FROM INSIDER TO OUTSIDER (REMEMBERING DEAN STOCKWELL)

 

From Hollywood child star to indie maverick, Dean Stockwell didn't quite follow the career arc that many would have predicted.

Born in Los Angeles in 1936, as a child he worked with Raoul Walsh, Gene Kelly,  Frank Sinatra, Kathryn Grayson, Elia Kazan, Gregory Peck, Joseph Losey, Pat O'Brien, Richard Widmark and Lionel Barrymore.

However later on life, he would become a favourite of the indie set - working with Hollywood rebels like David Lynch, Jonathan Demme, Francis Coppola, Dennis Hopper, Wim Wenders, William Friedkin and Robert Altman.

Born in North Hollywood, he came from a showbiz family and divided much of his childhood between Los Angeles and New York. 

His father Harry was an actor and baritone who was in the Broadway casts for 'Oklahoma!' and 'Carousel' and was the voice of Prince Charming in Disney's 'Snow White'.

Guy, his older brother, also forged a career as an actor and his stepmother Nina Olivette was a burlesque performer, actress and comedian.

While performing in 'Oklahoma!', Harry heard that a production of Paul Osborne's play 'Innocent Voyage' required child actors.

Taking his sons to auditions, they got the part and while the play had only a short run, it caught the eye of studio producers who gave the Stockwell brothers a contract at MGM.

His first film role was a minor part in Tay Garnett's 1945 romantic drama 'The Valley of Decision' with Greer Garson and Gregory Peck.

George Sidney, however, gave him a more substantial role as Donald, the Navy obsessed nephew of Kathryn Grayson's Susie in the musical 'Anchors Aweigh' with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra - a film most famous for Kelly's dance routine with Jerry the mouse from 'Tom and Jerry' 

In Victor Saville's 1946 box office hit 'The Green Years' with Charles Coburn, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, he played an Irish Catholic orphan raised in a Scottish Presbyterian household.

It was to be the first of many orphan movie roles.

There was a brief appearance in S Sylvan Simon's 1946 comedy 'Abbott and Costello Go to Hollywood' during a chase sequence before he was cast as an English orphan called Nipper in John Waters' 'The Mighty McGurk' with Wallace Beery - a 1947 remake of the boxing melodrama 'The Champ' that drew mixed reviews but was a moderate box office success.

The offers continued to come thick and fast, with supporting roles in Arch Obler's 1947 film noir 'The Arnelo Affair' with George Murphy, Roy Rowland's 'The Romance of Rosie Ridge' with Van Johnson, Thomas Mitchell and Janet Leigh on her screen debut and playing Myrna Loy and William Powell's son in Edward Buzzell's hit crime caper 'Song of the Thin Man'.

Fox Studios cast him as Gregory Peck's son in Elia Kazan's acclaimed tale 'Gentleman's Agreement' with Dorothy McGuire, John Garfield and Celeste Holm about anti-Semitism in New York.

While Kazan's film picked up eight Oscar nominations and won three including Best Picture, Stockwell received a Special Award for Best Juvenile Actor at the 1947 Golden Globes.

He later confessed that he was not enthused by much of the work he took on as a child actor.

"I didn't enjoy acting, particularly, when I was young," he admitted.

"I thought it was a lot of work. 

"There were a few films I enjoyed. They were the comedies. They were not important films, not very successful, so I was pretty much known as the serious kid.

"I got those kind of roles and I didn't care for them very much."

There was an eye-catching role in Joseph Losey's 1948 box office flop 'The Boy with the Green Hair' with Pat O'Brien and Robert Ryan as an orphan who is ridiculed when his hair changes colour - a film that director and star Edward James Olmos would reference in his 2009 Sy-Fy Channel TV movie adventure 'Battlestar Galactica - The Plan' which Stockwell would appear in.

There would be high profile roles in Henry Hathaway's 1949 seafaring drama 'Down to the Sea in Ships' with Richard Widmark and Lionel Barrymore, as the bed ridden boy Colin in Fred M Wilcox's adaptation that year of 'The Secret Garden' with Margaret O'Brien which stuttered at the box office, as another orphan in Jacques Tourner's 1950 hit Western 'Stars in my Crown' with Joel McCrea and again as an orphan in Victor Saville's hit adaptation of Rudyard Kipling's adventure 'Kim' with Errol Flynn.

