RIP Dean Stockwell, a 70-Year Hollywood Renegade
Forced to support his family as a child star of the 1940s, Dean Stockwell embraced the counterculture of the 1960s while cutting his own path through eight decades in Hollywood.
Dean Stockwell at the New York Film Critics Awards in 1989. (Catherine McGann / Getty Images)
It’s endearing to find out that actor Russ Tamblyn (West Side Story, Twin Peaks) considered Dean Stockwell “my oldest friend,” and paid tribute to him upon Stockwell’s death on November 7, tweeting:
We met on the set of The Boy with Green Hair, stayed close till his last breath. Rest easy, brother. Give Dennis [Hopper] a hug from me when you see him on the other side.
Stockwell is chiefly remembered now for his brilliant performances later in life, in roles such as the perplexed but loving brother of Harry Dean Stanton’s wrecked antihero in Paris, Texas; as the louche, menacing, lip-syncing Ben in Blue Velvet; as would-be lady-killer mobster Tony “The Tiger” Russo in Married to the Mob; and on television, the beloved, high-living, cigar-smoking Admiral Al Calavicci in Quantum Leap.
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