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Fact File

Gary Collinson was born on March 23rd 1973 at 22-00 hours in the town of Kingston Upon Hull. His father (Roy) went to register him at the local births and deaths office when he saw a poster of James Dean in a local shop window and finished up calling him 'Dean' Collinson, however he was unable to tell his wife (Dorothy) for 4 1/2 weeks. So Dean was Gary, when in fact, Gary was Dean!

When Dean was just a baby, his father saw a TV program on 'Prosperous jobs for the future' and decided Dean would be kicking a football around and learning to play as many musical instruments as he could until he was rich and famous. 

At the age of six Dean made his stage debut singing and playing the guitar on the Northern Clubland circuit. He's still waiting for his Wembley Stadium debut, but judging by the way he plays football, it won't be for England!

At the age of ten he made his TV debut on 'Jim'll fix it' playing with veteran guitar legend 'Bert Weedon' and subsequently went on to do a Summer Season Theatre Tour with him.

Dean left school at 16 to go to the Arts Educational Music and Drama schools in London. He boasts of being the only student to finish the full three year course, but fails to mention he was expelled 4 times, with even his grant being stopped on the last occasion, but Dean being his usual conforming self decided he would still turn up every morning for his lessons.

Dean then went on to write with producer/songwriter Red, for a boy band called 'Blue' where he wrote the hit song 'Better the Devil you know' which in 1993 came second in the Eurovision Song Contest, sung by Pop star Sonia. Blue had various hits around Europe but only managed to let their debut record escape in the UK.

Dean did a brief stint as a co-presenter for BSB Music channel working with Chris Evans.....if only Dean's hair was ginger!

Next was Dean's solo record deal with Arista records which in Feb. '93 was No.1 in the Music Week radio charts. He appeared on Wogan, Going Live, The Chart show. Dean has had various chart hits around the world as either a singer, songwriter or producer, and has worked with the likes of Paul McCartney, The Spice Girls, Tazmin Archer and Betty Boo.

After then concentrating on producing, writing and cake decorating (not), Dean decided to write a Musical - 'Tomorrow Never Knows' which went on to win a Vivian Ellis award. His third musical - 'Bill & Ted's Excellent Musical Adventure' won the Best Composer prize at the 1998 Vivian Ellis Awards. His third 'A life in the daze of Stanley B! reached the final of 199 Vivian Ellis Award at the London Palladium'



Dean went on to greater things after that, like doing a bit of gardening, but sadly he found that as interesting as cake decorating. He has provided vocals for 'Capital Voices' in the London production of 'Grease', the touring productions of 'Saturday Night Fever', the new concept album of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', the TER recordings of 'Hair' and 'A Chorus Line' and two national tours with Michael Ball. While on the road he still found time to pen the music for the West End Play 'Girls Night Out'. In 99 he was commissioned to write the theme tune for the BBC/Ginger TV quiz show 'Carry on Campus'. 

Dean never did managed to become a footballer, but did manage to get a lead in Jim Steinman & Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Whistle Down The Wind' creating the part of 'Amos' at the Aldwych Theatre, London.

During this time he made several T.V.appearances on GMTV, This Morning, Today on Granada Breeze, The Mag program (Ch5) and the Jack Docherty Show and took part in Hull’s 700 year celebrations.

During his time in Whistle Dean was invited as a special guest artist for Michael Ball's ROC (Research into Ovarian Cancer) concert where he performed his chart topping Eurovision hit ‘Better The Devil You Know’. May 1999 saw Dean putting on his own stunning one man show at Talk of London for Crusade. He also managed to get arrested riding his Go-ped (an illegal scooter) down the wrong way of a one way street, carrying a prop riffle (from Whistle ) on his back. He was spread eagled by six armed police down Drury lane, London. This wasn't too bad until his producer of Whistle walked by, pushed the armed police out of the way and started screaming at Dean for taking the bloody gun from the un locked locker. Fortunately the police found his producers tantrum very entertaining and decided to let him off with a caution, on the condition that he would let two of the police know where to acquire a go-ped.

In late 1998 Dean was given a present (book called 'The final message!') by his close friend Glenn Carter.. This strange interesting book about Aliens, genetic engineering and theories on where life came from changed his entire way he looked at his life. 'Whether you believe it's contents or not it is still an enlightening read and, if nothing else, an amazing vision and outlook. Everyone should have the right to question the bullshit and propaganda we are fed about life. To question conspiracy theories and what we have been made to believe about different religions and where they came from.' (It has since been published under another title. (www.rael.org)

In August and September 1999, Dean put on a production of ‘Tomorrow Never Knows’ at The Hen and Chickens theatre bar in Islington. He co-wrote this dramatic musical comedy with good friends Gene Jacobs and Mick Walsh. During a performance of Whistle, to publicise TNK, he decided instead of tasking a bow as Amos, he would walk on stage with Two billboard posters and hand leaflets out to the audience. This enraged his company manager but fortunately Dean left the theatre front of house with the audience to escape any confrontation.

