Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE (27 September 1888 – 22 April 1978) was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema. He founded the Liverpool Repertory Company in 1911 and in the First World War, after organising unofficial entertainments for his comrades in the army, he was appointed to do so officially. After the war he produced and directed mostly in the West End. He staged premieres of plays by writers including J. M. Barrie, Noël Coward, John Galsworthy, Harley Granville-Barker and Somerset Maugham. He produced nearly 40 films, and directed 16, mainly in the 1930s, with stars including Gracie Fields.

Together with Leslie Henson, Dean set up and ran the Entertainments National Service Association, or ENSA, in 1939 to provide a wide range of entertainment for British armed forces personnel during the Second World War. After the war he resumed his West End career successfully but without regaining his pre-war dominance.

Life and career Early years Dean was born on 27 September 1888 in Croydon, Surrey, the younger son and second of the four children of Harding Hewar Dean (1855–1942), a cigarette manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth Mary Winton. He was educated at Whitgift Grammar School, Croydon. According to his entry in Who's Who in the Theatre he was originally intended for a career in the diplomatic service, but he trained as an "analytical scientist" before working for two years on the London Stock Exchange.

After appearing in amateur theatricals, Dean made his first professional appearance on the stage at the Opera House, Cheltenham in September 1906, as Trip in The School for Scandal. He toured in Shakespeare and other plays and then he joined Annie Horniman's new repertory company in Manchester in 1907, remaining with it for four years in a wide range of plays from the 16th to the 20th centuries.

In 1911 Dean directed an experimental theatre season in Liverpool. That year he became the first director of the Liverpool Repertory Theatre (later the Playhouse), where he put on plays by John Galsworthy, Harold Brighouse, and Harley Granville-Barker. At the same time he was technical adviser for stage-construction at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre, which opened in 1913.

He was gazetted captain in 1916, and in January 1917 he was transferred to the War Office in London to head the entertainment branch of the Navy and Army Canteen Board (later the Navy, Army and Air Force Institutes ),

Gielgud's biographer, Jonathan Croall, wrote of Dean:

In 1924, Dean took on the joint managing directorship with Alfred Butt of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane with the aim, much mocked at the time, of establishing a national theatre there. A Midsummer Night's Dream, was successful, but, according to The Times, "did his reputation as a director of poetic drama no good". His colleagues' insistence on importing an American musical provoked his resignation within twelve months. and Fields's biographer David Bret writes that Dean was "positively renowned for his complete lack of sense of humour". In the late 1930s, Dean fell out with Ealing Studios, where his colleagues felt that he was neglecting films in favour of his theatrical work; he was obliged to resign. Dean ignored his critics and formed an alliance with the comedian and theatre owner Leslie Henson, who had been a leading figure in entertainments for the troops in the First World War. |group=n Drury Lane was requisitioned as the organisation's headquarters. Dean worked with Henson and other experts in their theatrical or musical spheres, including Black (now firmly behind Dean's ideas), Lena Ashwell, Harold Holt, Jack Hylton, Sir Harry Lauder and Dame Sybil Thorndike, organising entertainment in Britain and overseas for the troops and civilians throughout the war.

Dean's biographer James Roose-Evans writes, "during six and a half years more than 80 per cent of the entertainments industry gave [ENSA] service in innumerable performances of plays, revues, and concerts". |

Later years After the war Dean resumed his own activities in the West End and elsewhere, but never regained the pre-eminence he had enjoyed in the 1930s. His productions overseas included Hassan for the National Theatre Organisation of South Africa (1950) and for Dublin International Drama Festival (1960) and Graham Greene's The Heart of the Matter, Boston (1950).

Cinema work Producer

The Constant Nymph (1928, also co-writer) The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929, also co-writer) Escape (1930, also co-writer) Birds of Prey (1930, also co-writer) Sally in Our Alley (1931) Nine till Six (1932) Love on the Spot (1932) Looking on the Bright Side (1932, also co-writer) The Impassive Footman (1932) The Water Gipsies (1932, also co-writer) The Sign of Four (1932) A Honeymoon Adventure (1932, also co-writer) Three Men in a Boat (1933) Skipper of the Osprey (1933) Loyalties (1933) Autumn Crocus (1934, also co-writer) Love, Life and Laughter (1934) Java Head (1934)

Sing As We Go (1934) Lorna Doone (1934) Look Up and Laugh (1935) Midshipman Easy (1935) No Limit (1935) Lonely Road (1936) Laburnum Grove (1936) Keep Your Seats, Please (1936) Whom the Gods Love (1936) Queen of Hearts (1936/I) The Show Goes On (1937, also co-writer) Keep Fit (1937) Feather Your Nest (1937) Penny Paradise (1938, also co-writer) It's in the Air (1938) When We Are Married (1938) (for television) 21 Days (1940) (associate producer, also co-writer) The Gentle Gunman (1952) (co-producer)

Director

The Constant Nymph (1928) The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929) Escape (1930) Birds of Prey (1930) Nine Till Six (1932) Looking on the Bright Side (1932) The Impassive Footman (1932) Loyalties (1933)

The Constant Nymph (1933, also co-writer) Autumn Crocus (1934) Sing As We Go (1934) Lorna Doone (1934) Look Up and Laugh (1935) Whom the Gods Love (1936) The Show Goes On (1937) 21 Days (1940)

Notes, references and sources