Paula:

(voice-over as various clips are shown) For our Friday at home visit today, we spent some time with someone who's been a movie actor for 45 of his 54 years.  This morning we're at home with Dean Stockwell.

He started out as one of MGM's stable of child stars, in films like Gentleman's Agreement with Gregory Peck, Kim with Errol Flynn, and perhaps his most memorable role in a wartime allegory The Boy With Green Hair.  In his teens, Stockwell abandoned show business for several years, but later he returned in such award-winning roles as the troubled son in Eugene O'Neill's Long Day's Journey Into Night.  Later, after yet another hiatus and another return to acting, Stockwell became a true character actor.  You'll remember him as a real weirdo in Blue Velvet, as Howard Hughes in Tucker, and as an off-center mobster in Married to the Mob.

Now Dean Stockwell fans get a weekly dose of him in the NBC time travel series, Quantum Leap.  The soundstage of Quantum Leap is a second home for Stockwell these days, and that's where I visited with him recently.

Good morning, Dean.  How nice of you to get up in the middle of the night to join us.

Dean:

(Dean is shown, via Satellite, standing in the middle of an empty soundstage, coffee cup in hand)  Good morning, Paula.

Paula:

You look pretty comfortable standing there.  I guess that after 45 years in the business, soundstages are familiar territory to you.

Dean:

Yeah, it's like looking inside the womb.  (Both laugh)  Very comfortable.

Paula:

We don't get that opportunity very often.  Why don't we walk inside the womb, as it were, and take a little peek where you work?

Dean:

Sure, okay.  This is, uh, here we'll go in through here.  It says 'Hot Set' there, you see, that means we're not through shooting in this set.

Paula:

It's the beads that I like.  Very nice.

Dean:

Like the beads?  They make a nice sound effect.  (Rattles strands of hanging beads as he goes through doorway].

(Now stands next to a bar in another set)  Um, this is a set for Quantum Leap.  A little story set in 1969.  Bar here.  They had a little altercation with the bad guys.  Scott Bakula, who plays Sam in here, dukes them out.

Paula:

Is this supposed to be a seedy bar?

Dean:

A little bit of seedy bar, and a Sixties bar.  Some of the bars in the Sixties were seedy.  And, uh . . . .

Paula:

Most of us behaved pretty badly during the Sixties.

Dean:

No, I wouldn't say most of us . . . I think a lot of people behaved very beautifully in the Sixties.

Paula:

Really?

Dean:

I loved the Sixties, yeah, myself.

Paula:

Tell me about your new series.  You were part of what they call the Fraternity of Misfits of Hollywood.  Are you surprised to find yourself in a mainstream television series?

Dean:

I am.  I'm shocked when I think about what I'm doing now on a network television show.  The number one network, by the way, and the fact that every Wednesday at ten o'clock some 17 to 19 million people watch this show, it's staggering to me.  If I was considered to be in some kind of minority in the past, as you say, the Hollywood Misfits, it's really shocking that now all of a sudden I'm accepted on this level.

Paula:

I don't want people to get the wrong impression about the Fraternity of Misfits.  Why don't you tell us a little bit about the characters you played, and why you were characterized in that way?

Dean:

Uh, well, I just always had a strange relationship with the business.  It wasn't something that I created, but I was thought of as somewhere over there, as being a little bit different.  And in those years I didn't do a lot of publicity, and I didn't make myself accessible and available.  So people couldn't figure me out.  I think that's what it was.  And then I hung out with my friend Dennis Hopper.  And the both of us were thought of as a little bit strange, so I think that's where that label came from.

Paula:

So now you've taken a quantum leap into the mainstream.  What's that like?

Dean:

A quantum leap into the mainstream.  It's great.  And I love doing Quantum Leap.  We have an entirely new look and new story and new situation every week.  In other words, we don't have a base set like a police station or an operating room, or even a legal room every week.  We have entirely new sets, new looks.  The set decorators come in and they have to make sure everything looks Sixties just right, or the next week it's Fifties, or then it's '58, or then it's '70, or '81.  It makes it very interesting for everybody involved in the show, and I'm sure for the audiences, too.

Paula:

Now that you've been renewed, are you able to look even further down the road than that, or is that a tough thing to do at this time?

Dean:

Well, in that we've been renewed, we sort of get the feeling we have a good shot at going on beyond that.

Paula:

So . . . .

Dean:

That's the way we feel.  So I wouldn't mind doing this show for the next three, four, or five years.

Paula:

Any film opportunities in the hopper that you're looking at right now?

Dean:

There's some in the hopper, but they're not popping out of the hopper quite yet, so I can't really discuss them.  But I want to try a find a film, or two if possible, for this hiatus period leading up to July.

Paula:

Thank you, Dean.  When we come back we're going to take a peek at another place where you spend a fair amount of your day in.

Dean:

A fair amount of my time.

Paula:

Thank you.  CBS This Morning continues right after this.

And we continue our visit now with Dean Stockwell, who's going to show us his home away from home.  Don't leave home without it.  What is that there, Dean?

Dean:

(Walking across a parking lot to a motor home, still holding his coffee cup)  This here?  This is an almost vintage motor home . . . that belongs to me.  And I use it as a dressing room here on Quantum Leap.  All of the . . . most of the people that do characters on series have a motor home for a dressing room, and I have my own, and I rent it to Universal.  Wanna go inside?

