Mark Speight
English TV presenter
Died when: 42 years 245 days (512 months)Star Sign: Leo
Mark Warwick Fordham Speight (6 August 1965 – 7 April 2008) was an English television presenter and host of children's art programme SMart.Speight was born in Seisdon, Staffordshire, and left school at 16 to become a cartoonist.
He took a degree in commercial and graphic art and, while working in television set construction, heard of auditions for a new children's art programme.
Speight was successful in his audition and became one of the first presenters of SMart, working on it for 14 years.
Speight was also a presenter on See It Saw It, where he met his future fiancée, actress and model Natasha Collins.
He took part in live events, such as Rolf on Art and his own Speight of the Art workshops for children.
He was involved in charity work; he became the president of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign's Young Pavement Artists Competition, and was a spokesperson for ChildLine.
In January 2008, Speight found Collins's body in the bath of their shared London flat.He was arrested on suspicion of her murder, but not charged with any offence.
An inquest later determined that Collins had died of a drug overdose and severe burns from hot water, and it was death by misadventure.
In April that year, Speight was reported missing and was later discovered to have hanged himself near Paddington station.Two suicide notes were discovered, describing how he could no longer live his life without Collins.
.jpg?width=300)
