Dean served in the Royal Air Force during the Second World War, seeing action in North Africa and Italy.

[1] His stage name was apparently inspired by being present when an Italian prisoner of war who had been captured by British troops in the Western Desert, told his captors "fuck your Winston Churchill and fuck your Dixie Dean", the latter being the well-known Everton footballer of the day.

[3] 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 Lancashire clubs and pubs, before making his breakthrough in Ken Loach's The Golden Vision.

[4][5] Dean was most notable in his later years for playing miserly Harry Cross in the soap opera Brookside.

[12] Having been ill for some time he suffered a heart attack and, on 20 April 2000, died at the Arrowe Park Hospital on the Wirral,[1] aged 78.