Paula:

Oh, we'd love to.  You do the walking, we'll do the watching.

Dean:

(Inside motor home, Dean bends down and picks up a brochure off the floor.  He holds it toward the camera)  Oh, somebody dropped this.  Nice thing.  Personal guide to help the planet.  (Sets brochure down on counter.)  Okay, here we are.

Paula:

Let's help the planet out later.  But first of all, why don't you show me some of the beautiful pictures you've got there?

Dean:

Well, I've got this kind of personalized.  Uh, there's a lovely picture up here of my family.  And that's who I'm doing my work for.  My wife Joy and my beautiful kids.  The king of boys, Austin, on the right there, before he had his first haircut.  And the little flower, Sophia, that he's holding.  (Photo looks to be taken around 1986.)

Paula:

Aww.

Dean:

Those are my beauties.  This is a piece of artwork by Sophia, that I'm especially fond of.  Skipping rope.  (Points to a picture from a Coloring Book.)  And there's a sample of Austin's work over here too, his beautiful sun with rainbow and trees and flowers and stuff.  (Points to a child's painting.)

Paula:

My mother was a great collector like that, saving everything we ever did from age one on.  Is this something new to your life?  Collecting?

Dean:

Well, yeah.  The children are something new to my life.  Um, and also because of the children now, I collect and save everything to do with my career, which I never used to do.  I didn't see any use for it, but now I want to save everything for them, even the tape of this interview, Paula.

Paula:

Oh, terrific.  We love to hear that.  Now, you came into Fatherhood fairly late in life.  How are you enjoying it?

Dean:

Fairly late, but not too late.  And it's undoubtedly the greatest experience of my life.

Paula:

Are you able to spend much time with your family now?

Dean:

Yeah.  One of the reasons that I wanted to do a series and explore the possibility of doing a series was because most of the films that we do in this day and age are done on locations, in a lot of times in far-flung places.  And that requires me to be away from them for long periods of time, because my wife doesn't fly with them.  So I figured if I did a series I can see them in the evenings and the mornings and on weekends, and I'm very happy with that.  I don't see them every evening or every morning because sometimes I'm up before them and get home after they're asleep, but at least I'm there, and they know I'm going to be there.

Paula:

Oh, that's nice.  I know you say you're a great saver of things now.  Obviously your kids have seen your Golden Globe award that you won for Married to the Mob.

Dean:

Oh, my Golden Globe . . . did you see this here?  (Picks up award from countertop.)

Paula:

Well, I saw a peek of something that looked vaguely familiar.

Dean:

Well, the Golden Globe award that I got . . . not this one . . . was for Quantum Leap, not for Married to the Mob.  I got an Academy Award nomination for Married to the Mob, but didn't lock in and get the award.  But I got a Golden Globe this year for supporting actor in a series, for Quantum Leap.  And while I was there at the ceremony I mentioned to Scott Bakula, my co-star, that I had won one before in 1948 and had misplaced it over the years.  And for my birthday this year he went to the Golden Globe people and got them to reissue one, and presented it to me as a big surprise.  He got my mother to come down and give it to me.

Paula:

Well, that's great.

Dean:

So that's what this is.  In 1948, a film called Gentleman's Agreement.

Paula:

Didn't mean to diminish your award there.  You've won so many, they're easily mixed up.

Dean:

Ahh!  (Makes a gesture like 'get out of here!' and laughs.)

Paula:

So what are some of your biggest concerns now?  Obviously, many of us who have become parents have a very different world view than before we became parents.  How has that changed you?

Dean:

Well, uh, if I had been born at an earlier time and had children, I just would simply enjoy it and, you know, try to keep them away from going under the shed where there might be a snake or something, and have worries about their health if they caught the measles, and I think it would be fairly simple that way.  But now it's not simple any more, we've got so many problems with the environment, and both my wife and I are active in trying to do something about it.  And that's my main concern.

Paula:

And what are you trying to do?

Dean:

Well, we're trying to do a lot in a lot of areas.  Right now we're focusing in on one, because unless you focus in on an area, it gets too much like a shotgun effect, and diffuse, so we're focusing on a problem that I don't think is getting enough attention, and that's the problem with the ozone layer.  And what we're trying to do, is not only to increase awareness of the problem and the gravity of the problem, but take it to that step where you can talk to people and say 'here's something you can do about it.'  Like, you could tell people 'you can recycle' and that helps the overall thing, and it's the first baby step toward really helping the environment.  But with the ozone hole, a lot of people don't know what they can do or how they can contribute.

Paula:

Are you frustrated by the fact that you can only take baby steps with this, at this juncture?

Dean:

Uh, yes.  I'm very frustrated by the whole affair.  But, still, you have to take one step at a time.  And one step that can be taken because the ozone layer protects us from these ultra-violet radiations from the sun and causes things like skin cancer.  I don't want my kids to have skin cancer.  Also, it will increasingly affect the life in the ocean starting predominantly with plankton, which is the food for most of the life in the ocean.  And this will eventually lead to an enormous catastrophe worldwide.

Paula:

Thanks again for joining us this morning.

Dean:

Thank you so much, Paula.  It's been a pleasure.

Paula:

Thank you.