Saturnine face, low gaze, furrowed forehead and thick eyebrows: Dean Stockwell was a safe bet to inoculate his dose of sleazy in any scene – with as a probable climax his lyric coming out of nowhere from nowhere.In Dreams by Roy Orbison in the Blue Velvet (1986) by David Lynch. Gangster diva palot and made up, he made Dennis Hopper melt there. This outstanding supporting role of the 80s and 90s had also appeared with Wim Wenders or during the five seasons of the series Code Quantum (1989-1993), tree hiding the forest of a long Hollywood career, started at the age of 9. For he who embodied the son of a demon in Horror at will (1970, lukewarm adaptation by Lovecraft) was the face of an angel child actor, propelled by his parents themselves comedians (in the post-family synchro department, not necessarily far from Lynch, his father Harry was the voice of Prince Charming in the Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs from Disney in 1937).
make yourself cry
Dean Stockwell is taken under contract by MGM and notably begins alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in the musical Layover in Hollywood (1945). Little Dean’s specialty is tears: his ritual question before shooting a film was “Do I have to cry there?” and it often is. He doesn’t like it, or really the job. On the invisible wall (1947) by Elia Kazan, the filmmaker uses the Actors Studio method to bring tears to young Stockwell. “Think of a dying puppy,” he said to him. The child prefers, once the filmmaker has his back turned, to irritate his eyes to make himself cry. His most notable role during this period was that of green haired boy (1948) by Joseph Losey, a parable on racism and intolerance where Stockwell therefore has green hair – not a dye, but an expensive wig made with the hair of French women. It is one of the rare positive experiences of young Stockwell, especially because he has the impression of making an important film.
He took a break in 1952 to concentrate on his studies, left Berkeley University following a year because he was unhappy, escaped military service and the Korean War (he took drugs before passing the medical examination) and vagabonds over seasonal jobs (collecting fruit, planting railway tracks). He ended up resuming filming for the small and big screen relentlessly, including the greatness of forgiveness (1961), anti-militarist episode of the Fourth Dimension and among the most personal of its creator Rod Serling. He plays a sociopathic assassin in evil genius (1959) by Richard Fleischer, in competition at Cannes and collected an interpretation prize shared with Orson Welles.
Hologram
After a break in the mid-60s to immerse himself in the counter-culture (sex, meditation and drugs), notably alongside Neil Young, Stockwell returns to work with as his most salient film The Last Movie (1971) by Dennis Hopper where he plays another kind of “child”: Billy the Kid. His first meeting with David Lynch was lynchian as hell, just before joining the cast of Dune (1984) : “I call him on the phone and the first thing he says to me is ‘I’d like to apologize if I behaved strangely the very first time we saw each other but I thought you were dead. ”» : Lynch had confused him with another deceased child actor. For Paris, Texas (1984) by Wenders, Stockwell was hired thanks to his friend Harry Dean Stanton, convinced that the actor might play his brother. Seeing the rushes, Stockwell cries – this time, for real -, convinced that the film, future palme d’or, will be a disaster (“Harry told me we looked like prisoners of war in the pictures”). Hollywood offers him recognition with his only Oscar nomination, as a supporting role in the crime comedy Widow but not too much (1988) by Jonathan Demme. His favorite role, according to him, as a suave mobster a little too clingy towards Michelle Pfeiffer. Then, it will be mainly SF on TV (Stargate SG-1, Battlestar Galactica), especially with Code Quantum : he composed a libidinous, sarcastic soldier, with flashy waistcoats and an eternal cigar (which he also wore in life), best friend and guide of the hero who leaps from era to era and to whom he appeared like a hologram. Dean Stockwell passed away in his sleep on Sunday at the age of 85. In Dreams, we hope so.
