Colin Dean (1919-2007)

 

DOI 

1941 - appeared in many Canberra rep shows

(1940s - member of the staff of the Department of Post-war Reconstruction

1945-49 - worked in Britain

1957? joins ABC 

Feb 1959 invited to join ABC bc Ray Menmuir left to go to Shell Presents.

Sept 1959 - part of the writers project (did he meet Rex Rienits here?) 

1965 - senior producer at ABC 

1968 - acting federal director of programs

1982 -ABC's director of transmission

April 1968 - assistant director of ABC television

Interviews

 From the British Entertainment History Project - https://historyproject.org.uk/interview/colin-dean

It focuses on his work in England. In part three there is some mention to his Australian TV stuff, notably Stormy Petrel. He briefly mentions The Long Sunset  as his last drama . Link is here.

In part 4 he talks about the ABC and BBC. Link is here.

Credits

*Australia at UNO (1946) (doco)

*Shown by Request (1947) (doco)

A Yank Comes Back (1949) (doco)

*A Matter of Manners (1951) (doco) 

*Capacity Smith (1951) (doco)

*It's a Great Life (1952) (doco) 

*Report for Columbo (1952)

*In a Manner of SPeaking (1952) - profile here

*The Melbourne Wedding Belle (1953) 

*The Wise Owl of Russell Street (1953) (doco)

*The Queen in Australia (1954) (doco)

*At the Sign of the Owl (1956) (doco)

*I Blame Gloster (1957) (radio)

*Face the People (1958) (doco)

*A Guide to Canberra (1958) (doco)

* Lady in Danger (Sep 1959)

*Stormy Petrel (May 1960)

*The Outcasts (May 1961)

*The Play of Daniel (Dec 1961)

*Off Centre (Feb 1962) - maybe

*The Patriots (May 1962)

*Case of Private Hamp (Oct 1962) 

*Prelude to Harvest (Jan 1963)

*Flowering Cherry (Feb 1963)

*The Hungry Ones (Jul 1963)

*The Long Sunset (Nov 1963)

*The Purple Jacaranda (Jun 1964)

*What Does Trade Unionsm Mean to Australians (1966) (documentary)

To Graham Shirley

I was conscious of being completely in the hands of the technicians. Certainly To start with, because the grip requirements are the dreaded grayscale. And because I I was discouraged or tell it was not possible to light for for dramatic purposes. If by so doin something wonky would happen with vision over during its transmission. So there were limitations of which I was aware and as I didn't really, really understand the full implications of light values on an electronic tube. I didn't take part in trying to change except to ask but of course asked for particular effects of emphasis in a particular scene in a particular set.

Unlike film where one could argue the toss from the lighting camera man a good deal more. And obviously, you've been used to that with film interns. Yeah, how a shock was living or how a sequence was led. But I automatically and always have had an probably I've been very fortunate because Kevin and I've worked with have, I think, been first rate people and they knew have known their jobs very, very well indeed. And there was no kind of no cause for an executive a note for any dispute or demanding that something should be done that wasn't being done. And in most cases, that that they'll understand and be a party to joint recognition of the subject of the player or the program is.
..

There was a resistance to my joining ABC television, because and large. All the existing radio stuff wanted to accommodate television within their existing framework. And the idea of having outside people was anathema. And they had all these training schools and they all became television people. And in nearly every case, they're absolutely first rate. I mean, people like mango, McKellen knew as much about television production, and nothing give direction that are productive as anybody else. By the time the ABC had started. And not only him, but the girls who become script assistants been to school, but completely adequate, that they've gone through the same process. It is the BBC head.

The Sydney Morning Herald

Director was a pioneer of Australia’s television industry
April 20, 2007 — 10.00am

WHATEVER gifts of leadership the prime minister Ben Chifley had, Colin Dean thought his voice awful. The young Dean, working in Chifley’s office, wanted him to rehearse his broadcasts.

Chifley wouldn’t have a bar of that. “I’m not going to rehearse, Mr Dean,” he said. “People can hear me as I am.”

