Ross Kemp: From EastEnders and Afghanistan to Deep Sea Treasure Hunter
Ross Kemp has won numerous prestigious awards for his documentaries.
Ross Kemp: Deep Sea Treasure Hunter S1 sees the BAFTA award-winning documentary-maker dive on a series of incredible shipwrecks around the British coastline to reveal some of the nation’s murkiest and best-kept secrets.
From the remains of a slave ship discovered off Plymouth, to the Kaiser’s sunken Imperial Fleet in Scapa Flow and an experimental submarine aircraft carrier, which sank with all passengers and crew on deck during its sea trials, Ross uncovers Britain’s hidden maritime past.
Everything you need to know about Ross Kemp
Ross is a BAFTA award-winning documentary-maker, actor, and author who rose to prominence in the BBC1 soap opera, EastEnders. Since 2006 he has received international recognition for his award-winning documentaries.
After performing on stage in various productions he started his television career and quickly became a household name. As an actor, Ross was best known for his portrayal of Grant Mitchell in EastEnders for 10 years and won several awards including ‘Best Actor’ at the British Soap Awards in 1999 and 2006. He previously had smaller TV roles in Emmerdale, London’s Burning, and Birds of a Feather.
In recent years Ross has built a reputation as one of TV’s most exciting and hard-hitting documentary makers. After a brief meeting with a member of the infamous ‘Bloods’ gang in California, Ross went to Sky1 with the idea for a new series - Gangs for which he won a BAFTA for ‘Best Factual Series’.
After making 27 programmes on gangs around the world, Ross moved to a new project: Ross Kemp in Afghanistan, where he spent time from 2007 to 2012 with regiments: 1 Royal Anglian, 5 Scots, 1 Royal Irish, twice with 45 Commando and the US Marine Corps. Ross and his team were shortlisted for a BAFTA for ‘Best Factual Series’ and won an AIB International Media Excellence Award for ‘International TV Personality’ and a Broadcast Award.
Ross and his production company ‘Freshwater Films’ have also made documentaries on international piracy, a Middle East special in Gaza and Israel, and a two-part special on the Amazon Rainforest.
From there, he and his team went on to make seven series of Extreme World, which saw Ross travel to destinations such as Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, The Congo, Ukraine, Libya, Syria, and Iraq. The Libya documentary won the Foreign Press Association ‘Best Feature Documentary of the Year’.
Ross is a Sunday Times Best-Selling author; his titles include Ross Kemp on Gangs, Ross Kemp on Afghanistan, Ross Kemp on Pirates, Warriors & Raiders, and his latest, A-Z of Hell: How Not to Travel the World.
Ross considers himself very lucky to have spent 35 years working in television, but his great loves remain...family and friends, his dog Bruno, his home in the country, food, and wine. Ross is also a huge rugby fan, a patron of the military charity Help for Heroes, an ambassador for the Royal British Legion, and is on the board of the Invictus Endeavour Fund.
