Prolific performer whose career has come in several waves, each punctuated by a "retirement" from the screen. As a child actor under contract to MGM from 1945, Stockwell specialized in "sensitive child" roles like the title character of Joseph Losey's THE BOY WITH GREEN HAIR (1948). After five years spent traveling around the US and working at odd jobs, he matured into a a strikingly attractive, introverted young adult lead, winning acclaim as the son in SONS AND LOVERS (1960) and the Eugene O'Neill character in LONG DAY'S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT (1962).
Stockwell dropped out of acting again in the early 1960s, to embrace a hippy lifestyle, and yet again in the mid-70s, to pursue a career as a real-estate broker. He revitalized his screen career in the mid-1980s, specializing in spooky and eccentric characterizations such as the suavely perverse Ben in BLUE VELVET (1986), mafia don Tony "The Tiger" Russo in MARRIED TO THE MOB (1988) and Howard Hughes (a particularly eerie cameo) in TUCKER: THE MAN AND HIS DREAM (1988). Stockwell wrote and directed his first feature film, NEIL YOUNG: HUMAN HIGHWAY (1982).
Other notable credits include "Quantum Leap" (1989-1993, TV series), LIMIT UP (1989), THE PLAYER (1992), CHASERS (1994), "The Langoliers" (1995, TV), MR. WRONG and MIDNIGHT BLUE (both 1996), McHALE'S NAVY, AIR FORCE ONE, THE RAINMAKER and THE SHADOW MEN (all 1997), RESTRAINING ORDER, THE VENICE PROJECT, WATER DAMAGE and RITES OF PASSAGE (all 1999), THE FLUNKY (2000), CQ, THE QUICKIE, BUFFALO SOLDIERS, INFERNO and FACE TO FACE (all 2001), "JAG" (2002-04, TV series), THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE (2004), THE DEAL (2006), and "Battlestar Galactica" (2006-07, TV series).
Stockwell was married to actress Millie Perkins from 1960 to 1962.
Nominated for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role 1988: MARRIED TO THE MOB
1 nomination