#330 Dean Cameron Unfiltered: Navigating Fame, Typecasting, and Creative Reinvention

CTS Announcer 0:01

If you're a pop culture junkie, who loves TV, film, music, comedy and other really important stuff, then you've come to the right place. Get ready and settle in for classic conversation, the best pop culture interviews in the world. That's right, we circled the globe so you don't have to. If you're ready to be the king of the water cooler, then you're ready for classic conversations with your host, Jeff Dwoskin. All right, Amy, thank

Jeff Dwoskin 0:29

you so much for that amazing introduction. You get the show going each and every week, and this week was no exception. Welcome, everybody to Episode 330 of classic conversations as always, I am your host, Jeff Dwoskin. Great to have you back for what's sure to be an 80s rific conversation with none other than superstar Dean Cameron. We're diving into his role as chainsaw in summer school skis school Rocky, fast times so much goodness coming up in just a few seconds. And in these few seconds last week, Larry Matthews was here. That's right Richie battery from the Dick Van Dyke Show. Do not miss that throwback episode so many great stories. But if you're looking for great stories, you've come to the right place. Dean Cameron is here and we're diving in right now. All right, everyone. I'm excited to introduce my next guest, writer, actor, director, star of summer school, Spencer ski school fast times, and a million other things please welcome to the show. diggin Camryn Hello. Q standing ovation. How are you?

Dean Cameron 1:42

You know, I'm never better. Never better.

Jeff Dwoskin 1:45

That's awesome. Our great, great I I've been enjoying a dean cameron movie TV festival my own as I ramped up to talk to you. So lots of goodness, Dean before you became a huge in the late 80s 90s. Like

Dean Cameron 2:06

at mental OD. Started.

Jeff Dwoskin 2:09

Illinois, Oklahoma. How did you make your way to LA? I

Dean Cameron 2:13

in Oklahoma. My parents were divorced. I lived in Oklahoma with my mom and my stepdad. And my father lived in Santa Barbara, California, and visit him every summer as a kid. And they had this great theater program summer theater called new theater and I started doing musicals and plays and stuff with Tony Edwards and Anthony Edwards and Eric Stoltz and his co Kathleen welterweight Bill Calvert, bunch of people. And so when we were in junior high school, they all were going down to LA doing commercials and TV and guest star stuff. And I wanted to be an actor and I, oh, well, if they can do it, I can do it. So I got it. When I graduated high school. I moved to LA and starved for a while and then started working. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 2:59

how you lived with Eric Stoltz. Yeah. Yeah.

Dean Cameron 3:03

Eric Stoltz, Anthony Edwards in this guy, Scott during that Mitch and I were, we all lived in this one bedroom apartment across the street from USC for several months. And then because we were supposed to have this house we were gonna move into and that never happened. And then Yan Eric, and they were became roommates for several years. And it was, you know, he was working as an actor, and I was working as an usher at the Chinese Theatre. Our other roommate was Ally Sheedy. And she was doing bad boys and war games. And, and I was making 365 an hour as an usher. But it was great because I, I realized, oh, it's it's that close. i It's possible. And I tell this story a lot. But there was a point where I realized I can either be bitter and jealous of them, or I can embrace their success and use that as inspiration. So that's why did the bitter jealousy is happening now. But you know, different.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:04

It's pretty cool that you had so many people just enough ahead of you to inspire you. Because that's quite a list of just people that you would hang out with them. And these were all free fame. So what was Eric Stoltz doing? Were you with him around the time where he did and then didn't get back to the future?

Dean Cameron 4:22

Yeah. Yeah. You can ask him about all that. I

Jeff Dwoskin 4:24

won't. I was just as a friend. I'm sure there would have been a rough it's

Dean Cameron 4:28

very complicated. And the I'm sure someday he'll lay it all out. But not what before and thinks it is.

Jeff Dwoskin 4:38

I was just curious. You brought him up. So I was like, you know, had to win early on time. So your success early on, though, as you started to get stuff, book your own gigs in the shadow of Eric and ally. Not as good, but like so facts of life. And then you landed a show with Spencer early on, right?

Dean Cameron 4:56

Yeah, that was cool. I had read for it. I read The pilot didn't get it. They cast someone else. They ended up firing him. And like eight months later, I read for it again and got the gig. It was me and Jonathan Silverman. Yeah. Jonathan Silverman, I test for that part. And I ended up booking it. Yeah, that was my first Well, I done another pilot, but I had gotten fired from it. And I done a movie and the movie was shut down. So I'd had these sort of quick fits and starts, I guess, is the close to getting a gig. But yeah, Spencer, he was great. It was good. And then Chad left the show and up, snuck it. That's

Jeff Dwoskin 5:39

got to be rough when you got a good thing going. And then one of the leads just decides I'm going to do something else. Yeah.

