He appeared in school plays and with local theater groups and, by the time he was 17, was studying theater arts at the University of Southern California. The family moved to Santa Barbara, an hour's drive north of Los Angeles, when he was 8. He was born in American Samoa, the son of an educator.
Elsewhere.Īcting has been a lifelong obsession.
#THE MASK CHER SERIES#
Stoltz appeared in Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982) and then turned to plays, telemovies and appearances in such TV series as St. How he came to do it at all is a story in itself. "It was very hot, very painful," he remembered.
#THE MASK CHER MOVIE#
The actor spent three months shooting the movie in the smoggiest, hottest part of the Los Angeles summer. The physical discomfort entailed by Stoltz during filming is not to be discounted. "Could I do justice to this woman's son, whom she had lived with and loved? Imagine playing a part and having the mother come up and slap you in the face afterwards and say, 'You've made a travesty of my son's life.' Doing a true story is a huge responsibility." "The fear was, could I do justice to this person who had really lived?" he said. Rusty Mason's reaction was the only reservation Stoltz had about taking the part. She had to be running the gamut of every emotion in the book.
#THE MASK CHER FULL#
After the trial of Rocky's life and death, Mason had the eerie experience of seeing her son reincarnated when she encountered Stoltz in full makeup for the first time on the set. Cher plays her with a toughness and resilience that is obviously rooted in fact. Besides spending time with Rocky's doctors and biker friends, he became a fast friend of Rusty Mason, Rocky's mother. Stoltz has more than his own authority for that view. He wasn't going to let it slow him down, and that's what we wanted to get across."
He wasn't going to let his difference affect his life. He wanted to go to Europe, to go to college, to do things. There were moments of self-pity, but on the whole he just wanted to live his life. "Rocky dealt with his disease for 16 years. "We talked about it a great deal and we decided the main thing was not to sentimentalize" Rocky's life, Stoltz recalled. As a result, the audience's tears are earned instead of cynically jerked. "I was ready for the physical pain of the part, but not for the way that people would react toward me and how it would make me feel hearing it every day."ĭespite Rocky's abnormal appearance and the cruelties he undoubtedly endured, Stoltz and his director chose to emphasize Rocky's normality. It was the absolute reverse of what Stoltz expected. She yelled, 'Hey, handsome!' It was very disturbing." "I remember one day I was just walking down the street and a woman pulled up in her car and rolled the window down. They would yell at me - kids and grown-ups - things like, 'Hey, Exorcist III!' "They would throw things at me - cans, that kind of thing. "People were cruel," he said, shaking his head incredulously. As an experiment, he took to going to shopping malls or just strolling down the street for a newspaper. The four-hour, state-of-the-art makeup job that daily transformed Stoltz into Rocky passed muster off the set. The noise of the afternoon traffic on Sunset Boulevard punctuated his sometimes painful reminiscences about a role that involved more than playing a part. He summons his mother (Cher), and they stand silently before the tantalizing, unattainable image.ĭuring an interview at the restaurant, Stoltz dug into a platter of vegetables and red snapper that was the day's luncheon special. In his case, the crazy refraction shows Rocky what he would look like normally. Rocky goes to a carnival and catches sight of himself in a fun-house mirror that distorts normally proportioned faces. The way in which he and Bogdanovich approached this emotionally charged story is epitomized by a brief, heart-breaking moment. Stoltz, who looks younger than his 22 years, invests the character with a humanity that rises to nobility. Rocky Dennis died of his disfiguring disease in 1978 at the age of 17.
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