Dean’s successful run in ‘Whistle Down The Wind’ ended in May 2000 when he accepted the lead as ‘Phoebus’ in the French Production of ‘Notre Dame de Paris’ at the Dominion Theatre, Tottenham Court Road, London, playing opposite Tina Arena and Danni Minogue.

In August 2000 Dean landed the lead in West End international's symphonic Queen spectacular and performed in the world premier of 'Another Kind of magic' in Estonia in front of 11,000 people.   

Since then, this amazing international show has been performed in Helsinki, Reykjavik, Guttenberg, Chester, Stockholm and is planning to go Germany and Lithuania in the near future. For any more details contact:- www.westendinternational.co.uk

In 2001 Dean produced all his three musicals at the Edinburgh festival gaining massive acclaim and rave reviews. His company was the first company ever to  produce three shows starring the same cast in one day. This mammoth feet owes everything to its brilliant cast and director 'Kate Marlow' who all volunteered there time and effort to bring these productions to life.

After the most exhausting experience of his life, Dean decided to fulfill a life times dream and go traveling around South East Asia visiting Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This again changed Dean's prospective on what was really important in his life. While traveling he wrote a vampire film  script, a TV sitcom script and 30 new exciting songs about his experiences.

In 2002 Dean arrived back from his travels and flew straight to Reykjavik to knock himself out in the dress rehearsal of the Queen spectacular 'Another Kind of Magic' this time starring opposite his NDP buddy Hazel Fernandez. 'Half way through the first half Dean just disappeared! This was strange and unlike him, especially as he hadn't told anyone. Then at the end of the second act we found him out cold behind the forth trombonist ... He'd been there for a good hour! After being checked out by the local hospital he returned to do an amazing performance, but after the show it was obviously he was still very concussed because he was just talking absolute gobbledy gooch and nothing made sense. I honestly don't know how he did the show cos he was seriously on a different planet' (Alison Price from West End Int)

December 2003 saw Dean move to Denmark for 6 months where he played Enjorlas in a brand new version of Les Miserables staring along side Stig Rossen and the cream of the West end including Barry James, Matt Rawle, Fred Johanson, and Rebecca Thornhill. Then he decided to hang his theatre boots up again to go back to Asia where he set up a small business with a Thai family on Koh Yao Noi, hiring motorbikes and running boat trips. Again Dean being Dean, he couldn't just have a normal holiday and without his knowledge he went poaching (he thought he was just vegetable picking) with a Thai friend and stood on a spike which went through his foot and also died it blue as it was a trap set by the local authorities. Unable to go to hospital as Poaching is a severe sentence in Thai land he was tied to the back of a moped and driven 15km through the jungle as he drifted in and out of consciousness with loss of blood and pain until he arrived in what he thought at the time was a scene from the hit movie 'The Beach' smack bang in the middle of a marijuana plantation surrounded by armed guards Dean was carried to a rusty shack where he spent 10 days having his foot looked after by a Thai Mafia Boss until all the die had disappeared. :-)

On his return to England Dean continued to do Concerts and session work but due to a lengthy court case with a top London producer for serious injuries sustained in 'Whistle down the wind' Dean was forced to take a back seat in theatre.

While being in Denmark Dean became inspired by the idea of writing a Rock/Pop musical version of the original Hans Christian Anderson story 'The Little Mermaid' So Dean being Dean he went to Bulgaria where he bought a small holding with Whistle friend Gerard Bentall and started to develop it into a Hotel in the mountains. This is where he started to realise there was a lot of money to be made in this wonderful developing country so he set up a building company Bulgariandevelopment.com and is now in the process of building 3 holiday villages. I

Things to come ... Tomorrow never Knows is scheduled to go into production at the new 'Villiers Theatre' in London's West End for a limited run, also it looks like it finally gets under way in New York's 'Off-Broadway' circuit late this year. 'A life in the daze of Stanley B!' has been picked up by a production company and looks to finally arrive in the West End and possibly on tour shortly.

So What is Dean's ambitions?

"My ambition is to change the world, simply by being respectful to others and trying to make people understand that conformity without questioning is a blind way. We all are special and all have the power to change anything. It's time not to be a punch bag for governments or companies or individuals. We have the right to take power away from those that abuse it on a regular day to day basis so lets do that with dignity and respect. Don't be afraid if people can not take the truth. We all need help... , but life can and will be so simple for everyone that is respectful to life. There is no excuse that people are starving if you look at the amount of food the western world destroys because of ridiculous regulations. There is no excuse for disease when you look at how much money is wasted on weapons to kill and mame each other. There is no such thing as a terrorist  ... Just someone who has been treated with such disrespect that they retaliate with the same amount of intelligence of their persecutors. Love is the answer ... but unconditional love ... that means NO CONDITIONS ABSOLUTELY ...The only absolute that will ever help humanity.  Be Excellent Always and don't fear the narrow minded as you can help them see....

Love always

Dean Collinson x o x"

The future I suppose will eventually become History! ... ... Lets hope :-)