His family owned Bletchley Park, which was later used by the British Government as a codebreaking centre in World War II.
In 1964 he succeeded his father as the fourth baronet.
Although he played Peter O'Toole's son in Gulliver's Travels (1996), in real life he was only two years younger than him.
He is the former brother-in-law of Michael Gough, who was married to his stepsister Anne Leon.
He is the grandson of Sir Guy Standing and the actress Dorothy Hammond.
He provides spoken-word contributions to the tracks "Elements" and "Ramblin' Man" on Lemon Jelly's album "Lost Horizons" (XL Recordings/Impotent Fury, 2002).
He is the great-nephew of Wyndham Standing and Jack Standing.
He is the son of Kay Hammond and the third baronet Sir Ronald Leon.
He is the son-in-law of the late Bryan Forbes and Nanette Newman.
He is the nephew of Guy Standing Jr. and Michael Standing.
He is the great-grandson of Herbert Standing.
He is the stepbrother of Anne Leon.
He is the stepson of Sir John Clements.
He was educated at Eton.
He moved to Los Angeles in the autumn of 1985 with Robert Wagner for a series.
Before turning to acting, he trained as a painter.
At one point, when he was unemployed, he would knock on people's doors and offer to paint pictures of their houses: he would photograph the house, then make a sketch, and then paint a watercolour of the house. Most said it was terrible, but they paid every time. Once he was paid 25 pounds, which at the time was three times what he earned as an actor.
He is a close friend of Michael Caine, a friendship that dates back to the early years of their acting struggles in the 1950s. He appeared in The Great Escaper (2023), Caine's last film before his official retirement, at Caine's insistence.
He shaved off most of his hair for the role of the Russian expedition leader in the American science fiction film Night Flyers.
He has a son, Archie, and daughters Indiia and Tilly.