18 Facts About Basil Dean

Basil Herbert Dean CBE was an English actor, writer, producer and director in the theatre and in cinema.

Basil Dean 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.

Basil Dean 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.

Basil Dean was born on 27 September 1888 in Croydon, Surrey, the younger son and second of the four children of Harding Hewar Basil Dean, a cigarette manufacturer, and his wife, Elizabeth Mary Winton.

Basil Dean 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 Basil Dean directed an experimental theatre season in Liverpool.

The marriage, which lasted until 1925, when it was dissolved, produced three sons, one of them the musicologist Winton Basil Dean; another became a judge.

Basil Dean 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, with control of fifteen theatres and ten touring companies.

Basil Dean had tried to interest Tree in staging the piece, but the costs were prohibitive.

The eventual production, in 1923, made its mark, and Basil Dean was called on to stage revivals in later years.

In 1924, Basil 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.

In 1925, Basil Dean married Lady Mercy Greville, daughter of Francis Greville, 5th Earl of Warwick and his wife, the former Daisy Maynard.

Basil Dean became chairman and joint managing director of Associated Talking Pictures in 1929.

Basil 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.

Basil Dean worked with Henson and other experts in their theatrical or musical spheres, including Black, 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.

Basil Dean organised the first British Repertory Theatre Festival at the St James's Theatre in which the repertory companies of Liverpool, Sheffield, Birmingham and Bristol were represented.

Basil Dean died at his flat in Marylebone, London on 22 April 1978, aged 89.