Mark Speight

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 sixteen years old 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 fourteen 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' body in the bath of their London flat. He was initially arrested on suspicion of her murder, but not charged. 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 2008, 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 without Collins.