of a photograph alone. The creators of EastEnders, Tony Holland and Julia Smith, were looking for a "bouncy, attractive, oddly vulnerable young woman" to play the part of Sharon Watts, and out of the various applicants they had seen, only Dean had all of those qualities. Dean lied about her roots to get the part. As the casting directors were only looking for real 'East End' actors, she falsely claimed that she was born and brought up in Hackney, east London. The lie paid off and she got the part, clinching the deal because of her laugh, which Holland and Smith described as "the dirtiest in the world!" Dean's character Sharon, the troubled and spoilt adopted daughter of landlords "Dirty" Den (Leslie Grantham) and Angie Watts (Anita Dobson), from the show's inception in 1985 until 1995 — Sharon becoming one of the most popular and long-running characters in the serial. While appearing on EastEnders, Dean forayed into singing with her fellow EastEnders castmate, Paul Medford (who played Kelvin Carpenter). A song penned for the pair as part of a plotline in EastEnders (known as The Banned) prompted the BBC to release the song as a single. The song, "Something Outa Nothing", reached number 12 in the UK Singles Chart in November 1986. Dean featured in one of the soap's most popular storylines, a love triangle featuring Sharon, her husband Grant Mitchell (Ross Kemp) and his brother Phil (Steve McFadden). The plot, nicknamed 'Sharongate', gave the soap one of its highest episode ratings in October 1994, watched by over 25.3 million viewers. A desire to pursue other acting roles prompted Dean to leave the soap in 1995. Six years following her initial exit, Dean was lured back to EastEnders by producer John Yorke, where she reprised the role of Sharon from 2001 to 2006. In December 2004 the Sunday Mirror reported that executive producer Kathleen Hutchison offered to double Dean's salary from £150,000 a year to £300,000 a year, to persuade her to remain in the show, making her one of the highest paid actresses in British soap. Dean's character left the serial again in January 2006. Dean's exit was announced in August 2005 and an official EastEnders press report stated that she was merely taking a scheduled break and was due back on set later in 2006; however, this did not happen, and in June 2006 the BBC denied press