A year later, he appeared alongside Joel McCrea again in another Western, Kurt Neumann's 'Cattle Drive'.

After graduating from Alexander High School in 1952, Dean attended the University of California at Berkeley, dropping out after a year because he didn't get on with his fellow students.

Taking a few years out of acting, he returned to the profession in 1956 - guest starring in TV shows like 'NBC Matinee Theater,' CBS's 'Schlitz Playhouse of Stars,' NBC's 'The United States Steel Hour,' the channel's Western series 'Cimarron City,' and 'Wagon Train'.

Abner Biberman directed him in the 1957 CinemaScope Western 'Gun for a Coward' as the younger brother of Fred McMurray's rancher, while he had the lead role in Arthur Hiller's critically derided teen drama 'The Careless Years' which faltered at the box office. 

He picked up the first of two Best Actor awards during his career at the 1959 Cannes Film Festival for his performance in Richard Fleischer's acclaimed movie 'Compulsion,' as one of two killers who Orson Welles' lawyer battles to be spared the death penalty.

The prize was shared with his co-stars, Welles and Bradford Dillman.

In 1960, he married the actress Millie Perkins who had made her name in the title role of George Stevens' acclaimed movie of 'The Diary of Anne Frank' with Shelley Winters and Richard Beymer.

His marriage to Perkins, however, lasted just two years.

Within a year of his wedding, he was nominated for a Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama Golden Globe for his performance as Paul opposite Trevor Howard, Wendy Hiller and Mary Ure in Jack Cardiff's well received British adaptation of DH Lawrence's 'Sons and Lovers' - a film he enjoyed making.

He subsequently played the heavy drinking youngest son Edmund Tyrone in Sidney Lumet's 1962 movie of Eugene O'Neill's 'A Long Day's Journey Into the Night' with Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards - sharing the Best Actor prize at Cannes.

Stockwell would later describe making the movie as "intense and rewarding an experience as I've had".

Most of his work during this time continued to be on the small screen in episodes of shows like CBS's detective series 'Checkmate,' 'The Du Pont Show with June Allyson,' 'Alfred Hitchcock Presents,' 'The Twilight Zone' and 'The Defenders' NBC's Western series 'Outlaws,' 'The Alfred Hitchcock Hour,' 'The Dick Powell Show' and 'The Eleventh Hour' and ABC's 'Bus Stop,''Combat!' 'The Greatest Show on Earth' and 'Burke's Law'.

John Guillermin directed him in the well received 1965 French American drama 'Rapture,' with Melvyn Douglas in which he played an escaped convict sheltered by a family in the French countryside.

In 1965, however, Stockwell stepped away from acting and embraced the hippie counterculture instead, becoming friends with folk rock icon Neil Young, fellow former child actor Russ Tamlyn and the visual artists Wallace Berman and George Herms.

He later admitted he spent his time experimenting with drugs and attending love-ins and insisted he had no regrets.

His second return to acting came in a supporting role as former member of a band in Richard Rush's 1968 counterculture movie, 'Psych Out' with Jack Nicholson, Susan Strasberg and Bruce Dern.

Even though Nicholson had the more substantial role, Stockwell was given higher billing in the posters - such was his name recognition and their respective stock with audiences at the time.

There was an appearance in 1968 on the BBC's 'Twenty Minute Theatre' in Robert Rudelson's 'Before Breakfast' with Lelia Goldoni, Rudolph Walker and David Stockton, as well as ABC's 'The FBI' and NBC's Western series 'Bonanza'.

There was a major role in the Roger Corman-produced, Daniel Haller- directed supernatural horror movie 'The Dunwich Horror' with Sandra Dee and Ed Begley which was a minor hit in 1970.

Dennis Hopper gave him an eye catching role in 1971 in his critically acclaimed but commercially unsuccessful film industry tale 'The Last Movie' whose cast included Hopper, Stella Garcia, Samuel Fuller, Kris Kristofferson, Toni Basil and Russ Tamlyn.

In many ways, 'The Last Movie' was ahead of its time and Stockwell would later enthuse Hopper was a visionary director.

TV continued to provide a steady stream of income throughout the decade with appearances in shows like CBS's 'Mannix,' 'Cannon' and 'Simon & Simon,' NBC's 'Night Gallery,' 'Columbo,' Police Story' 'McCloud' and 'The A Team,'  ITV's 'Orson Welles Great Mysteries' and 'Tales of the Unexpected' ABC's 'The Streets of San Francisco' 'Hart to Hart' and another appearance on 'The FBI'.

