Bob:

Thanks for staying up later.  This man, Dean Stockwell, has been in and out of the television and movie business in various times of his career.  Child star in Hollywood, then he disappears for awhile, he comes back, he's left to sell real estate.  Now he comes back with a flourish with Blue Velvet and other films, and lots of projects in the works, and of course at present the NBC series Quantum Leap, for which he has won a Golden Globe.  You're flying high these days.

Dean:

Flying high and I'm feeling really happy and really grateful.

Bob:

You play a hologram.  Sort of like, a loose comparison, like Leo G. Carroll in Topper.

Dean:

I play a hologram, but a hologram is really, it's an image of light.  Like if you shot something with a motion picture camera.  It's a different type of photography.  So it's a guy in the present that is able to travel back into the past and help this other, Scott Bakula, out as a hologram that only he can see and hear.

Bob:

Bakula, for those who haven't seen the series, is caught like in a 20 year stretch of time.

Dean:

Within about 30 years of this period of his own lifetime.  It goes back to about '54, '53.  And he's lost in the past and each week he takes somebody else's place in another time, another place, and another situation.

Bob:

Does Bakula ever find himself in actual historical situations, or is it simply the setting of the time and dealing with regular people?

Dean:

Uh, we haven't really done a known historical situation, but we touch on things that were real historical things constantly.  We call them kisses with history.

Bob:

So while there aren't any specific references to actual historical figures, there are situations that are in context for the time, and have to do with sociology or history.  Becoming a black guy in the pre-Civil Rights South.

Dean:

Right.  And with like historical things swirling all around the story, which gives it a flavor.  The audience knows that, and it's mentioned in the show.  I mention it to him, that the Civil Rights Marches are going to start pretty soon.  And he's acting precipitously by going and drinking out of the wrong water fountain too soon, and he could get in trouble doing that.  And it's a rich way of presenting something.  Oblique, but rich.

(Clip from Quantum Leap is shown.)

Bob:

Museum of Broadcasting, I read just recently, decided to honor it for it's innovativeness and it's originality, but it's always a dicey proposition.  It could look good in the treatment that they send you, but it might not turn out that way.  So I guess that you probably felt a little iffy about it going in.

Dean:

A little iffy, a little bit.  You feel iffy about a movie, too, or a play or anything.  Of course, I don't do very much theater.  But I felt it had a chance because there's something in a lot of people's . . . MOST people's psyche, a fascination with the idea of 'I wish I could go back to a certain period of time.'  So I thought it had that going.  It was very well written.  And I knew it would be well produced because Don Bellisario, who's our Executive Producer and created the show, has a wonderful track record.  And he's proven out to be just an incredible Executive Producer.  Don is just, he's great.

Bob:

What appealed to you about doing a television series at this stage of your career?

Dean:

(Clasps knee, leans back briefly against side of chair)  Well, I have young kids.  I have a four year old daughter and a six year old boy, whom I adore.  And my wife doesn't fly.  So I had an opportunity to do a series, I said that would be a good idea, I can be with the children.  Because the movies, nine times out of ten, you do a movie and it's off somewhere.  Whether it's in Australia or, you know, New York or wherever it is.  And you're away from the family.  So if I could find a top quality show that I felt was really stimulating and interesting, I thought it would be a good idea.  And I found one.  I mean, we've been on for a year and people are still saying how unusual, how different, and how original the show is.  And it is!  It's great, and I'm enjoying it.

Bob:

Married to the Mob.  The role of Tony the Tiger.  Bumbling, bumbling Don.  If that's a fair way to describe him.

Dean:

(Laughs)  Oh, wow.  Well, that's my favorite part that I've ever had.

Bob:

Really?

Dean:

Yes.  And I knew it would be the minute I read it, and I really wanted it and I flew to New York here to talk to Jonathan Demme and explain to him that I couldn't read for it, because I never got anything I read for, so I didn't read for it.  And I talked to him.  I said, 'I can do this.'  And, lo and behold, I did talk him into letting me do this role.  Um, but I just knew that I could score with that part.  I knew I could do it in such a way that it would have menace to it, but also would be light and have humor to it, and some charm.  But Demme had to, in a sense, take a certain amount of risk.  He could have cast someone that had done this type of role before, who was known for this type of area of work, but he's the kind of guy that follows his instincts.  And thank God, I love him for it, he went with me.

Bob:

Now how much of that characterization did you fill in yourself?  His affection for fast food, and things like that?