Nonetheless, Dean admired Chifley and Chifley had time for Dean. If the prime minister were working late in his Martin Place office he would sometimes say: “Mr Dean, I’m going over to Martha Washington [a milk bar] for a milkshake. You’d better come.”

When Dean went later to work in the British Ministry of Information’s Crown Film Unit, he did so with Chifley’s blessing and on the understanding that he return to Australian employment. It was a productive move by both men. Dean, who has died at 87, returned to pioneering work as a documentary film and television producer, director and writer.

Colin Levinge Dean’s great-grandfather was the youngest son of a baronet who married a Catholic, virtually forcing the family to Australia. His grandfather, Henry, did well in the gold rush and bought part-ownership of Yanda, a large property along the Darling River. The family company, Deans Ltd, diversified and expanded but its fortunes suffered with the depression, bank crash and long drought of the 1890s.

Colin’s father, Charles, began as a jackaroo but went to manage the firm’s pottery works in Newcastle, virtually all that was left of the company after the crash. Charles married Freda Mary Levinge, of Irish stock, who had attended Fort Street High and was a musician trained at Sydney’s conservatorium.

Dean spent his early life in Newcastle, where his father would sometimes recall the days at Yanda, when the Darling ran through country resembling a Garden of Eden and Shakespearian companies would come in a paddle-steamer from Adelaide, playing at stations along the way.

Dean’s introduction to film was through his parents’ purchase of a magic lantern, through which he could crank a seven-metre length of film, tinted blue, of Scott’s expedition to the South Pole. Scott would go backwards and forwards repeatedly, waving, out of his tent and into the snow. Dean was about six at the time.

He attended Broughton College and Newcastle Boys High School, where the poet A.D. Hope was one of his teachers.

He joined the Australian Trade Commissioner Service in Canberra in 1939, and enrolled in Canberra University College and the Canberra Repertory Society. The repertory proved a fortunate move, in that John Burton, a senior public servant, was impressed with Dean’s performance as Alfred Doolittle in Shaw’s Pygmalion, introduced him to Nugget Coombs and offered him a job.

He described his work with Coombs in the Department of Post-war Reconstruction as a Shangri-la. It enabled him to become involved in the establishment of a national film board. He was also a member of the prime minister’s Committee on National Morale, “a hilarious combination of wit and attitude”.

In 1945 Dean was a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations meeting in London that established UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation and the conference of peace treaties in Paris. Seconded to the British Crown Film Unit, he was able to make his first film, Australia at UNO. His A Yank Comes Back featured Paulette Goddard and Burgess Meredith.

He joined the London Film Society and gatherings at Le Petite Club Francais with people such as the critic Kenneth Tynan, the actress Hermione Gingold, the author Nancy Mitford and the cookery writer Elizabeth David.

Back in Australia, he joined the Commonwealth Film Unit to direct eight documentaries which are considered part of early Australian film history. The most ambitious was Melbourne Wedding Belle, a documentary about Melbourne with Dean’s lyrics sung by Evelyn Gardner.

In a Manner of Speaking was made as a training film to persuade people to be polite on the telephone. Dean also directed the official film of the Queen’s royal tour of 1954.

After joining the ABC in 1958, he made Stormy Petrel, which was screened in a dozen 30-minute episodes. The story of William Bligh, written by Rex Rienits, it predates Homicide, which most people identify as the start of Australian television drama.

This was followed by another three years of Australian history in serial form - The Outcasts, The Patriots, and The Hungry Ones.

Dean was usually directing a play or full-length drama for the ABC in between his work on history. After his retirement he lamented how the broadcaster had let its drama content decline.

Dean met his wife, the actress Rosemary Webster, at the Tivoli stage door during an Old Vic tour of Australia and they married in 1958. He is survived by Rosemary, daughter Anabel and son Simon, and grandsons Hamish and William.

Tony Stephens

NAA Neil Hutchison

Undated