Dean Stockwell

Dean Stockwell is an American actor of film and television, active for over 60 years. He played Rear Admiral Albert “Al” Calavicci in the NBC television series Quantum Leap and most recently appeared in the Sci Fi Channel revival of Battlestar Galactica as Brother Cavil.

Stockwell was born Robert Dean Stockwell in North Hollywood, California, the younger son of Nina Olivette, an actress and dancer, and Harry Stockwell, an actor and singer. His elder brother is actor Guy Stockwell.

In 1945, he appeared in a main character role in the musical movie Anchors Aweigh alongside Frank Sinatra and Gene Kelly. Some of his other notable child roles included that of Robert Shannon in The Green Years, Gregory Peck’s son in Gentleman’s Agreement, and as Lionel Barrymore’s grandson and Richard Widmark’s protege in Down to the Sea in Ships. He also starred in the lead role of the film The Boy With Green Hair in 1948, and in a film adaptation of The Secret Garden in 1949. In 1950, he appeared in a lead role alongside Errol Flynn in Kim, the film of Rudyard Kipling’s novel of the same name.

Unlike many child actors, he continued to act past his teenage years. In 1959, Stockwell appeared in the film Compulsion, based on the famous case of Leopold and Loeb, playing Judd Steiner. Compulsion also starred Bradford Dillman and Orson Welles as the Clarence Darrow-based lawyer Jonathan Wilk. In 1961, Stockwell guest-starred in the premiere episode of ABC’s Bus Stop series, which starred Marilyn Maxwell. In 1960, he played coal miner’s son Paul Morel in the British film Sons and Lovers, an American actor cast as an Englishman, working alongside Trevor Howard and Wendy Hiller. In 1962, he appeared in an adaptation of Eugene O’Neill’s play Long Day’s Journey Into Night along with Katharine Hepburn, Ralph Richardson and Jason Robards. In 1964, Stockwell guest-starred in an episode of NBC’s medical drama The Eleventh Hour.