A History Of Liverpool Thespians - Bill Dean

 

Patrick Arthur Connolly was born on the 3rd of September 1921 in Everton, Liverpool. He took his stage name in honour of the Everton F.C. legend William 'Dixie' Dean. Originally his ambition had been to be a professional footballer but when he was in the RAF he toured as a concert party comedian and his war service from 1940 took him all over the Middle East, seeing action in North Africa and Italy. Following the war he worked variously as a tram driver, pipe fitter, insurance agent, ship's steward, docker and local government officer, while also appearing as a stand-up comedian in clubs and pubs. It seems apt that being born in Everton, and taking the name of their greatest player, he would make his acting debut in Ken Loach's film about another iconic Everton player, Alex Young, in Neville Smith's, 'The Golden Vision' (1968) which saw him give up the day job as a local government officer. Neville Smith came to him again for his crime comedy film Gumshoe (1972), with Albert Finney and Billie Whitelaw; Whitelaw and Dean also appeared in the mystery Night Watch (1973), with Elizabeth Taylor. Bill thoroughly approved of Elizabeth Taylor for being "good at getting a round in": that counted a lot for a man who in real life, as Brookside's Sinbad, actor Mickey Starke, put it, was "always happy as long as he had a scotch. He'd ring me up at two or three o'clock in the morning from some pub to tell me a joke. He always wanted to be first with the jokes." An acting late-starter, Bill took an attitude to life that was second nature to him and made it into a dramatic force in many television and film roles.

With Albert Finney in 'Gumshoe'

In 1968 Ken Loach chose Bill as a grumpy fish and chip shop man in 'Kes', and in 1971 another television film by Neville Smith, 'After A Lifetime', gave Bill scope to develop the lugubrious, deadpan manner which endeared him to audiences. His exchanges with Johnny Gee exuded unsurprised exasperation, notably during an attempt by the pair of them to manoeuvre a carpet across a road in order to lend greater respectability to a family funeral. In 1972, his playing of routine domestic misery gave way to a deeply realised sense of failure in David Mercer's 'Family Life'. As a man who has married above himself socially and fathered a schizophrenic daughter, Bill gave a moving performance of great sincerity, leaving generations of Continental film students puzzled as to why they had not encountered the actor elsewhere. They recognised the integrity and authenticity of an actor who was always rock-solid, unfailingly reliable, and possessed a straightness that made you smile when he looked at you, simply because he made you recognise the truth.

With Ray Dunbobbin in 'Brookside'

Bill Dean was most notable in his later years for playing miserly Harry Cross in the newly formed Channel 4 soap opera, 'Brookside'. He joined the soap in 1983, a year after its inception, and remained there for seven years before departing in 1990. The characterisation in soap operas is often rather broad, and Harry Cross advertised in his surname the main quality he was supposed to represent. It was his job to be cross. His situation in Brookside Close, sharing a house with a male lodger, was fairly shamelessly taken from 'The Odd Couple', and Bill Dean was charged with being a Scouse Walter Matthau. It was greatly to Bill's credit that he brought depth to this stock role. He carried a real sense of Liverpool's past. This should have been no surprise because he had been selected by one of the business's choosiest directors, Ken Loach, for a part in 'Kes', and later by the equally demanding Alan Clarke for 'Scum', the Roy Minton prison drama banned by the BBC. Loach favoured actors from real life rather than drama school, and Bill had that knack of acting that seemed like merely being. The gift was still there in 'Brookside' where he was comic relief, the pedantic fist-shaker whose love of gossip gave the scriptwriters a useful way of introducing the intrigues which became more sensational later in the series. The same character was the inspiration behind the 1980s group 'Jegsy Dodd and the sons of Harry Cross' who hailed from the Wirral. He also appeared in the video for the single 'Groovy Train' by Liverpool band 'The Farm'. His other television credits included 'The Liver Birds', 'Dixon of Dock Green', 'Z Cars',' Coronation Street', 'The Sweeney', 'Minder', Juliet Bravo', Heartbeat' and 'When The Boat Comes In'. Bill Dean's stage work included roles in Trevor Griffith's play 'Comedians' at The Old Vic and Hoeard Brenton's 'The Churchill Play' with the Nottingham Playhouse and then the Royal Shakespeare Company.

Having been ill for some time he suffered a heart attack and, on the 20th of April 2000, he died aged 78 at the Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral. Mersey TV boss and creator of 'Brookside', Phil Redmond, paid tribute to the much-loved star and fanatical Everton FC supporter. "It is both a shock and a tragedy that another of Merseyside's gallery of stars has gone out. Bill was not just part of the family but part of the furniture at Mersey TV." His wife predeceased him, but he was survived by his sons Peter and David, and by his daughter Diane.

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2023/07/a-history-of-liverpool-thespians-norman.html