Scott Marlowe

The Weight of Dean's Shadow

Scott Marlowe was never after the glamour of Hollywood's glowing marquees. Ronald DeLeo, his real name before he ever stepped onto a stage, preferred the sweat of the Actors Studio in the 1950s. There he learned that acting hurt and that the audience had to feel that pain in every close-up.

In 1954 he made his debut on the series General Electric Theater, and the press soon began comparing him to James Dean. But Marlowe didn't have that air of romantic vulnerability. His style was drier, sharper, almost dangerous by the standards of the time.

The eternal James Dean wannabe who never needed a race car.

In 1956 he appeared in The Young Guns, and that defined his career for the following decade. Studios typecast him as a rebellious young man or juvenile delinquent because his clenched jaw worked very well in black and white. And although film brought him his first major paychecks, it was television that kept him financially afloat.

But the great high point of his career came in 1961 with the film A Cold Wind in August. He played a 17-year-old boy who has an affair with an older woman. The censorship of the era caused an uproar, and the film ran into distribution problems in several states.

A Face for TV Suspense

Television was his refuge and his curse.

Throughout the sixties and seventies, Marlowe appeared in almost every major network production. He appeared in The Twilight Zone, The Outer Limits and Gunsmoke. In total, he racked up appearances in more than 400 episodes of various TV shows over the course of his career.

Marlowe was a method actor who had no problem with paycheck work. He would walk onto the set, do his job and slip home without making a fuss. That's why casting directors always called him when they needed a guy who could convey tension without saying a single word.

In 1963 he shot the episode The Borderland for the series The Outer Limits. Many critics consider it his best technical work because of the physical complexity the script demanded. But for him it was just another job on a schedule that kept filling up with supporting roles.

In the late 1960s, he tried to regain ground in film with Journey to Shiloh in 1968. He shared the cast with a young James Caan and Harrison Ford. The film did not perform at the box office as hoped, and Marlowe went back to fast-paced work on weekly series.

The Silent Years and the Final Chapter

The studio system never knew what to do with his look as he aged.

In the eighties his presence began to fade. He worked on T.J. Hooker and Falcon Crest, but the roles were increasingly brief and less dramatically demanding. He never complained about the lack of opportunities, because he understood the business as an industry of constant turnover.

In 1989 he appeared in the series Hunter, which was one of his last roles with some real visibility on the small screen. After that, he gradually stepped out of the spotlight. He focused on his private life in Los Angeles and stopped attending the industry events that bored him so much.

His last credited appearance was in 2000 in the film The Unknown. It was a minor role, almost a footnote for fans who still remembered his rebel phase in the fifties. There were no big farewells or tributes during his lifetime for an actor who always preferred craft to stardom.

He died in Los Angeles on November 6, 2001, from a circulatory failure at the age of 69.