DEAN STOCKWELL 

        Dean Stockwell, who died recently at 85, had one of the most interesting film careers I have encountered. I’ll begin with his big hits.

Stockwell earned his lone Oscar nomination as Tony “The Tiger” Russo in Married to the Mob (1988). He lost to Kevin Kline for A Fish Called Wanda. Stockwell is comically menacing as the crime boss putting the moves on Angela de Marco (Michelle Pfeiffer). Angela is married to gangster Frank de Marco (Alec Baldwin). She is working undercover against the mob, and wants out. Her efforts are sometimes funny, sometimes sort of scary. 

Dean Stockwell portrays Walt Henderson in the underrated Paris, Texas (1984). He is the brother to Travis Henderson (Harry Dean Stanton) who wanders into town from the desert, not speaking, and with only a paper with a phone number- his brother’s. Walt then comes from LA to rescue Travis who he has not been in contact with for over four years. They begin a journey to discover what happened in the missing years. Many critics feel this movie, and particularly Stanton, should have been nominated for Oscar. Well, they were not, but it is in the Criterion Collection.

To Live And Die In LA (1985) is a terrific movie about crooked police and random acts of thuggery. It has one of the best chase scenes ever filmed! Dean Stockwell has a small part as the attorney of one of the bad guys. The story is too complicated to reel out here. 

To properly chronicle Dean Stockwell’s career, we have to go back to: 1945! Yes, he was a charming child star that Hollywood couldn’t get enough of until his voice changed. He has good parts in The Valley of Decision (1945) as Paulie, Gentlemen’s Agreement (1947) as Tommy Green, The Boy With Green Hair (1948) as Peter, The Secret Garden (1949) as Colin Craven, and Kim (1950) as the title character. Every one of these is a very good film and Stockwell is excellent in all of them. 

After these he sort of disappears for a while, but does pop back up as Judd Steiner, one of the two boys accused of murder in Compulsion (1959). This is a very good film about the famous Leopold-Loeb trial. And though all the names are changed, it is quite obviously based on the murder trial. It features the iconic Orson Welles as Jonathan Wilk, thinly disguised as storied attorney Clarence Darrow. 

Then Dean Stockwell vanishes into hippiedom, TV shows and mediocre films during the 60's and 70's until he reappears in the mid 80's. After his one Oscar nomination, he again vanishes into the ether of TV and bad movies.

All of the movies in this article are available on DVD. The early ones are fine for all ages. The later ones are for grown-ups.