Dean Cameron 5:46

And you know, it all worked out. I think that show would have run for forever. We were going way up the ratings and was very popular for certain demographic, and yeah, so it all worked out. And Grant Heslov was on the show. And now he's a George Clinton's writing and producing partner, and Chad's. TV director does very well. What

Jeff Dwoskin 6:08

pilot did you get fired from since we can talk about Eric stalls? And you are here, let's say, Well,

Dean Cameron 6:16

yeah, there was a. So back in the old days, the network's would do TV movies with all of their stars. And they did this. They did this TV movie called High School, High School USA, where they got a bunch of NBC TV stars like Michael Fox and Anson McKeon and they paired them with old TV stars, like Bob Denver and an older TV stars from the 50s and 60s, and Crispin Glover, who I knew played this one character there were these two characters, Archie and someone and Crispin didn't want to do TV is oh, so the they did the they did the TV movie was wildly popular, of course, because at all these NBC TV stars, they decided to make a TV movie out of it. Crispin TV series out of it, Crispin had wanted to do a TV series. So they cast me, I worked three days on it. And this other actor do egress we were we repaired up the network, you know, I was doing something different. And Chris been sort of approximating his thing. But the network said, if you don't get Crispin in the show, you have no chance of this pilot going to series. So they should can me and Googie, a Christian $35,000 To do a guest star, which is his 1985. And he didn't have to commit to doing a series. So that's what happened. And it was funny, because I'm Christian, and we laughed about it. And I still got paid. But I also I was parking cars at the same time as parking cars isn't my job. And I got fired from that, because I didn't show up from my parking job in an interesting time. And what really sucked about it was about three weeks before I booked the gig. I had been on here for about four years. And my dad called me and said, hey, you know what, you've been out there long enough. I think it's time to go to college, I'll pay for college. And now, just around the corner, I feel that something's happening. So I booked this case, like data pilot, etc. And then I got fired. And I, my manager, I had to call with my manager and my manager was like explaining what happened. And then later that year, I booked Spencer. So it all worked out. Getting fired,

Jeff Dwoskin 8:23

though isn't I know it sounds horrible. It sounds horrible. But it's like is I've talked to a lot of folks, it's not uncommon for someone to get hired for something and then it kind of something shifts. So there's no guarantee it's hard it is to get a job. It's not even a guarantee.

Dean Cameron 8:38

Now No, it's I've been fired since then I was fired from another show. And it's always after three days. And so when I get a gig like there's something lizard brain and mean like for the first three days, I'm terrified. And then once those three days pass on good because like the movie shut down after three days, high school is high school USA, I was fired from for three days and this other Baghdad cafe, three days. So that's when they realize this is not the right person, but it's devastating. It's definitely it's humiliating, because there are all these other actors. No, you were fired. And it's not good. But it happens all the time. Can imagine

Jeff Dwoskin 9:15

it's it's horrible. It's just it's not a good feeling to be wanted and then not wanted. Yeah, it seems like it's not uncommon either. Like everyone's gonna have their eventually they're gonna all have their story. Yeah, yeah. When you are the facts of life. Was it the early vaccine? I'm trying to I timewise. Was it like with Molly Ringwald still on there? Or is it later with the core cast that we know like that was later?

Dean Cameron 9:37

Yeah, it was one of the last two. I think maybe the second the last season second,

Jeff Dwoskin 9:42

the last say okay. Just curious. And then And then before you landed your next series, which was fast times you did a movie with Mark Harmon who later go out and Kirstie Alley, I guess and Patrick, I want to ask you about Patrick is how do you say Patrick's last name. I've always loved her. Toe vibrato okay, I guys friends to this day I mean looking at like everything you've done it was like I was gonna ask it for one of you got hired was in the contract he had to hire the other one cuz you guys do a lot together did a lot right? And you wrote a movie

Dean Cameron 10:13

together. Right and Stuart Fredkin and I work together a couple of times too, right? All

Jeff Dwoskin 10:18

right. Yeah, you did that. He's YouTube thing. Oh, that was

Dean Cameron 10:22

just that was just not really a coincidence because summer school Mark Harmon knew me from from Prince of Bel Air. And the writer knew me because fast times because Amy Heckerling was supposed to direct summer school and she was she had directed fest times and anyway so it once you once you start working into this small community and because you want to work with people, you know, and that's sort of what happened. I mean, I still to read for the movie and stuff. Got it. I remember, Mark Harmon apparently talked to my agent was like, when would someone like Dean but younger my agent was like how that just dean. And then

Jeff Dwoskin 11:01

when a dean camera and type a young

Dean Cameron 11:03

a young Dean Cameron and Wade are like she's a young teen Cameron Cameron's a young teen.

Jeff Dwoskin 11:10

That's funny. When I first when I was looking at your IMDB, I'm like, Oh, you're in the Fresh Prince of Bel Air. And then I'm like, oh, no, no, this is something completely different

Dean Cameron 11:18

as before Fresh Prince of Bel Air and that things like Prince Miller. And yeah, they also like Spencer, there was a show called Spenser For Hire. And so it's always something I finish my sentences. Sorry,

Jeff Dwoskin 11:30

no, it's fine. When the best times and then fast times it's like so Jeff Spicoli. Was it in fast times? So was it difficult to step into a role? Like I know they did a whole thing they did viewers blur there was still a lot of like TV shows that become our movies that became TV show. Is it rare that they make the pivot but when I was watching some of this, this one, why did this one get canceled? It seemed like it was pretty good.

