Grange Hill legend Lee MacDonald reveals he’s battling skin cancer after noticing ‘unusual spot’ on his face
GRANGE Hill legend Lee MacDonald has revealed he has skin cancer.
The child TV star, who is best known for playing Zammo, was diagnosed after discovering an “unusual” spot on his face.
Lee, 56, announced the health news on Instagram, telling fans: “Went to the doctors today to check an unusual spot on my face! Doctor says it’s cancer!
“As we older please keep an eye on anything unusual and hopefully get it looked at early!!! Booked in to get it sorted over the next couple of day.”
The former actor now runs a key-cutting shop in London.
But he shot to fame in the 80s in BBC school drama Grange Hill as heroin addict Zammo McGuire.
However, his six years in the popular programme took their toll on him.
He became the face of anti-drugs campaign Just Say No and met with Nancy Reagan in the US after his character was seen slumped in a toilet.
“Things build up,” he previously said. “I’m not saying fame is a bad thing, because it can be a good thing, but sometimes it can be a bad thing – you can meet the wrong people.
“Being recognised everywhere you go, was starting to get to me a bit at that age.”
While he had mixed feelings towards celebrity, he struggled with returning to normality after leaving the show.
His plans to become a professional boxer were left in tatters when he was seriously injured in car accident that saw him thrown 47ft through a windscreen.
He remembers watching former co-star John Alford land a part in firefighter drama London’s Burning while he was still working in a warehouse and feeling deflated.
Lee was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when he was 43 after years struggling with his mental health in silence.
He said on This Morning in 2020: “On the Isle of Wight I just started crying for no reason.
“I’m not a person that cries a lot, but I just found myself breaking down doing scenes and I would just walk away and hide behind a rock. It sounds mad, but just to get composed.”
The business owner got engaged to his partner Jess that same year and they wed two years later in an intimate ceremony amid the backdrop of the covid pandemic.
Lee’s son Harry was his best man, and he praised him in a post that read: “Father and son image, which saw them posing on a bench, the actor fizzed: “I’m so proud of my boy “H”! He did an amazing job as my best man [heart emojis] x”
The actor made a screen return in 2019, bagging a cameo role in EastEnders as bus driver Terry, who went head to head with Danny Dyer to win a pair of concert tickets.