Rick Dean

Tall, brawny, curly-haired character actor Rick Dean made his film debut in 1982 in the low-budget horror movie "Island of Blood." A graduate of the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, he trained with Wynn Handmann of the American Place Theatre in New York and with Roy London and Peggy Feury of The Lost Studio in Los Angeles. Scruffy and scraggly, with a long, narrow, craggy face, an askew, leering smile, a powerful, muscular physique, a long mane of unruly dark hair, a rough gravel voice, and a very intense and intimidating screen presence, Dean was often cast as bums, psychos, and dangerous criminals. Starting in the late 1980's and throughout the 1990's Dean appeared in a slew of straight-to-video features produced by legendary exploitation filmmaker Roger Corman; said movies include "'Nam Angels," "The Unborn," "Quake," "Bloodfist III: Forced to Fight," both "Carnosaur" sequels, "Saturday Night Special," "Cheyenne Warrior," and "Black Scorpion." Dean often co-starred alongside Maria Ford in these movies. Dean's best-ever role was as the mysterious philosophical derelict Sam Silver in "Naked Obsession." Moreover, he was quite memorable as a deranged man pretending to be blind who terrorizes a strip club at gunpoint in "Stripteaser" and as a vicious tattooed racist in the horror anthology "Tales from the Hood." Besides acting in over 40 films, Dean also acted in and directed stage plays and was an accomplished self-taught artist who specialized in pastel paintings. He was married to artist/actress Cinda Jackson and was the father of actress Eliza Lauren Dean. Rick Dean died suddenly at the tragically young age of 53 on February 3rd, 2006.