Bill Dean aka Harry Cross in the Liverpool Echo
Robert Hampton
Since Harry Cross returns to the Close tonight, I found it interesting. It
contains a few minor spoilers for tonight's episode, but no major secrets are
revealed.
FROWN PRINCE OF BROOKSIDE
Mersey soap's Mr Misery has a Close call -- again.
He places his walking-stick carefully down on the pub floor, sips a large
whisky and smiles. It's like the sunshine breaking through the clouds,
cracking his famous weather-beaten features.
Bill Dean nods to the other regulars, prods his glasses back up his nose and
smiles another wide smile.
"Alright, Harry, mate," say his fellow drinkers with genuine affection,
referring, of course, to his most famous alter ego -- Brookside's aptly-named
Harry Cross.
Harry could out-moan Victor Meldrew, but Liverpool-born Bill is nothing like
the frown prince of the Close he played for eight years.
Harry's caustic wit and crumpled expression made him an instant hit in 1983.
Now, in the 90s, the affable 77-year-old actor is as busy and popular as
ever. And Harry Cross is back.
He makes his comeback on the Close tonight in the first of three episodes
over the few weeks. Not only that, but another new venture, a role in a drama
called The Forgotten Army for a BBC series of short films, is to be shown at
the Cannes Film Festival in May.
Local writer and director Eric Christiansen is thrilled to sign up an actor
of Bill's calibre for the film, which has been made by local company Planet
Wilde and shot on location in Liverpool.
Bill says: "I play this old soldier -- a survivor from Burma whose memory is
failing him. Now he's trying to survive the onslaught of old age."
Bill, from Radcliffe Street -- the 'select part of Everton' -- was a former
SFX schoolboy who wanted to be a jockey or a priest.
After the RAF he had 38 jobs -- from docker to postman. But his later
ambition was to play the Palladium as a stand-up comic.
His return to Brookside came after he made a guest appearance in the
stand-alone video Friday The 13th. He only had TWO lines, but the cameo
reminded fans and cast members that he had lost none of his screen appeal.
"It was great working with Michael Starke [who plays Sinbad] again," he says.
"When it comes to being a mimic, he is better than Rory Bremner.
"When I arrived at Brookie a few weeks ago, I convinced Mickey that I had
ACTUALLY lost my memory for REAL.
"But doing that first scene, it was like I'd never been away from the place.
It's a very challenging script -- it might shock a few people. Harry wanders
back onto the Close in search of his old friends and neighbours. The only
recognisable faces to him after all those years are Sinbad and Mick."
Is Harry still Cross in name and nature?
"He's changed quite a bit now," says Bill, "but old Harry does come out now
and again -- so watch out."
Bill left the soap the first time round after a morning drive to work from
his then home in Southport to the Childwall TV studios. "It was snowing at
6.30 in the morning and I thought, 'what am I doing here at 69? I should have
retired four years ago'," he says.
"The pressure of the shooting schedules were the reason I packed it in."
Bill has been living in Bidston for the past four years with his daughter
Diane after many years in Southport. He is proud of his Scouse roots.
"I get stick off the Birkenhead blokes but I give as good as I get. I've
always lived on Merseyside -- is there a better place to live? And I've been
reading the ECHO for more than 50 years."
I get a whisky refill in return for his loyalty and for the throaty Scouse
voice one critic described as sounding 'like a donkey urinating on hot
coals'.
The true Blue Evertonian first offered those gravelly tones in The Golden
Vision, a TV tribute to Alex Young.
"After that, they all told me I was an actor -- I've been kidding them ever
since."
Z Cars was followed by movie fame in gritty Northern films such as Scum and
Kes.
He worked with Elizabeth Taylor in Night Watch: "I thought my agent was drunk
when he told me about landing that one.
"And I enjoyed working with the great Albert Finney in Gumshoe, the Liverpool
private eye film. Liz Taylor was a nice, generous lady -- she always talked
about her grandchildren. It was an honour to have a drink with her -- never
mind work with her."
Does Bill ever regret any of his estimate 1,000 telly appearances?
"Oh yeah," he says, shaking his head, "A sitcom called The Wackers --
terrible. One hell of a cast but the writer, Vince Powell, couldn't write
Scouse."
Bill still gets fan mail thanks to repeats of early Brookside on UK Gold. So
why did the public take Mr Whinge to their hearts?
He says: "He was a love-hate character. At the end of the day, he would
always have egg on his face. But he was an intelligent man and he was not
short of a few bob.
"I always played him with a straight face, that's where the comedy -- now
missing in Brookie -- really came in.
"You know, son," says this walking, talking, joking jukebox, "If I lived next
door to that Harry Cross, I would have punched him on the jaw.
"A woman once turned me around while I was out walking and said, 'I've got a
bloody husband like you at home -- you b******.' Then she just walked off.
"You see, there's a Harry Cross in every Liverpool street and every pub."
Happy home-coming Harry...
--
_ _ _ _ _ ___ _ _ ___ _ posting from Liverpool, UK
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