Dean Cameron 11:56

Back in the old days, they used to ruin movies by making TV shows out of them. And now they ruined TV shows by making movies out of them. And it was I think, Well, the problem was, it was called Fast Times and not Fast Times at Ridgemont High. And we were on CBS, which at the time was a sort of the adult network. They had a bunch of older shows who were older people. So they were very adamant. I think the publicity line was a story about the kids and the adults in their lives. Like there's grown ups in there. So it's not just teenagers. And, and Jeff Spicoli couldn't be Hi, we can have any drug references. It was 1986. So it was different. Very different. Yeah, it was very, it was a harrowing, horrible, tough thing to do. And coincidentally, they have Crispin and I were friends. And he said he was like, oh, yeah, they're doing a fast times TV show and wonder who the poor shithead is gonna play Jeff Spicoli. Like, yeah, what a horrible job to get. And so I started reading for it took six months for me to get the gig, there was this long audition process. And every audition, every callback was like, I'm never I'm not going to take this job. I'm not going to take this job. I'll read for this. And I'll see how far it goes. But there's no way I'm going to do this. And then they offer you this money and you're like, Oh, now Okay, I'll do that. But I knew I was I had been an acting class and Sean Penn was in the same class and knew him and I heard through the grapevine that I sort of had his blessing to do the part and and I pulled it off. I only got one really bad review. It was Time Magazine, but everything else I had pulled it off. Yeah, just one bad review and Time Magazine.

Jeff Dwoskin 13:36

What do they know? I mean, as we know it, yeah. So also dreamy Patrick Dempsey, a young Patrick get us a young Patrick Dempsey in this as well. And Courtney Thorne Smith, which you'd later work again. What was it like to work with Ray Walston?

Dean Cameron 13:54

He was great. He was a you know, curmudgeon. He was over it. And he was he and Hirsi Ali had, I think the filthiest mouth I've ever encountered. He was so fun and just a wonderful guy. I loved him. We went to, we went to New York to do publicity. And back back in the old days, a lot of people, you know, they'd fly you, they fly you first class, but a lot of actors, you could cash in your first class ticket and exchange it for coach and just pocket the money. And he'd done that. And although the CBS stars were on this flight, and so I'm sitting in first class and there's some guys sitting next to me, and they see Ray Walston going into college, and they kick the cat next to me out of coaches like Mr. Walston, come sit, you sit in first class cool. you'd gotten away with getting into first class. A double dibs. Yeah, I totally did. It was really funny. And on the flight there, he told me these hilarious stories that I can't repeat about old movies that he'd done and we're counters with studio executives that I thought was gonna ruin his career and stuff like that he was, you know, he wasn't afraid to just tell you how he felt on set. It was great. He was great. That's awesome. Remember he one of the questions when we were doing press, you're like why did you do fast times? Why you accept this role for to do it on TV and he said, I hope this show goes forever so I can put those fucking Martian years behind me was bucking antenna and people will forget about my fucking the antenna was.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:26

It's funny because I think that's a generational thing right? Because while I know him is my favorite, man, I know he did it with Bill Bixby when I think of him I only think of him as a string mister hand and so yeah,

Dean Cameron 15:39

yeah, but we the people my age it was yeah, he was he was the Martian from My Favorite Martian.

Jeff Dwoskin 15:45

And then the other person from the movie that is sort of in shows up everywhere. Vince it I'm horrible essays Vince says. It's

Dean Cameron 15:54

Thank you. Beautiful, nice human. I ended up doing a horrible, horrible movie with him years later, but he was just a great, great guy. His wife, Elise was an acting class with me. He was just a sweet, sweet man. He told a great story about doing One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. They were getting in the van at the end of the day. Go back to the hotel, and Jack Nicholson, those Well, boys, another day, another $70,000 I'm not making that much but good for you.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:26

That's awesome. I remember him like ghost. I mean, there's a million things, but for some reason that one sticks out is one of the creepier ones. But so I also had that you did try out for Mike Demone in the movie.

Dean Cameron 16:40

Yeah, I used to be young actors. We would crash auditions, like drive your friend to the so I drove Eric to the audition. And I was just sitting outside and Amy Heckerling came out and said, Are you an actor, and managers come read? How many books part are read or read for demand? They went well, I'm waiting to hear I hope I get it.

Jeff Dwoskin 16:58

I hear good things. I just read an article that said they were leaning in your direction. So you could still help. How was working with Amy Heckerling? Great,

Dean Cameron 17:07

we call her mom, she was great. She's just very supportive. And we were I just did a movie with a bunch of young actors. And it's interesting to see that how hard they're working and they didn't need to, and you just have to sort of indulge that as you're an older person. And so she was doing that she wasn't that much older than us. But like, you know, it's very intense time to be a young actor then so you really want to do great and so she was very adult and you know would indulge whatever all shit you bring to the side and she was great. Love

Jeff Dwoskin 17:39

her. As she said it's quite a string of amazing movie.