Dean:

Well, a lot of that was scripted.  But I had the character as a whole from the first shot.  And Jonathan knew it, and we all knew it.  In fact, when I showed up on set they were shooting in Long Island a few days before I was to commence shooting, and I went out to visit the set, and the first day I come on the set I was wearing a suit and a hat and I was already feeling this role, and from the minute I got there they all called me Mr. Russo.

(Clip from Married to the Mob)

Bob:

You were a child actor from the age of, what?

Dean:

Uh, well, the first thing I did was here in New York on Broadway when I was six.  And then I was signed by MGM to a contract when I was seven.  And started filming the first picture I did, when I was seven.

Bob:

Was that an experience you enjoyed?

Dean:

Well, I enjoyed some of it, and a lot of it was rough.  But fortunately my mother wasn't a pushy stage mother and she was very concerned and considerate and sympathetic and looked after my interests.  It's, you know, for a kid childhood is really a time for, of course for education, but mostly for fantasy and just living with nature and imagination.  It's not for working, necessarily.  And acting is work.  You have to be there eight hours a day, and do this and do that.  That part of it wasn't easy.

Bob:

Were you treated unfairly?  You hear stories about child actors now.  Supposedly there are protections that take care of it, but . . . .

Dean:

No, I wouldn't . . . don't have a big beef about that, no.  No.

Bob:

You performed with Gene Kelly in Anchors Aweigh.  You were also in a film with Errol Flynn.  Who else?

Dean:

Uh . . . Gregory Peck.  Twice, if we're looking for the Leading Men guys.  Randolph Scott comes to mind.  Um, Pat O'Brien.  Memory's going to fail me now.  They all sort of . . . .

Bob:

When you're eight, nine, ten years old, how much are you working on an actual actor's craft, with some sort of understanding of how you're developing, and how much of that is just a natural talent that a precocious kid might have, and some of it is just to look cute and sympathetic?

Dean:

Well, um, frankly I never tried to look cute or sympathetic.  If anything, I would try to work against that.  Even if it was requested that I be that way.  Somehow, I just didn't like that.  I just tried to be honest and be myself.  And, if you call it a craft, it's a craft.  It was totally intuitive, and I still work the same way today.

(Photo montage of Dean through the years)

Bob:

Some plum roles for you in the last several years.  David Lynch's Blue Velvet is a good place to begin, in the role of Ben.

Dean:

All-American Boy.  (Laughs gently)

Bob:

Yeah.  Provided that America would be a setting where Ben would find himself the All-American Boy, with his perverse act.

Dean:

No setting for that.  Just a David Lynch setting.  (Picks thoughtfully at pant leg.)  That's obviously one of the most remarkable films that I've ever been associated with.  I think it was an amazing movie, and it's something I think you can do once in a career.  You can't make a career of doing a character like that, or characters like that.  I don't think so.  It hasn't been done yet.

Bob:

At least not and have a career that goes in other directions, like yours does.

Dean:

Right, right.

Bob:

How much of the fact that Hopper was in it, a longtime friend of yours, how much of that was part of the appeal for you?

Dean:

Well, I was cast in it before Dennis was.  So, you'll have to ask him that question.  (Smiles)  But it made it very appealing, sure.  I love Dennis and we're best buddies and it was great to work with him.

Bob:

Where did the characterization come from?  Was it . . . .

Dean:

(Points to his head.)

Bob:

Was it Lynch, though, was it Lynch saying to you 'this is something like what I want,' or was it more general, and you fill in the blanks?

Dean:

No, uh . . . he sent me the script and said 'I'd like you to do this character Ben.'  I said 'Okay.'  I read the script, blew my mind, you know, it's pretty unusual.  And there's no description of Ben in the script.  He's just there, it's his place, but there's no paragraph that says he's this or this or this or nothing.  So I just thought to myself 'what should this guy be' and that's what I came up with, and I said 'David, here's what I want to do.'  So I did the make-up, I did the wardrobe, everything.  And devised the character.  And that was, sure enough, what he wanted.

(Clip from Blue Velvet)

Bob:

Certainly some parallels, different reasons, but bottom line in terms of being away from Hollywood, very similar between you and your buddy, Dennis Hopper.

Dean:

Yep.

Bob:

Here's a guy, gone for a long time, seemingly fell off the end of the earth, and comes back with a bang.

Dean:

I know, it's amazing.  The two of us, right at the end of '89, we're on these lists as the two comebacks of the decade.  And, I mean, it's an extraordinary coincidence.  That it would happen for one person is amazing, but then for two, and they happen to be best friends and the same age (I'm two months older than Dennis), uh, it's really remarkable.

