human Jungle and Danger Man. Halliford school is a selective and independent day school for boys and sixth form girls, located in Shepperton, Surrey. ... Map of Shepperton (from OpenStreetMap) Shepperton is a small town in Surrey in the borough of Spelthorne, in England. ... Corona Academy was founded by Rona Knight in the Mid 1940s, The School started in Chiswick before moving to Hammersmith. ... Hammersmith is an urban centre in the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, approximately 5 miles (8km) west of Charing Cross on the north bank of the River Thames. ... British television broadcasting has a range of different broadcasters, broadcasting multiple channels over a variety of distribution media. ...

At the age of nine, Lester was cast in Oliver! (1968). He played the lead in the multiple Academy Award-winning musical adaptation of Charles Dickens' novel, which co-starred Jack Wild. Oliver! is an Academy Award winning film and 1968 musical film directed by Carol Reed and based on the stage musical Oliver!. Both the film and play are based on the famous Charles Dickens novel Oliver Twist. ... The year 1968 in film involved some significant events. ... Academy Award The Academy Awards, popularly known as the Oscars, are the most prominent and most watched film awards ceremony in the world. ... Dickens redirects here. ... Jack Wild (30 September 1952 – 2 March 2006) was an English actor who achieved fame for his roles in both stage and screen productions of the Lionel Bart musical Oliver!. For the latter performance (playing the Artful Dodger), he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor at the...

These two child actors later reunited for Melody (1971), which depicted British schoolchildren in love. Tracy Hyde played the role of Melody in the film, which used early music from the Bee Gees and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. The term child actor is generally applied to a child acting in motion pictures or television, but also to an adult who began his or her acting career as a child; to avoid confusion the latter is also called a former child actor. ... Melody is a British film released in 1971. ... Tracy Constance Margaret Hyde, actress and model (born May 16, 1959, Fulham, London, England) shot to fame in the 1971 film Melody after being discovered by film producer, David Puttnam. ... The Bee Gees were a singing trio of brothers — Barry, Robin, and Maurice Gibb — that became one of the most successful musical acts of the 20th century. ... Crosby, Stills, & Nash (sometimes known as Crosby, Stills, Nash, & Young) is a pioneering folk rock/rock supergroup that formed out of the remnants of three 1960s bands the Buffalo Springfield, the Byrds, and the Hollies. ...

In 1969, Lester received critical acclaim for his portrayal of a withdrawn only child in Run Wild, Run Free, starring opposite Sir John Mills. However, after starring in Eyewitness and Melody and in Black Beauty (1971), he found good roles harder to come by in England, but extended his range in a series of films in Italy. These included Night Hair Child (1971) with Britt Ekland; Redneck (1972) with Telly Savalas, and the excellent Western Scalawag (1973), with Kirk Douglas. The final film of his Italian career was in the costume drama La Prima volta sull'erba (Love Under the Elms) (1974). Lester finished his film career in England, with the starring dual roles in Crossed Swords (UK title: The Prince and Pauper) (1977), which reunited him on screen with Oliver Reed, who had been Bill Sykes to his Oliver Twist. John Mills as Professor Bernard Quatermass in the Thames Television science-fiction serial Quatermass (1979). ... For other uses, see Black Beauty (disambiguation). ... Year 1971 (MCMLXXI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display full calendar) of the 1971 Gregorian calendar, known as the year of cyclohexanol. ... Britt Ekland (born Britt-Marie Eklund on October 6, 1942) is a Swedish actress, long resident in the UK. Ekland became famous as a result of her 1964 whirlwind romance and marriage to British actor and comedian, Peter Sellers, who proposed after seeing her photograph in the paper. ... Aristotelis Telly Savalas (January 21, 1922 – January 22, 1994) was a prominent Emmy Award-winning American film and television actor whose career spanned four decades. ... Kirk Douglas (born Issur Danielovitch Demsky December 9, 1916) is an iconic American actor and film producer known for his gravelly voice and his recurring roles as the kinds of characters Douglas himself once described as sons of bitches. He is also father to Hollywood actor and producer Michael Douglas. ... Crossed Swords (UK title: The Prince and the Pauper) is a family / adventure film released in 1977, directed by Richard Fleischer, based on The Prince and the Pauper by Mark Twain. ... Robert Oliver Reed (February 13, 1938 – May 2, 1999) was an English actor known for his macho image on and off screen. ... Bill Sykes is a fictional character in the novel Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens He is one of Dickenss most menacing characters and a very strong force in the novel when it comes to having control over somebody or harming others. ...

Adult life

After several years of dissolute living following the end of his film career^[2][3], Lester took his A Levels at the age of 28 and became an osteopath, studying at the British School of Osteopathy. He married in 1993 and divorced in 2004. The A-level, short for Advanced Level, is a General Certificate of Education qualification in England, Northern Ireland and Wales, usually taken by students during the optional final two years of secondary school (Years 12 & 13*, commonly called the Sixth Form except for Scotland), or at a separate sixth form... An osteopath is a practitioner of osteopathy the approach to healthcare named, which emphasises the importance of the musculoskeletal system on general health. ... The British School of Osteopathy, founded in 1917, is the largest and the oldest school of osteopathy in the United Kingdom. ...

Lester is a close, long-time friend of pop superstar Michael Jackson, and spent Christmas 2003 at Jackson's Neverland Ranch. While Lester was willing to testify in Jackson's defense at the trial, he was not called to do so. Lester has consistently supported his friend by telephone and in interviews. This article is about the genre of popular music. ... Michael Joseph Jackson (August 29, 1958), commonly known as MJ as well as the King of Pop, is an American musician, entertainer, and pop icon whose successful career and controversial personal life have been a part of pop culture for the last three decades. ... Neverland Ranch, or Neverland Valley Ranch, is owned by American pop musician Michael Jackson, although Jackson currently resides outside the United States. ...

Lester lives in Cheltenham and has four children, Harriet, Olivia, Lucy, and Felix. Harriet attends the independent Cheltenham Ladies' College and wishes to be an actress. For the parliamentary constituency, see Cheltenham (UK Parliament constituency). ... It is located in Cheltenham, a spa town in the English Cotswolds. ...

References

External links

• Mark Lester at the Internet Movie Database
• http://www.carltonclinic.com/
• photo gallery http://www.geocities.com/oliver1961r/lester.html