Dean Cameron 17:43

Yeah, she they tried to get it's horrible in the movie with Alicia Silverstone. Clueless, clueless. Yeah. So there's a scene where someone gets held up in a parking lot. Yeah, take her shoes or something. Yeah. So they had didn't have an actual that day like someone fell out. And so they like well, let's get Dean's so they were calling me. And this is before cell phones and stuff. I was at IKEA looking for buying a coffee table. And they actually came to my apartment to try to find me and I wasn't around and I got home and they're all these messages like, Hey, can you come out to this liquor store in North Hollywood? We wish and I didn't you know they ended up getting someone else is heartbreaking. Heartbreaking. That

Jeff Dwoskin 18:24

would have been cool. But if you were an Ikea you are stuck there for at least four hours. I mean, yes,

Dean Cameron 18:29

exactly. Exactly. That was the one place you

Jeff Dwoskin 18:33

should never go again. Off chance. So whenever needs you. Yeah, before cellphones crazy.

Dean Cameron 18:38

I mean, I could have called in and checked my answering machine, but nothing was happening at that time. I needed a coffee table.

Jeff Dwoskin 18:45

We all do at some point. I mean, we all get sucked into it. Did you get the meatballs? That's the real question. Did you have balls? Oh, so you worked on my sister, Sam, which is with Pam Dawber, who's from Michigan. I think she went to high school even like and that was also married to Mark Harmon. Phyllis, I think still is Yeah. And then from there summer school, which is chainsaw, right, right.

Dean Cameron 19:08

So yeah, I did. I booked summer school and did my sister Sam the week before we started summer school. It was cool. A couple of months. Nice. Like, hey, I'm doing great and it was such a fun show. And they had it was one of these auditions where they said you're gonna go and if you book it, you're gonna go right to set and start working and that's what happened I got there and they said okay, wait out but they hadn't like four of us waiting outside. Everybody doing this show. Come on in not so fast. You three you come on in dean. And so but it was really a great experience. And Rebecca Schaefer was just this beautiful angel person who's amazing. This is a tragedy what happened, obviously,

Jeff Dwoskin 19:47

oh, yeah, horrible. The laws. You know, they finally they came around and did all the stalker laws after that, hopefully prevent that from ever happening again. So horrible. So you mentioned Amy hack. grilling originally was attached to summer school. So another example of I feel like this is becoming the theme was someone who gets a job and then loses it now. Get this by that thread keep coming up. Well, Carl Reiner, we know eventually directed the film. So did Amy leave or No,

Dean Cameron 20:18

Carl had another movie set up at Paramount that I guess got shelved? And they said pick pick one of these other scripts and he picked summer school knowledge Amy's out and that stuff happens all the time to this day, directors fall out a week before and stuff

Jeff Dwoskin 20:34

it for some reason in my head. I always thought Carl Reiner just did Carl Reiner movies like I did you know what I mean? Like once he wrote or something like I didn't realize, because when I was looking at I was like, Oh, he didn't write this movie. He just directed it. Okay, alright, so on the flip side, you get to work now with both of these great people. It was Carl Reiner just awesome.

Dean Cameron 20:54

The best spoiled us we were spoiled. So my first feature film she would work with shoot from 10am to 6pm. Basically, he said, it's just movies, there's no reason to kill ourselves, which I've kept in my mind, directed a few things. And that's always how I feel try to schedule it. So we have enough rest and enough time to do stuff. But you know, you don't have to work 20 hour days you can do a 10 hour day and be fine if you if you know what you're doing if you planned and he was great and just loved all of us really appreciated what everyone brought to our to each role. Again, I'm just spoil sports cars, because other experiences were not as good as bad.

Jeff Dwoskin 21:36

A lot of people talk about how they stumble into their first big experience, and it's the best one and then nothing ever lives up to it. Sorry, I didn't grow up to have to take a quick break. I do want to thank everyone for their support of the sponsors. When you support the sponsors. You're supporting us here at Classic conversations. And that's how we keep the lights on. And now back to my amazing conversation with Jean camera. And I did this

Dean Cameron 22:01

series with Stuart Fradkin and we that was a fantastic experience. We got to play all the time and just have like, had a great time. You might I was really

Jeff Dwoskin 22:11

cool with show is that it was called

Dean Cameron 22:13

they came from outer space. And it was a syndicated show. And it really it only played in three cities because Paramount was trying to start a new network. And we were one of the shows.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:22

All right. That's about to outer space, folks.

Dean Cameron 22:26

Yeah, we're brothers from this from another planet drive around in this Corvette trying to bang chicks that was basically the show. It was cool. It was really cool because he had a girlfriend and I didn't so it was it was a good time.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:41

You must have had an amazing 90s Late 80s 90s

Dean Cameron 22:45

Late 80s 90s Yeah.

