Dean Sullivan, who has died aged 68 after suffering from prostate cancer, played Jimmy Corkhill in Brookside. This character was involved in petty crimes before mixing with hard-boiled criminals and turning to drugs. Phil Redmond shook up television soap opera with the launch of Channel 4 in 1982.
He made a semi-regular appearance in 1986, playing the younger brother of Billy (John McArdle), who had been introduced to the family the previous year. Jimmy’s early scams included robbing Billy’s house for insurance and tampering with electric meters to ease his financial troubles.
Jimmy was friends with younger generation “scallies” Barry Grant (played by Paul Usher) and Terry Sullivan (Brian Regan) and teamed up with window cleaner Sinbad (Michael Starke) for various shady “business ventures”. But his dealings with Liverpool’s underworld bring him and Billy closer to danger. The backstory was that they always worshiped their older brother Frankie, who was killed in a gang fight.
On screen, when murderer Joey Godden (Carl Chase) was released from prison in 1990, when Sullivan joined the Brookside cast full-time, Jimmy vowed revenge but confronted him with the help of a reluctant Billy, only to have the brothers themselves attacked. Later, Jimmy found himself as the getaway driver when Godden was involved in an armed robbery.
When Jimmy’s girlfriend Kathy Roach (Noreen Kershaw) left him, his estranged wife Jackie (Sue Jenkins) took him back. But his descent into hell led him to become a drug dealer, then an addict, before being imprisoned for breaking into Brookside homes to pay his way. His addiction also caused the deaths of Frank Rogers (Peter Christian) and Tony Dixon (Mark Lennock) when he crashed their car.
The soap star, whose character has always been on the wrong side of the law, was also working off-screen in a job that should have been a role model until 1990: as a supply teacher in London primary schools. “I guess the kids thought some jerks were going to give them a lesson, but they got a rude awakening because I’m a stickler for discipline,” Sullivan told author Geoff Tibballs for the book Brookside: The First Ten Years (1992).
Brookside’s social realism and gritty storylines have been credited with inspiring a new generation of soaps. The BBC’s EastEnders followed in 1985. However, from a peak of over seven million viewers, Brookside’s ratings fell towards the end of the 1990s as the storylines became sensational and the series was terminated by Channel 4 in 2003. When the last episode ended, Sullivan’s character was seen scribbling a letter. The “D” at the end of the Brookside Close sign.
He was born in Liverpool, the fourth of seven children of Evelyn (née Goddard) and William Sullivan, and attended St Margaret’s high school, Aigburth. In 1974 he appeared as an amateur in the Merseyside Youth Drama group in the trial scene of the Frog Hall at the Neptune theater in Liverpool, described by a local critic as a “judge in command”.
After graduating from Lancaster University with a BA in drama and education, he taught drama and English and directed school plays in primary schools around Liverpool for six years.
He continued his amateur drama work with the Neptune theater company and received even better notices with roles such as Leontes in The Winter’s Tale, Tommy in Breezeblock Park, Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Jimmy in Look Back in Anger and Horst in Bent.
Turning professional, he joined the Pitlochry festival theater company in 1984 as assistant stage manager and actor, then worked as a prop teacher at Theatr Clwyd, Mold, and the Gateway theater in Chester, between various jobs.
In 1987, Sullivan starred as a manipulative producer in Soaplights, a brilliant TV drama satire written by Redmond and staged at the Liverpool Playhouse. The Financial Times observed that his physical clowning made him look like “a skinnier John Cleese”.
On stage she also played the role of Scullery in the northern premiere of Jim Cartwright’s play Road (Octagon theatre, Bolton, 1988). He later founded the Liverpool Theater Company and between 1989 and 1994 performed The Importance of Being Earnest, Victoria Wood’s play Talent, Hay Fever and Blue Remembered at the Neptune Theater (later Epstein), Speke Hall and outdoor venues. He directed productions at outdoor venues such as the Hills.
Some of the company’s actors took part in Cluedo-style “murder weekends” organized in hotels by the Murder Game business he founded.
Sullivan played Sam Jackson in the soap opera The Merseysiders (1987-90) on BBC Radio Merseyside. It won the British Soap Awards’ special achievement award in 2003. Subsequent TV appearances included Doctors (in 2005) and Crime Stories (in 2012).
Sullivan is survived by four brothers, Alan, Brian, Derek and Neil, and a sister, Joy.
• Dean Sullivan, actor and director, born June 7, 1955; Died November 29, 2023