Dick trained as a dancer at Joy Irvings dance & Wendy Allens School of dance in Carlisle as a child then at Elmhurst Ballet School in Surrey, moving on to Cumbria Institute of the Arts and the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art (LAMDA), although he had already worked professionally as a child actor.
They are made by Australian company Allens Lollies, under the Nestlé Corporation.
Both Allens were in the U.S. Marines, the elder serving in the Haitian campaign of 1927 against the Sandino Rebellion.
In April 2013, two of Allens' paintings, dating from 1942 and 1943, of scenes in Achill Island, County Mayo, were featured on BBC One's Antiques Roadshow.