Jeff Dwoskin 22:48

Oh, so it's I found trivia. It's at the same school that they filmed summer school and was the same place they filmed the Karate Kid. That's kind of cool. And then Kirstie Alley, she's hilarious obviously. There's a great cast Courtney Thorne cast Courtney Thorne Smith Patrick again another Patrick siding here. It's all good. Do you think is this is like your classic film I mean, like people go Dean camera and they're like probably either ski school or maybe like this one or summer school or it's

Dean Cameron 23:17

interesting because there are three movies that it depends on the demographic summer schools one ski schools and other and then rock Isla is another one. And there's sort of a Venn diagram where the fans overlap with those but generally can do the has been autograph signing. I can tell who the rocky look people are the ski school people are before they come up and talk to so sort of a weird person. They like Rocky lie that the funny thing

Jeff Dwoskin 23:47

How was working with Tony Basil and rakia and Bo Diddley and Thomas Dolby, great. Was it fun to singing and being a vampire? I mean, the teeth they had you were were very pronounced. It was.

Dean Cameron 23:59

Yeah, it was this appliance that they put in. Yeah, you know, that was a the movie sort of a heart Heartbreaker because it was the first movie I carried. It was number one on the call sheet. And I got to sing, play guitar and wrote some of the music and the Canon went under before the movie got released. So it never came out. Really ended up on video. I think I played in one theater somewhere in the United States. And then it sort of fell out on video. And it was it. It was a heartbreaker movie. It's a weird, funny beard movie.

Jeff Dwoskin 24:35

It's a classic love story of a vampire that you know, doesn't save is loved and then has to deal with that for all eternity. It's a classic, classic story. That is horrible, though, that I didn't realize so canon goes under but you can stream it.

Dean Cameron 24:50

But yeah, it's I mean, it's on now. But yeah, you know, I built up this sort of momentum, and then that happened and then there were these strikes and everything sort of stuff. A couple more movies but never played the same. The

Jeff Dwoskin 25:03

other couple of movies you did where while you did Ski School, which I think is a classic, right? What was it skiing all of a sudden because it was another one there was ski patrol or something. I guess, ski school another classic with Patrick. Yeah. And then you brought that back with. Always Sunny,

Dean Cameron 25:21

always sunny. Well, they wrote that for me, with me in line. And I think you know, there was a ski school too. But I think ski school three is basically always sunny did perfect sequel to SQL to ski school is great as a great time.

Jeff Dwoskin 25:37

It looked like a lot of fun. I mean, as as fun as that show is anyway to have had them write this for you. That must have won, it must have been a cake because it means they were fans of the genre. And you are specifically and it was interesting. I was like 80s, and then kind of like where that 80s would be now.

Dean Cameron 25:58

Right? Yeah, they did a great job of deconstructing all that stuff. And you know, when they got the offer, I was concerned because they can be sort of mean. And I was worried that they are going to the script would be sort of shitting on me and all that stuff. But it had a sort of love for the genre and pointing out like the obvious horrible stuff that was going on in some of the movies, but really just this loving the idea of those. And it was it was really nice. We were up in Mammoth Mountain shooting that and I had dinner with the guys the night before our first shot, and it was just, they were great. Yeah, they Charlie, like knew most of the stuff I've done. Like he just really didn't Cameron fan. It seemed like I was neat, because that shows. I mean, that shows brilliant. Those guys are crazy. Good.

Jeff Dwoskin 26:49

It is brilliant. And as good as they are. I don't know. Did you watch? I think it was the Emmys where they all came on. And they're like, do you guys do this every year? Because we've been on for 17 years. And we have never been invited ever.

Dean Cameron 27:01

They did a show about sort of paralleling that or the bar. There were bar awards, and they'd never been nominated or won an award for their bar. And it was it was this cool thing because there's about really about the Emmys.

Jeff Dwoskin 27:15

That's so I know, I'm sure all of them are amazing. When you say you had dinner was Does that include Danny? DeVito? Yeah, okay.

Dean Cameron 27:22

Yeah, I was in heaven. It was crazy. Because I was just going up to get some food and they're like, Hey, come on, come over sevens Come sit down. Okay, had a great time. Do

Jeff Dwoskin 27:30

you think they were sitting around going? We should totally do this. Do you think we could get 10 cameras? Do you think Dean would do this? I mean, can you is it does it give you a kick to think like a conversation like that must have gone on?

Dean Cameron 27:42

Yeah. And they had, you know, the issue with casting someone like me is, you know, I've worked a lot up to that. So it's possible that I'm crazy person who is possible to work with. But I done some this thing on YouTube with these people. And Charlie, I guess had researched it and said, Oh, no, Dean, it seems like he's okay. And sane. So I think we can I think we could use him. So that was cool. So they sort of vetted me. When he told me, I saw the thing he did on YouTube with those people on how you look like you're funny and still stable. I fooled them.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:24

I'm glad you did, because that was a great, great episode is great. Do you actually skate?

Dean Cameron 28:31

I stopped at ski school too, because I realized I didn't like being wet and cold. So I used to ski a lot, but I don't like fish or stuff.

Jeff Dwoskin 28:38

Where does the wet part come in? Unless you keep falling? Yeah, yeah. Okay, that makes more sense. Right. So it's some killer ski skiing, though. That is showing in the movie. It's why they did that in that in the always sunny too, right? Yeah, it's a free day. It's coming down with a little pizza. Right.

