So I have recently been reviewing the film Compulsion for my A Year in Horror book and it reminded me of my love for Dean Stockwell. As a child of the 80’s my first introduction to him was through Quantum Leap, which was prominently a sci-fi show but it had a wonderful mixture of humour, romance and social commentary. Stockwell played a womanising U.S Naval Officer, who made good after a terrible start in life, growing up in an orphanage. It is weird that as a child I latched on to this character.

In one of those rare moment that instead of stifling me, my mother introduced me to Stockwell’s early films, and I mean early films. Kim, Gentleman Agreement, Secret Garden etc. But one of my favourites was the Boy with the Green Hair. A film that looks at war orphan whose grief had turned his hair green. They was something about the innocence and serious of the character who starts by being known simply as “The Boy” that captured my heart.

As I mentioned at the beginning the film that brought me here was Compulsion and that is for me his best performance, proof that he knew how to play creepy, with that all charm. A role that I believe lead Stockwell, nearly thirty years later, to Blue Velvet and the character of Ben, another infeminate male, whose creepiness is barely concealed. The power of the role is that the character is often remembered from the film despite only being in one scene. What is most interesting about that role is that David Lynch give Stockwell no character description meaning that the whole persona was created by him only, and boy did he make it memorable.

While Stockwell does serious very well, he can do lighthearted as well. Married to the Mob is one such film. A film were he was only meant to be in a supporting role, he steals the show, as Tony “The Tiger” Russo. To me, the contradictory role of henpecked Casanova was played perfectly by Stockwell. Ok, every film is not a hit, films like The Langoliers. A film that can be described as full of awful CGI, overlong and terrible conclusion. And for a great actor Stockwell’s acting in this film seems to be a mixture of Sherlock Holmes and William Shatner. Not his finest moment, but there is something still interesting enough to keep us (me) following the film.

But what makes me the happiest is when you see Stockwell back with his old pal Scott Bakula, in either Enterprise or NCIS: New Orleans. Maybe it is because this was my first introduction to Stockwell, that makes his cameos in these series special, or that these two seem to have a strong friendship that goes beyond just staring in a show together, and they work well together, even when they are not both on the same side. There are so many more films and tv series that Stockwell have been in that it would take several posts to explore them all. But all that have been mentioned are good starting points, if you have not see a Stockwell film. Stockwell is now in his 80s but I would love to see him back on the screen.