A child star who disappeared from TV screens a decade ago is returning to his roots to get married.

Chris Smith spent more than a decade in the public eye playing the part of Robert Sugden in Yorkshire TV soap Emmerdale, from 1989 to 2001.

He left as a 16-year-old in 2001 and studied film production at university before heading for Hollywood for a role behind the behind the camera as a director.

But this month Mr Smith, 27, will return to his Menston home with fiancee Sarah Faubion ahead of their wedding at Bolton Abbey Priory on Saturday, June 30.

The pair met in Morrocco in 2007 while working on a film and now have their own production company after setting up home in Hollywood.

Mr Smith’s father Robert, who also acted in Emmerdale, said his son had a lot of fans before he disappeared from the limelight in 2001, but he was now making a name for himself in America, with assignments during the past four years including working with Tom Hanks, Cameron Diaz, Katherine Heigl and John Mayer.

He said Chris, who joined Emmerdale as a four-year-old, still attracted interest on the internet from people wondering what happened to him.

“Millions followed his fictional life from sweet little lad, sat at the breakfast table eating cereal in the iconic farmhouse set in the Yorkshire Dales, right through to confused adolescent when he left the show for pastures new in 2001,” he said.

“Chris had a huge following right through the series, but towards the end young girls and mums alike were his biggest fans, for obvious reasons, and there are lots of people would like to know what happened to the young man who played their favourite character.”

Mr Smith said his son and his Texas-born fiancee had just finished filming in several US states, culminating in Alaska where they will spend three weeks at Presidential running mate Sarah Palin’s ranch filming a documentary about her daughter Bristol Palin for US television.