Dean Cameron 28:57

Michelle? Yeah. What's funny is so Pat Labra toe didn't know how to ski. And they'd never asked him if he could ski. And so we get up on first day up on the top of the mountain and the director goes, Okay, so just, you'll just ski down here and stop and that's like, I can't ski. I don't know how to ski. And so you'll see Patrick's never really on skis. In that movie. No one is as but the end of the day the director who's pro Canadian skier guy carry Patrick on his back down the mountain. really hilarious.

Jeff Dwoskin 29:30

It does. Funny. There's nothing worse than being at the top of a mountain that you don't believe you can get down. Yeah, yes, yes, I've been there. It's like the worst feeling in the world and it's a skier. I used to ski a lot and so we would go you know, to Aspen or Snowmass really more Snowmass Aspen, everyone always talks asthma and asthma is like very, very steep. Snowmass was awesome because it was like same area, but different vibe depending on what you felt like skiing. But once I ended up I'm like some maybe double black and I was like, oh god with Mogae ogles. And I know not not for me, but that's where the cold comes in. That's where the wet and go,

Dean Cameron 30:13

yeah, in Oklahoma every spring break, people would go on ski trips. That's where it worked. All right,

Jeff Dwoskin 30:20

so I'm assuming that the movie that you don't like that you also did with Vince, it was miracle beach. What I'm dying to ask you though, what is it about this specific movie that you dislike so much?

Dean Cameron 30:32

I don't think I'm good. And I don't like the way I look. I was losing my hair. I had this long hair for this TV show that for they came from outer space. I grew my hair out, but it was falling out. And so they like, keep on trying to do this thing. I just didn't like it. And then it was an offer. I I didn't read for it anything. They just offered me the movie. And I went through the script. And there was stuff that I sort of didn't acknowledge, like, oh, there's a bikini contest. Okay. All right. Well, this is fun. And the script was released, sir, this sweet, little like splash because it had this really nice charm to it. And then this was back, you know, early 90s. So having boobs in a movie was a thing, because there wasn't porn everywhere. So like, if you could see boobs that was put that in your movie, and you can get more people to watch it. So get and there's just boobs everywhere and realize, and this is not, it's not the movie I wanted to do. And yeah, I just it was it was all I mean, that was made. I call it miserable, miserable beings, just and it was all my fault that I had a bad time on it. Yeah, I just everyone's great. Everyone was great to me. Dolan's is just a delight. And Scott, the director was great. Just he's just a bad experience for me.

Jeff Dwoskin 31:50

But you did get to work with Pat Morita.

Dean Cameron 31:53

That already the fantastic human being just so giving and generous with his talent could go a Martin mall and that was one of the things like there was a huge Martin mole fan, but I was didn't want to talk to them because they felt during this weird shame. I don't know. It was just not a good time. We all

Jeff Dwoskin 32:13

eventually get to the point where enough with the boobs asking.

Dean Cameron 32:18

But And what's funny is when I first saw it when I did the first cut, remember thing Oh, okay, this is horrible. No one will ever see this movie. Maybe they may dump it on cable like they did with rock Keeler dump it on NHS, whatever. It was so popular on HBO, the R rated version that HBO cut PG version of it, so they could show it during the day. And I think it was 1995 it was the most shown movie on HBO.

Jeff Dwoskin 32:44

Oh, really? I did read that they made like a non EU version. And then and then it's some it was some places it was called Hard bodies to which I didn't understand.

Dean Cameron 32:55

Originally, it was originally hard bodies to that was the original script. And I guess the script was so good. Or the market research they did with hard bodies, I thought but just make it make it a different title.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:06

Got it. Got it. Got it. All right. Oh, I almost forgot you worked with one of my favorite actors ever. Elf. Yeah.

Dean Cameron 33:14

Yeah, I did three episodes in

Jeff Dwoskin 33:16

it. Yeah. I loved elf. I always thought elf was so funny. Like, I'm surprised like, of all the things they bring back. They never brought back elf. And so yeah, this is sarcastic alien. I mean, who each cats needs cats. Yeah.

Dean Cameron 33:30

I wrote theirs on the onion camera.com. There's, I wrote a thing about my experience on alpha. And it's, it's pretty great. It's one of my favorite showbiz stories. So you want to read a good yarn about working on elf in camera.com. It's like essays or something.

Jeff Dwoskin 33:47

Alright, we'll use that as a tease to get people to the website. Let's talk about Patrick labrets. One more time and Hollywood poems. Okay, this is a movie that you guys wrote together, you directed it now not direct it. Just you just write it just wrote it just wrote it. Okay. For some reason, I thought you direct it to this is one of my favorite roles of yours, because your name is Jeff in it. Oh, of course. So you know, just Spicoli and just quickly when you can see yourself on screen? Yes. Like, you'll see. When you guys sat down to write this, did you it was just another creative outlet? Or were you like there's too many boobs and these other movies let's let's do something that we want to do and write something that we love. And then you obviously had a good friendship with them. So you kind of have a Jive the same? Yeah,