He took the lead roles in TV movies like CBS's 'Paper Man' in 1971 with Stefanie Powers in which he played a computer geek and ABC's 'The Falling of Raymond' with Jane Wyman, Murray Hamilton and Dana Andrews in which he played a psychiatric patient.

In Sutton Roley's 1972 film 'The Loners,' he played a biker pursued by the authorities after accidentally killing a cop but the movie was lambasted by critics who described it as a mess.

Stockwell recovered somewhat in Milton Moses Ginsberg's satirical horror movie 'The Werewolf of Washington' a year later, in which he played a White House press secretary who is also a werewolf.

A pointed satire of Washington politics in the era of President Nixon, it has a cult status.

Michael Winner directed him in 'Won Ton Ton, The Dog That Saved Hollywood' - a 1976 star studded spoof of the Rin Tin Tin movies with Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Teri Garr, Art Carney, Phil Silvers, Virginia Mayo and Victor Mature that was battered by critics and faded at the box office..

He joined Dennis Hopper and Taryn Power in Henry Jaglom's 1976 'Tracks' - a tale about a returning soldier from Vietnam accompanying the body of a dead friend on a journey home by train.

In Sidney Hayers' action film 'One Away' with Patrick Mower and Elka Sommer, Stockwell was in another motorcycle manhunt role.

A 1976 drama 'Citizen Soldier,' directed by Michael Elsey, in which Stockwell played a suicidal Vietnam vet who finds a whole new lease of life when he gets involved in a relationship with Toni Basil's actress, found new audiences thanks to video in 1984 and 1990.

Stockwell played a killer being pursued by OJ Simpson and Elizabeth Montgomery's detectives in Richard C Sarafian's well received 1977 CBS TV movie 'A Killing Affair'.

He joined Ronee Blakely and Scott Glenn in Albert Band's 1979 Western 'She Came To The Valley' which did not set the box office on fire and in 1982 appeared in Richard Brooks' comedy thriller 'Wrong is Right' with Sean Connery, Katharine Ross, Leslie Nielsen, Ron Moody and Robert Conrad which dealt with declining media standards but didn't attract audiences.

In 1981, Stockwell married for a second time. His bride was Joy Marchenko, a textiles expert who divided time between the US and Morocco.

A year later, he and his old pal Neil Young co-directed the critically derided 'Human Highway,' a post nuclear explosion adventure which received a limited release and whose cast included the directors, as well as Dennis Hopper, Russ Tamlyn, Sally Kirkland and Devo.

Stockwell became disillusioned with his career in 1983 and moved to Taos in New Mexico turning to real estate to generate an income and pay his bills.

He became a father when Joy gave birth to a son, Astin in 1983. 

German director Wim Wenders, however, talked him into playing the brother of Harry Dean Stanton's recluse Travis in the achingly beautiful, Sam Shepard scripted, Palme d'Or winning movie 'Paris, Texas' in 1984 with Nastassja Kinski.

Now back on Hollywood's radar, Stockwell carved out a career as a character actor, working with the movie industry's maverick directors.

1984 was the year he also teamed up with David Lynch, appearing as Doctor Wellington Yueh in his misguided adaptation of Frank Herbert's influential epic sci-fi novel 'Dune'.

Stockwell's career went into overdrive between 1985 and 1988.

His next project was William Friedkin's 1985 neo-noir 'To Live and Die in LA' with William Petersen, John Turturro and Willem Dafoe in which he memorably played an attorney.

He was a District Attorney in Matthew Robbins' drama 'The Legend of Billie Jean' with Helen Slater, Keith Gordon, Christian Slater and Peter Coyote which drew mixed reviews.

His daughter Sophia was born in 1985.

After appearing in an episode of ABC's 'Miami Vice,' Stockwell landed one of his most memorable roles as Ben in David Lynch's creepy neo-noir thriller 'Blue Velvet' with Kyle McLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, Laura Dern and Dennis Hopper, in which he lip synched to Roy Orbison's 'In Dreams'.

After a guest appearance in CBS's 'Murder, She Wrote,' he portrayed an Army company commander in Francis Coppola's 1987 military drama 'Gardens of Stone' with James Caan, Anjelica Huston, DB Sweeney, James Earl Jones and Mary Stuart Masteson which got a mixed critical reception.

