Dean Stockwell Has Died At The Age Of 85
This is one of those memorial posts that could use some Quantum Leap-style time jumping to cover everything in the great Dean Stockwell’s career. Because the man was in everything, worked with everyone, appeared in work from almost every decade, literally started acting when televisions were still broadcast in black and white. And it is being reported that Dean Stockwell died on Sunday, at the age of 85.
Variety confirmed the news, and Deadline says that Dean “died peacefully at home” on Sunday of natural causes. Dean was married and divorced twice, and leaves behind two adult children, Austin and Sophia Stockwell.
Many industry obituaries start with, “They left their small town and headed to Hollywood with but a dream and a $20 bill,” but not Dean Stockwell. Dean was a child star who was born into an already successful, famous acting family. Dean made his Broadway debut at 7. That was followed by appearances in Anchors Aweigh, Gentleman’s Agreement, Compulsion, and Long Day’s Journey Into Night. On television, he appeared in everything, which might be because back in the 1950s there were only three television channels and like, 20 shows. But still, he was on them. Wagon Train, The Twilight Zone, Bonanza, Mannix, and Dr. Kildare. But of course, a whole lot of people know Dean Stockwell from the Dean Stockwell glory years, the 1980s and 1990s. Dean appeared in Beverly Hills Cop II, Paris, Texas, To Live and Die in L.A., Married to the Mob (any of those would be a banger of a double bill movie night). He also worked with David Lynch twice, first in Dune, then in Blue Velvet.
But many people know Dean Stockwell from NBC’s Quantum Leap, a show which honestly, looking back, had way too much hot older man energy in it for my juvenile brain to process. Dean starred as the womanizing cigar-smoking sometime-hologram Real Admiral Upper Half Albert Calavicci, opposite Scott Bakula’s Dr. Sam Beckett. Dean received three Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe nominations for Quantum Leap, winning one in 1990, and was nominated for four Primetime Emmys for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Drama Series in four consecutive years from 1990 to 1993. He won two Best Actor awards at the Cannes Film Festival (for Compulsion, and Long Day’s Journey into Night), and was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his role in Married to the Mob. Scott Bakula paid tribute to his former co-star on Instagram, who he called a “dear friend and mentor.”
I will forever be grateful for Dean Stockwell in Blue Velvet because Dean’s performance as the creepily charismatic Ben lip-syncing “In Dreams” into a trouble work light always serves as a nice little break from the 100% weirdness going on in that movie. This is insane because, in any other movie, a character that is giving you James Hurley from Twin Peaks as Buster Poindexter should be the weirdest part about it. I truly hope he was handed a work light microphone upon entering the afterlife’s cocktail hour.
Pic: NBC