Dean Cameron 34:32

I had done this movie called Sleep with me with Eric Eric Stoltz. And it had come about these five writers, as my friends who are UCLA guys and filmmakers. I thought, well let's, we're going to write let's write a movie that's centered around these different parties. And each one of us will write this party and we have this through line and we'll just they were just going to make it on 16 millimeter and shoot it themselves and starring themselves. Eric got a hold of the script. Kept, because Neil Jimenez from the water dance was one of the writers. And he's like, this is great. Let's actually make this. So they got the funding for it and did a movie. So this was, you know, mid 90s is after the great career crash in 1995. And Patrick and I were like, Let's, let's do the thing. They do sleep with me. And so we got some friends together. And we're like, let's write this movie about apartment building takes place over one night in an apartment building. The other stories didn't quite work out. Some of them are great, but one guy went in, like Final Cut and stuff agents got involved. So I ended up just being me and Patrick finishing the script. And it was four or five years before ended up getting made we we'd gotten financing two or three times, but then it would fall through. And finally his managers wanted to produce movies. And they had some of their clients they wanted to put in as actors like judge Ryan Hall, and Jeff knock Manav, Jeffrey knock Manam, Jeff, who's the director was one of their clients. And so they packaged it got a little money together and did the movie. And it was mainly because my, all of my my pimps, were saying you should write something for yourself write something for yourself. And so we did. And the movie got made maybe a couple of years too late. It was sort of that talkie 90s stuff was made in 2000. But we were talking before we started recording about I'd start learning to program at the time I started learning, learning how to do web development. And my agents, I managers never came to the set. They didn't come to this any screenings. And I just want more luck, this business, I can make much more money as a web developer. And so that was that was sort of my last hurrah of the first part of my career. It was a great experience with so much fun during the movie. And I think it came out great again, couple years too late, but I'm proud of it. I think it's some of my best work. And I got to play guy named Jeff. So

Jeff Dwoskin 36:59

that was cool. And it's cool. I think the only probably miss with that movie was not enough. stinker merch. Yeah, the skunk. I think that would have been huge. Yeah,

Dean Cameron 37:09

I think that was the skunk going through the advanced. I think that was a nice way to tie in all the stories.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:13

i Yeah, it was it was cool. The way kind of we'd go into another room, and then you kind of gotten there. And

Dean Cameron 37:18

you can you can pirate it on YouTube. So it's cool. It's

Jeff Dwoskin 37:21

streamable stream. Yeah, it's on. Either to be or you're one of those that you just type watch Hollywood poems. Oh, cool. I'll give you all the spots. There you go. Same thing with rock.

Dean Cameron 37:36

masturbating. So that's cool.

Jeff Dwoskin 37:39

Everyone run when you talk about career crash, because he made the mid 90s. So was it we just fed up but it just it stopped getting rolls. Like how do you? How do you define the crash?

Dean Cameron 37:52

Well, I wasn't I wasn't booking roles I wanted and I was getting offers on stuff like miracle beach and ski school. And I just didn't want to do that stuff anymore. And I know it's, you know, fine problem to have and but you know, I had friends who were doing really good work and really cool stuff. And I'm just wasn't booking that. And just the work just dried up might look changed my I was losing my hair becoming older. And so you know, perceptions of who you are. And it didn't help that summer school and miracle beach. We're playing on cable all the time. So I think people I don't know, maybe people had this perception and he has a certain thing. And I just got tired. I don't want to play dumb stoner anymore. You know, just, it's not interesting to me. So yeah, worked right up. I may have helped the work dried up. But that's, that's showbiz. Unfortunately, you know, Eric has been a champion of mine forever. You know, I my first speaking role was because of him. And he's been putting me in his stuff for years. And he was great through the 90s and early 2000s. Helping out he was in he did the part in Hollywood pawns as himself. So it was, you know, that's what happened.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:03

So almost like a victim of your own success. I mean, I get invariably, like, people saw you it kind of got us a certain way, because you were so good at that. And then those movies had such exposure, that that's when people thought Dean Cameron, this is what this

Dean Cameron 39:19

is what he does. Yeah, it was, I think, and my parents had a different had a difficult time selling me something else. And when they would try it, because gig so that's life in the big city. I

Jeff Dwoskin 39:30

know being an HTML developer has its upsides. I did that too. It wasn't easy back in the 90s. Everyone talks now, at some point, it became something that you could go to school to do. So you were probably right around the same time where you had to self teach. There wasn't like,

Dean Cameron 39:45

learn HTML and 24 hours. That's how I ended up book. Okay, figured it out.

