HE was perhaps Brookside’s most famous face — actor Dean Sullivan played loveable rogue Jimmy Corkhill for 17 years, the Merseyside soap’s longest-serving cast member.
Tributes poured in yesterday after he died from prostate cancer on Wednesday, aged 68.
Sue Jenkins, who played Jimmy’s wife Jackie and was with Dean on the day he died, called him “a consummate professional, superb, much-loved actor, a sweet, funny, kind human being”.
She added: “I feel privileged to have to been with him yesterday. Rest in peace.”
And Claire Sweeney, who played his daughter Lindsey, said: “I will miss you, Dean, love you. RIP Dean Sullivan.”
Tricia Penrose, who played Gina Ward in Heartbeat and appeared in Brookside in the late 80s and 90s, recently filmed a Celebrity
Antiques Road Trip with Dean, due to be shown this month.
She said: “What a soap actor and a legend of Brookside.”
Dean was the middle child of seven and grew up on a council estate in Speke, Merseyside.
His dad, William, was an electrical fitter and mum Evelyn worked as a machinist making flags.
He was the only child in his class to pass the 11-plus exam and at grammar school excelled in English and history.
After taking a degree at Lancaster University he began teaching at Roberts Primary in Bootle, Merseyside, where he organised plays for the kids, including Snow White And The 38 Dwarfs.
But after six years he quit teaching to work in theatre in Edinburgh, and a friend suggested he try for a part in Brookside.
Dean recalled: “In those days, if you were a genuine Liverpudlian and had an Equity card they considered you for Brookside.
“They called me up for audition and turned me down. I was quite put out by that.”
But weeks later the producers rang back and offered Dean the part of dodgy Jimmy, and he joined the soap in February 1986.
At its peak in 1995, when Jimmy and his dog Cracker found the body of murdered Terry Jordache under a patio, the show had nine million viewers.
Other unmissable Jimmy storylines included his descent into drug addiction and sleeping rough in a bus shelter.
But by 2000 the show’s popularity was waning and it was killed off on its 21st anniversary in 2003.
Away from the cameras Dean was a keen reader, he also collected modern art and ceramics.
He once said: “Jimmy would probably have some knock-off ceramics and Dean would buy them — unknowingly, of course.”
When Brookside ended he had his own morning show on local radio in Liverpool, as well as TV and theatre roles.
Last month he pulled out of panto at Southport when cancer returned after he had been given the all-clear in 2019.
Last night a spokesman for Prostate Cancer UK said: “Dean did a huge amount to encourage other men to get checked for prostate cancer, stressing the importance of early diagnosis.”
