I watched the 1945 movie Anchors Away last night on TV. You may remember the film as a classy musical vehicle for Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Catherine Grayson and Jose Iturbi. I however think of it in terms of its forth-billed star, Dean Stockwell. Dean was a younger looking nine-year old in 1945, and that was the year my family moved to California and bought the house next door to the Stockwells. I was a big kid, a year younger than Dean, and over the next decade we spent a fair amount of time together and became pretty good friends. I haven't seen Dean in 40 years, but of course I have seen litterally hundreds of his performances.
As a kid I don't think I really understood what it must have been like for him, a very young child, to be working with people like his costars in Anchors Away, or with a galaxy of the stars of the day in other films. What incredible pressure! How difficult would that experience make it to see himself as just another guy in his future life?
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