All indented excerpts from David Thomson’s film encyclopedia:
With the TV series Quantum Leap and with his regular work as a supporting actor in movies, Dean Stockwell may never have been better known. Yet he has experienced so many stages and changes already – the piercing child; the beautiful yet not quite penetrating young lead; the wanderer, hippie, and biker; the realtor in New Mexico; and now, for a decade at least, the versatile, reliable, yet never quite predictable character actor who seems blessed to play men brushed by the wing of uncommon experience – as if they might once have had green hair.
The child who was once the center of films has become a man content to be an outcast or an eccentric.
He is the son of actor Harry Stockwell, and the older brother of Guy Stockwell, and he was a steady movie child at Metro by the age of nine.
He was away from the screen for several years and came back as a twenty-year-old: Gun for a Coward (56, Abner Biberman); The Careless Years (57, Arthur Hiller); with Bradford Dillman as Leopold and Loeb in Compulsion (59, Richard Fleischer); as the young DH Lawrence in Sons and Lovers (60, Jack Cardiff); and worthy of the exceptional cast as Eugene O’Neill’s alter ego in Long Day’s Journey Into Night (62, Sidney Lumet).
Again, he stopped, and within a few years he was an available actor for a strange assortment of sixties dreams and delusions.
Then in 1984, he had a real part in the forlorn Dune (David Lynch) and unexpected attention as the decent, steady brother in Paris, Texas (84, Wim Wenders). That picture did well enough in America to begin to ease away his freaky reputation. He was back to the mainstream.
He was in The Legend of Billie Jean (85, Matthew Robbins); To Live and Die in LA (85, William Friedkin); uncanny, terrifying, and wonderful in the best scenes from Blue Velvet (86, David Lynch); Gardens of Stone (87, Francis Ford Coppola); Beverly Hills Cop 2 (87, Tony Scott); Buying Time (88, Mitchell Gabourie); delicious as Howard Hughes in Tucker (88, Coppola); broad and funny as a camp don in Married to the Mob (88, Jonathan Demme) – he was nominated for the supporting actor Oscar.
Note from Sheila: I guess it’s one of those moments where I realized that I have seen most of his movies – and loved him in all of them … but I’m just appreciating him on a deeper level. His talent, to be sure, but also the trajectory of his career, and how he has handled it.
It’s stuff like this that makes me really like this site. I got folks in my life who roll their eyes at me when I come in with a new obsession–which happens from time to time, and the subjects are often surprising (even confusing).
I like people who likewise find themselves immersed in some unforeseen obsession.
If I’d spun the big wheel of “stuff to think about today” a million times, I don’t think Dean Stockwell would have come up once….
Good job, Sheila.
Ha!! I know! Today is Dean Stockwell Day apparently!!
And believe me, I know about the rolling eyes people. They are everywhere. But it’s okay. They’re just JEALOUS! At least that’s what I tell myself as I pop in Married to the Mob and pause the film every 3 seconds to catch every nuance. Yeah … they’re just JEALOUS!
Married to the Mob I can forgive.
But I don’t want to read any posts picking apart his performance in the film version of McHale’s Navy, though….that might be cause for serious reinspection of life’s priorities….
HAHAHAHAHAHA
There are limits!!
Do you know for the longest time that I thought Harry Dean Stanton was Dean Stockwell? I had to look up Harry Dean on IMDB to figure out who the hell he was b/c I didn’t think the “Quantum Leap” guy would be on Big Love…then I saw Harry Dean’ photo and the lightbulb clicked on. :)
Jen – ha! Really?? I’ve had that happen before – I’m like: wait … THAT’S the guy?? Who knew??
I know that he and Harry Dean Stanton are very good friends, weirdly!
Yes, I have NO idea why I confused the two…they look nothing alike. How strange that they are friends. I loved seeing Dean Stockwell’s career- I didn’t know he was a child actor too. I totally had a crush on him from Quantum Leap.
Ironically enough, The Boy with the Green Hair is one of my favorite movies, despite the fact that I kept seeing it as a child on black and white television. (Wouldn’t that be a good remake for Spielberg?)
Thanks for this, he is really a splendid actor.
I saw Boy with Green Hair as a kid too on black and white television – I have this weird vivid memory of the first time I saw it.
Okay…..WHAT?????
I never knew that The Boy With The Green Hair was THAT Dean Stockwell. That was one of the movies that changed my life. I can still feel the ending in my bones. I’ll never forget the look on his face.
I remember thinking:
“Who IS this kid? I wonder if he REALLY has green hair.”
He was that good.
Wow, Sheila. Amazing.
Alex – yes!! That was him! Boy with green hair!
The ending indeed – it was a powerful movie – maybe a bit silly, in retrospect – but Stockwell has said that that was the first time he ever felt like, “Wow. I’m really proud to be part of this.”
I remember watching that movie at my cousins house – on some Easter afternoon, after church – and thinking he was great.
And member him in Gentleman’s Agreement? Gregory Peck (who I normally love) is kind of ponderous and sincere and boring – and he – the little kid – just seems totally real! Acts everybody off the screen.
I agree completely. I’m SO glad you called him OUT on that! I think Peck wanders around that movie like someone tied weights on his ankles. He bores me stiff.
And Stockwell is a revelation.
Yeah, Peck was just so aware that he was in a Very Important Movie – and it made him dull as rocks.
Stockwell tells a funny story about how Kazan came up to him before a scene where he had to cry and told him to think about a puppy who had died, or whatever – in order to get himself to the proper emotional state.
Stockwell, already a veteran by that point, nodded, “Yeah sure okay, dead puppy” – then went off to the side before the scene, rubbed his eyes really hard to make them irritated and welling with tears – and Kazan never knew the difference.
I love that story!!