Dean Stockwell

Born on March 5, 1936, in Los Angeles, California, Robert Dean Stockwell –his full name– had acting in his blood, being the youngest son of actors Harry and Betty Stockwell, who triumphed above all on the stage of Broadway. His brother, Guy Stockwell , also followed the path of acting. His mother played one of the leading roles in the musical “Oklahoma!” when he found out that child actors were needed for the play “Innocent Voyage” by Paul Osborne. The mother took care of taking Harry and Guy to the audition, and they were both chosen. To the very young Dean StockwellHe got a minor role, but one of the performances was attended by an MGM executive who was so impressed by his work that he offered the little boy an exclusive contract with the company.

Dean Stockwell debuted with a small role in Valley of Destiny , but garnered more attention as Kathryn Grayson ‘s nephew in Weighing Anchors . His numerous roles as a child actor include starring roles in The Green-Haired Boy and Kim from India , where he does memorable work as a British orphan posing as an Indian, opposite Errol Flynn .. He did not remember that stage with pleasure. “It seemed like too much work. I liked comedies, because I shot some unimportant titles, but dramas were more successful, so they remembered me as a serious child,” he recalled in an interview. “Also, I always asked my mom when we got a script if there were any scenes where I had to cry. I hated them, but there always were.”

In the early 1950s, Dean Stockwell took a break from acting to concentrate on his studies. He graduated from the Alexander Hamilton Institute, and later enrolled at the University of California at Berkeley. He resumed acting in 1956, when he appeared in various series, and in the western A Gun for a Coward. He caught the attention of great filmmakers, such as Sidney Lumet , who had him under his command in Long Journey Into Night , Francis Ford Coppola , with whom he filmed Gardens of Stone and Tucker, a Man and a Dream , Robert Altman , who directed him in The Hollywood game , and Wim Wenders, with whom he worked in Paris, Texas . He is best remembered for his work in David Lynch ‘s Blue Velvet , in which he had a memorable sequence in which he sang “In Dreams” by Roy Orbison.

Divorced in 1962 from Millie Perkis, also an actress, he joined Joy Marchenko, linked to the textile sector, with whom he had two children, Austin and Sophia. In 1988,  Dean Stockwell was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of mob boss Tony “the Tiger” Russo in the comedy Married Everybody . “It was my favorite job in a movie. From the beginning I knew it was a role for me, I approached it in the way I thought was right, and everything turned out very well,” he recalled.

In his last years of work, Dean Stockwell succeeded above all on television, with the series Through Time and Galactica, Fighting Star . He last appeared on film in Entertainment , directed in 2015 by Rick Alverson .