Actor Dean Stockwell, known for his roles in Quantum Leap and Blue Velvet, has died. Born Robert Dean Stockwell, the Academy Award nominee had multiple careers in acting. At age 7, he was working alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly in Anchors Away.
By the time Dean was 11, Stockwell had a star-making role in the 1948 antiwar film The Boy With Green Hair. The movie turned Stockwell into something of a star, and he felt ostracized.
"Wherever I went, I got treated as something different," Stockwell told WHYY's Fresh Air in 1988. "I didn't feel marked for something special.
I felt I was being treated as something special then, and I didn't like it and, I wanted to get out of it." After he graduated high school at age 16, Stockwell changed his name and left Hollywood.
Stockwell nearly changed careers altogether in the '80s. He got his real estate license in New Mexico and ran an ad for himself in Variety. Stockwell was perhaps best known for his role as "Admiral Al Calavicci" on the sci-fi television series Quantum Leap, which ran for five seasons.
Dean's wife Joy Stockwell, and their two children, Austin Stockwell and, Sophie Stockwell took care of him.