He played a gun club owner for Tony Scott in the hit sequel 'Beverly Hills Cop 2' with Eddie Murphy, Judge Reinhold, Jürgen Prochnow, Paul Reiser and Brigitte Nielsen. 

There was an ill advised appearance with Carrie Fisher in Brian Hannant's 1987 Australian science fiction movie 'The Time Guardian' which tanked with audiences and critics.

An action role materialised in John G Thomas's B movie 'Banzai Runner' with John Shepherd and Billy Drago and he portrayed a detective in John Lafia's 1988 crime film 'The Blue Iguana' with Dylan McDermott, Jessica Harper and James Russo which was screened out of competition at the Cannes Film Festival.

Stockwell finally received Academy Awards recognition in 1988 when he was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category for his performance as a Mafia boss in Jonathan Demme's quirky arthouse hit comedy 'Married to the Mob' with Michelle Pfeiffer, Matthew Modine, Mercedes Ruehl and Alec Baldwin.

He made a well received appearance as Howard Hughes on Francis Coppola's respected car industry movie 'Tucker: The Man and His Dream' with Jeff Bridges, Martin Landau, Joan Allen, Elias Koteas and Frederic Forrest.

In Martin Lavut's Canadian comedy 'Palais Royale' (or 'Smokescreen'), he was another Mobster, joining Kim Cattrall among the cast - although the humour didn't really travel well outside of Toronto.

There was a Brazilian film 'The Long Haul' in 1988 with director Paulo Thiago and a cast led by Carlos Alberto Riccelli and Gloria Pires.

After an appearance in another 'Twilight Zone' reboot, he turned up as another detective in Mitchell Gabourie's Canadian action film 'Buying Time' alongside Jeff Schultz, Laura Cruikshank, Page Fletcher and Leslie Toth - a straight to video release if there ever was one.

In Richard Martini's comedy 'Limit Up' with Nancy Allen and Ray Charles, he played a ruthless Chicago commodities broker in a film that received mixed reviews and didn't really make much of a dent at the box office.

Going back to the small screen, Stockwell picked up a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actor in 1990 for his beloved role as Admiral Al Calavicci on the popular NBC time travelling sci-fi series 'Quantum Leap' with Scott Bakula.

He would be nominated a further two times at the Golden Globes for the role and also four times at the Primetime Emmys in the Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series category between 1990 and 1993, going away empty handed at each ceremony.

Dennis Hopper directed him again in the 1990 romantic action thriller 'Crossfire' which the director starred in alongside Jodie Foster, Fred Ward, John Turturro and Vincent Price.

Playing another lawyer, the film, which boasted cameos from Bob Dylan, Joe Pesci, Catherine Keener and Charlie Sheen, was disowned by Hopper before its release who insisted it be credited to "Alan Smithee" and it received a critical pasting.

He joined Joaquim de Almeida, Kris Kristofferson, Angela Molina and Victoria Abril in Chilean director Miguel Littin's movie 'Sandino' about the Nicaraguan revolutionary Augusto Cesar Sandino which was released in an edited version in cinemas internationally after originally airing in Spain and Nicaragua as a television miniseries.

A committed environmentalist, he campaigned for the Democrats in the 1992 election.

In Robert Altman's critically lauded, cameo heavy, 1992 Hollywood satire 'The Player' with Tim Robbins, Greta Scaachi, Peter Gallagher and Whoopi Goldberg, Stockwell memorably played a producer hawking a ropey script with Richard E Grant around studios with a ridiculous pitch.

There were appearances too in TV movies like NBC's Western 'Bonanza: The Return' in 1993, Mimi Leder's thriller 'The Innocent' with Kelsey Grammar, Fox's biopic 'Madonna: Innocence Lost' in which he played the pop star's father and as a mystery writer in the ABC miniseries of Stephen King's 'The Langoliers' with Patricia Wettig, David Morse and Frankie Faison.

Dennis Hopper directed him again in the 1994 comedy 'Chasers' with Tom Berenger, Erika Eleniak and William McNamara which struggled to draw audiences after mixed reviews.

When 'Quantum Leap' ended its run, an attempt to carve out a new regular TV role in a series 'Street Gear' about an African American doctor in Seattle with Merlin Santana, Sheryl Lee Ralph and Ruby Dee floundered, as it was axed after 13 episodes.

He turned up in episodes of the Australian drama 'The Man from Snowy River' on the Nine network, UPN's sci-fi series 'Nowhere Man,' ABC's comedy drama 'The Commish' and 'Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman,' and its sitcom 'The Drew Carey Show,' CBS's sitcoms 'Can't Hurry Love' and 'Ink' and its medical drama 'Chicago Hope'.

There was an appearance in Ellen De Generes' 1996 black comedy flop 'Mr Wrong' which was directed by Nick Castle and co-starred Bill Pullman, Joan Plowright and Joan Cusack.

Other big and small screen appearances during this era included the Lyndon Chubbuck directed 1996 erotic thriller 'Naked Souls' with Pamela Anderson, Brian Krause and David Warner, Jon Purdy's 'Unabomber: The True Story' for the USA Network, Bryan Spicer's film adaptation of the sitcom 'McHale's Navy' with Tom Arnold, Debra Messing, Tim Curry and Ernest Borgnine which was torpedoed by critics and sank at the box office, Wolfgang Petersen's 1997 action hit 'Air Force One' with Harrison Ford, Gary Oldman and Glenn Close in which he played the Defense Secretary and as a judge in Francis Coppola's popular legal drama 'The Rainmaker' with Matt Damon, Danny de Vito, Jon Voight, Mickey Rourke and Claire Danes.

There was a regular role in NBC's sitcom 'The Tony Danza Show' but it was pulled after 14 episodes.

He joined Alison Pill, Michael Cera and Kevin Whatley in a 1999 TV movie of 'What Katy Did'.

Stockwell popped up in Ellory Elkayem's ho hum sci-fi horror movie 'They Nest' with John Savage, Thomas Calabro and Kristen Dalton but lent his voice to the role of Tim Drake in Warner Bros' animated feature 'Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker' with Kevin Conroy, Mark Hamill, Angie Harmon and Henry Rollins.

Francis Coppola's son Roman directed him in the 2001 comedy drama 'CQ' - a well received, camp, indie affair with Jeremy Davies, Gerard Depardieu, Giancarlo Giannini, Jason Schwartzman and Billy Zane.

Sergey Bodrov directed him, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Lesley Ann Warren and Vladimir Mashkov in the 2001 crime film 'The Quickie' and he played a US Major General in Gregor Jordan's black comedy 'Buffalo Soldiers' with Joaquin Phoenix, Ed Harris, Anna Paquin and Scott Glenn, set in West Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In Jonathan Demme's 2004 remake of 'The Manchurian Candidate' with Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Jon Voight, Jeffrey Wright and Meryl Street, Stockwell gave a well received performance as an executive in the multinational Manchurian Global.

There were guest appearances in the CBS legal drama 'First Monday' and military legal series 'JAG,' Showtime's 'Star Gate SG-1,' with Dennis Hopper and Eric Roberts on the Statz series of Paul Haggis' Oscar winning drama 'Crash' and UPN's 'Star Trek: Enterprise' which reunited him with Scott Bakula.

In 2004, his marriage to Joy Marchenko ended.

In the new millennium, Stockwell honed his skills as a sculptor and artist, staging an exhibition of his work in Taos in 2009 where he remained a resident after the breakdown of his second marriage.

In 1976, he had previously designed the cover of Neil Young's LP 'American Stars and Bars'.

There was a recurring role as John Cavil in the Sy-Fy Channel's acclaimed reboot of 'Battlestar Galactica'.

He also guested in Fox's acclaimed single camera comedy 'Enlisted' in 2014.

In 2015, he is understood to have had a stroke, although this was not publicly revealed until two years later by his ex-wife Joy.

By then, he had effectively retired from acting.

His last screen appearance was a supporting role in Daniel Noah's poorly received indie drama about an elderly jazz musician, 'Max Rose' starring Jerry Lewis, Claire Bloom, Illeana Douglas and Kevin Pollak.

Stockwell openly admitted at times to struggling with his choice of career and particularly with starting in acting at such an early age.

But he never lost his enthusiasm for travel and experiencing other cultures in his career and private life.

The journey he took cinemagoers on was often a wild ride.

But in moving from inside Hollywood to its fringes, he left a rich body of work that will not fade easily.

(Dean Stockwell passed away at the age of 85 on November 7, 2021)