Jeff Dwoskin 39:50

I had a web development company that I started it was because I was at like Barnes and Noble or one of those. And there were six books sitting there and a friend of Mind had started out at how to use the internet video on VAT, you could get a VHS and I'm like, I'm going to teach myself HTML because I had CorelDRAW, which I could export a GIF or GIF. And so I remember grabbing a book teaching myself. And then years later, it's hard to explain to people, you can then go to that same bookstore, which doesn't exist anymore, but there'd be aisles like books, or and you could get degrees and like, I was like, No, we're old school. I can make tables. Yeah,

Dean Cameron 40:29

yeah. Like when I started, it was table development, and you put everything in tables, and then CSS came in and that which was much cooler and learning how to do that. It was really neat. I mean, I worked for I worked for LegalZoom. I integrated their whole front end when they first started and did some cool stuff. But then, you know, it just I didn't like it. Ultimately, you've

Jeff Dwoskin 40:49

done a lot of other cool stuff as well that I dug. I watched the bug of the short film you did with Oh, cool. Hilarious. I love that. And then that you wrote and directed. I didn't mean to take away from the other Jeff directing Hollywood poems. You do music is karaoke. I thought that was hilarious. Yeah,

Dean Cameron 41:06

so the guys I was in this band. If you heard of Steel Panther,

Jeff Dwoskin 41:11

heard of them? I don't think I've heard of him before I started looking at your like your page talking.

Dean Cameron 41:16

Okay. Yeah, so I didn't end with two of the guys from from Steel Panther before they were doing Steel Panther version of that. And the drummer and I were trying to come up with because they're all these disco bands. And all these cover bands like leak bands, we call them. And so we're going to do a live karaoke band. So we thought, well, let's and we're just going to do a stuff. So we thought oh, and Darren, the drummer came up with the name karaoke. The conceit was that it was Corey Feldman, Corey Haim and Corey Hart. And Michael Jackson had promised us that we could be his backing band, if we learned how to play instruments. And that was our sort of aesthetic for the first couple years. And they were waves and members only jackets and stuff. And the lawyer a lawyer called and said, you can't you have they can't be you have to make sure people know it's not Feldman and Haim. No one cares about Corey Hart. But so we ended up maybe in Canada, they do. Yeah, maybe. It was Cory Feldstein and Cory ham and Corey Hart. Now we've dispensed with the wigs and just play. There's 250 songs. So I do that a couple nights a week here. It's so much fun. But I also I released a record last

Jeff Dwoskin 42:22

year. Oh, that's on your website. I started listening to it. Yeah, it's really good. Low speed chase. Thanks.

Dean Cameron 42:27

Yeah, I'm really proud of it. It's good. And there's a good video for a song called Whiskey.

Jeff Dwoskin 42:32

That's I love how you just do all these creative things. Like you. You know, I like I was watching some kind of joke the YouTube series you did with Richard Richard Horvitz and. And so it's just like, I just love that you you're always putting out these really cool creative things. I know you did the Quantum Leap reboot, which unfortunately, just that got canceled, unfortunately, but like, you've done a few things recently, are you getting back into acting? Yeah,

Dean Cameron 42:58

it's been the last five or six years have been very good. I've sort of aged into this, what I call the doctor exposition role, where I come in and tell everybody what's happening in the show and then leave, and they pay me well, and I'm like, happy to do it. And so it's good. It's been, I just did, they rebooted Bosch Bosch legacy, I just did an episode of that. And I have three movies coming out. I produced a movie last year. That's great. Not just because I'm in it and produce it, but it's really good. And yeah, it's, it's I've gotten the second the second half of my my career. It's nice. It's nice and lucky, fortunate because I have a friend who gave up a note. Well,

Jeff Dwoskin 43:40

I'm glad you're you have a renewed interest in in the next chapter for Dean cameron, and that's awesome. Me too. It's a rockin beard, by the way. It's

Dean Cameron 43:51

it's a little during the strike. You know, I can't be around idealistic young actors or actors holding signs. So I just grew, I grew my strike beer. And I had this beard that came down in here. It was ridiculous. And I ended up getting an offer on a movie right at the end of the strike takes place in the 90s and I played a Vietnam vet. So I had this great beard. The odds is perfect. There

Jeff Dwoskin 44:13

you go. Everything works out for a reason. Yeah. Dean, I can't thank you enough for hanging out with me. This was fun.

Dean Cameron 44:20

Of course. You know, love talking about myself and I

Jeff Dwoskin 44:24

love hearing you talk about yourself. That's a perfect match anywhere besides Dean cameron.com to keep up with you.

Dean Cameron 44:32

Mainly on like, do stuff on Instagram with Dean Cameron on Instagram, or Instagram. NASM is don't like to call it.

Jeff Dwoskin 44:39

Awesome. I'll put all that in the show notes and people can check out all your stuff and go find rocky lied. Hollywood poms and it's out there. They're out there.

Unknown Speaker 44:50

They're out there. They're out. They're out there

Jeff Dwoskin 44:54

as much Dean Cameron and your life as you need. And thank you so much. Thank you Right. How amazing was Dean Cameron so much fun, so many great stories. I can't believe the interview is over. That means the episodes over another one has come and gone. One more huge thank you to Dean Cameron, for hanging out with me. And another huge thank you to all of you for coming back week after week. It means the world to me, and I'll see you next time.

CTS Announcer 45:23

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of Classic conversations. If you like what you heard, don't be shy and give us a follow on your favorite podcast app. Also, why not? Go ahead and tell all your friends about the show? You strike us as the kind of person that people listen to. Thanks in advance for spreading the word and we'll catch you next time on classic conversations.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai