Thanks to his colorful career, Dean Stockwell was everything from the titular kid in The Boy with Green Hair (1948) to the middle-aged villain who lip-synched “a candy-colored clown they call the sandman tiptoes to my room every night” in Blue Velvet (1986). Since then, Dean appeared in The Blue Iguana (1987) and Midnight Blue (1997). Obviously, he liked to be in blue movies! Actually, the late actor was in thrillers (Air Force One, The Manchurian Candidate, Song of the Thin Man); chiller dillers (The Dunwich Horror, They Nest, The Werewolf of Washington); comedies (Anchors Aweigh, Buffalo Soldiers, The Player); and dramas (Gentleman’s Agreement, The Rainmaker, To Live and Die in L.A., The Romance of Rosy Ridge). Dean was deemed Best Actor at the Cannes Film Festival for his portrayal of Edmund Tyrone in the screen adaptation of Long Day’s Journey into Night (1962). He also nabbed Golden Globe and Academy Award nominations for the romantic saga Sons and Lovers (1960) and the crime caper Married to the Mob (1988) respectively. If that’s not impressive enough, Mr. Stockwell did well on the small screen. The boob tube babe guest-starred on shows (Front Row Center, Schlitz Playhouse, Climax!, Men of Annapolis, Cimarron City, Wagon Train) in the 1950s. Yet he became a household name decades later when he acted alongside Scott Bakula on NBC’s sci-fi series Quantum Leap (1989-1993). Of course, we were leaping with lust when Dean exposed his hairy chest in Paris, Texas (1984). That deserves an ooh-la-la and a yee-haw!