Bob:

Wasn't there a time shortly, I guess, after James Dean's death, they were thinking about doing a movie bio of him and some magazine took a poll 'who should be the guy to play James Dean,' and Dean Stockwell was the winner of the poll?

Dean:

Uh-huh.

Bob:

Was that more recent than that, or was it in the Fifties?

Dean:

No, that was in the late Fifties.  Early Sixties, late Fifties.

Bob:

If that movie had been made, think it would have been a good thing for you?

Dean:

Oh, I let it be known then that I would never do that.

Bob:

Why not?

Dean:

Well, I mean, I'm an actor myself.  Why be another actor, why play another actor?

Bob:

That simple?

Dean:

Yeah.  Hey . . . .

Bob:

Why play any other actor, or why play that actor?

Dean:

Well, certainly not a contemporary . . . you know . . . he was still warm in the grave and I mean, I just thought . . . uh-uh.

Bob:

Why, at least a couple of occasions in your life, you went away from acting for long periods of time, then came back?

Dean:

Well, the first time was right after I graduated from high school and I had been a movie star, a child star.  And as a result I had been singled out as something special, in certain areas, and I didn't appreciate that.  I just wanted to be like everybody else.  So I wanted to go and be anonymous.  And that I did, until I was 21.  And then I started back in the business, and I was fortunate and did some very good projects.  A couple of them are classics now.  Long Day's Journey, certainly, Long Day's Journey Into Night, the movie of it.  And Compulsion.  And Sons and Lovers.

But then the revolution of the Sixties came along.  And that had an enormous appeal for me and for a lot of people who dropped out, as the saying was.  And went completely against the establishment and the direction the country was going in, in the Fifties.  So I dropped out.  And I just experienced the Love-Ins and the Flower Children and the coming of rock and roll and all of that.

And it was very good for me, frankly.  And then when I went back in to try and work again, in '68, something like that, I couldn't get anything.  And I couldn't really get anything going until '82.  That's about 14 years of knocking around and . . . .  (Sigh)  it was a tough time, a lean long lean time.

Bob:

What did you do with yourself in that period of time, those 14 years?

Dean:

Well, I did some dinner theater.  Uh, occasional guest shots on television, or a role in a movie of the week.  Quite a bit of dinner theater, actually.  And that's all comedy, that was kind of fun.  I did Come Blow Your Horn in Las Vegas at the Union Plaza for four months.  Two shows a night.

Bob:

Even though it might have been kind of fun, I get the feeling that that's not what you were put on this earth to do.

Dean:

No, it wasn't.  But maybe it was at that time in my life.  Because the way it seems to be proving out right now, is that THIS was the time for me to have the best work to do, to do my best work.

Bob:

What was the re-entry point?  And what made that the right time?  What was the breakthrough?

Dean:

I don't know what made it the right time.  There's no way to say.  It's just the . . . it's like when you're gambling and you can't get a hand or you can't roll it, and all of a sudden you get hot.  Who knows why?  But things just started to fall into place.  Really, with Paris, Texas.

Bob:

How much did your confidence waver in the interim?

Dean:

My confidence in my ability as an actor never wavered.  My confidence in my ability to have a successful career certainly did.  I even . . . I gave it up at one point.  When I married my wife Joy and decided to raise a family, we moved to New Mexico, to Santa Fe, and I got a Real Estate license, which I've mentioned this before.  And I never had to use it, because right then is when things started to change.

Bob:

Is there any yardstick you use that you define at this stage, and I hate to use a word like this but for lack of a better one, you're 'hot' now, Quantum Leap is a very successful program, there have been a series of successful films of late for you, so I guess you're in a position where you can really pick and choose; is there any kind of yardstick that you can apply now to film roles?  Something you're specifically looking to do, stuff you'd reject out of hand?

Dean:

There's a lot of things I'd reject out of hand.  Violent things, and anything that advocated drug use, or environmental abuse, environmental vandalism.  I would look for things . . . I'm looking for projects that are attuned to the environmental question.  I don't know how you can make a movie that addresses the question of the ozone hole.  I wish there was.  Maybe there will be.  We're trying to find a show with a strictly environmental theme for Quantum Leap.  It's a little difficult to do, but it can be done.  But, uh, since I'm doing well, I would like to utilize that success to some degree to address the most important problem facing all of us.

Bob:

Dean Stockwell, we thank him for being with us.  Quantum Leap, Wednesday nights on NBC.  Married to the Mob and Blue Velvet at you video store and uh, I guess, it's time to say good-night.

Dean:

Good night, and take the leap.  And thank you, Bob, it's been a pleasure.

Bob:

We'll see you later.

Dean:

All right.