{"id":50461,"date":"2026-03-05T08:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T13:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=50461"},"modified":"2026-03-04T15:18:21","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T20:18:21","slug":"happy-birthday-dean-stockwell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheilaomalley.com\/?p=50461","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday, Dean Stockwell"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\nI’ve been paying tribute to him on his birthday for 15 years or something insane like that. I need to take a moment to reflect on my own “relationship” to him and his work. He was really important to me, not just as an actor, but in terms of my writing, and how – without meaning to, without trying – carved out my own lane in the crowded field of film criticism. He did that. Or, he inspired that. I didn’t write so much about him in ORDER to carve out my own lane, it’s just how it happened. <\/p>\n

When Dean Stockwell died in 2021, I wrote the tribute for Ebert. I was upset, but I was ready. I had been preparing myself for it. <\/p>\n

The Mystery Was the Point: On the Life of Dean Stockwell (1936-2021)<\/a><\/big><\/p>\n

Normally I don’t link to pieces referencing MOI, but David Hudson – whose column The Daily over at Criterion is a daily pitstop – used my obituary as his organizing principle for his great roundup of pieces about Stockwell<\/a>. I was truly touched. Thank you, David. <\/p>\n

Here is the first piece I wrote about him, years ago, in the first wave of my obsession, for Matt Seitz’s blog “House Next Door”, now looped into Slant. I wrote a career retrospective (Matt set up a “5 for the Day” series, where you wrote about 5 specific roles in an actor’s career).<\/p>\n

\n5 for the day: Dean Stockwell<\/a>. <\/p>\n

\nI was so pleased to write for the great Film Comment magazine <\/a>an essay on Dean Stockwell’s wonderful and tormented performance in Compulsion.<\/i> (My first time in the magazine proper.) The piece is not online, but here it is. Isn’t it pretty? <\/p>\n

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I miss knowing he’s still out there.<\/p>\n

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\nHere I am with him in Taos, at that party for him which I blatantly crashed. <\/p>\n

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\nThank you so much for stopping by. If you like what I do, and if you feel inclined to support my work, here’s a link to my Venmo account<\/a>. And I’ve launched a Substack, Sheila Variations 2.0<\/a>, if you’d like to subscribe.<\/em> <\/small><\/p>\n