Mark Lester (born Mark A. Letzer;[1] 11 July 1958) is an English former child actor who starred in a number of British and European films in the 1960s and 1970s. In 1968 he played the title role in the film Oliver!, a musical version of the stage production by Lionel Bart based on Charles Dickens' novel Oliver Twist. He also made several appearances in many British television series. In 1977, after appearing in The Prince and the Pauper, an all-star international action adventure film, he retired from acting. In the 1980s, he trained as an osteopath specialising in sports injuries.[2]
Lester initially had small roles in several British television series including The Human Jungle and Danger Man. In 1964, at the age of six, Lester was cast in Robert Dhéry's film Allez France! (1964). The English title of the movie is The Counterfeit Constable and Diana Dors starred in it.
Lester had leading roles in Eyewitness (1970), a British thriller with Susan George shot on Malta; The Boy Who Stole the Elephant (1970), a TV movie for Disney; and the horror film Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? (1971), with Shelley Winters.[7] He was reunited with Wild in Melody (1971), which depicted schoolchildren in love, based on a script by Alan Parker. Tracy Hyde played the role of Melody in the film, which used music from the Bee Gees and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Lester starred in a film version of Black Beauty (1971). He was announced for a version of Treasure Island but it was never made.[8] After this period, his acting roles in the UK would begin to wane. This coincided with a decline in the British film industry.
Lester has four children with his first wife, Jane, whom he married in January 1993 and divorced in 2005. In 2006[17] he and Lisa, a psychiatric nurse and his second wife, married.[18][19] They divorced in 2009.
Lester was a close friend of Michael Jackson and is the godfather of Jackson's three children.[20] In August 2009 in an interview with News of the World (a British tabloid) after Jackson's death, Lester claimed that he could be the biological father of Paris, the late singer's daughter. Lester said he was a sperm donor for Jackson in 1996 and announced that he was willing to take a paternity test to determine whether he was the father.[21] Brian Oxman, former lawyer for the Jackson family, rejected the claim in a television interview and said, "The thing I always heard from Michael was that Michael was the father of these children, and I believe Michael."[22] In 2019, Lester said that he was one of 20 sperm donors for Jackson.[23] Lester appears in the documentary, Michael Jackson: Chase the Truth, in which he doubts allegations of sexual misconduct that had been made against Jackson by Wade Robson, an Australian performer, and James Safechuck.[24][25]
