Cassel’s Comeback Would Make a Certain Strait-Laced Cop Happy

He was nominated for an Oscar--best supporting actor for “Faces”--in 1968. He made a bigger splash in ‘71, starring as a free-spirited parking attendant in “Minnie and Moskowitz” (both films directed by the late John Cassavetes). But by the late ‘70s, Seymour Cassel admits, he had a “compulsive” taste for alcohol and drugs and “got carried away with the wrong people.”

He wound up doing jail time in 1982 for a conviction of conspiracy to sell cocaine--after doing a “favor” for a friend, he says--and “came out real angry and real bitter.”

But in 1985, he went through recovery, got sober--and started to work again. After “Eye of the Tiger” for Scotti Bros., he appeared in “Tin Men” for Disney, which proved a turning point, as more roles followed.

This year, he culminated his comeback with two more Disney films: “White Fang,” which he just finished shooting, third-billed behind Klaus Maria Brandauer and Ethan Hawke, and the just-released “Dick Tracy,” in which he portrays the detective’s loyal sidekick, Sam Catchem. He’s signed for a “Tracy” sequel, is discussing other films with Disney, and has a TV movie in negotiation, he says.

“It is a comeback for me, and I hope it doesn’t stop,” Cassel says. “This business is so forgiving. They’ll forgive anything if you have talent and straighten out and want to work.”

At the end of July, he takes his one-man show, “Bukowski at Midnight,” to France. Cassel wrote the piece, using excerpts from the work of hard-living cult writer Charles Bukowski.

As for “Dick Tracy,” Cassel adds, “We all read the Tracy comics as kids. I never thought I’d grow up to play Sam Catchem. And with Al Pacino, Jimmy Caan, Estelle Parsons, Warren Beatty (all in the cast)--it’s like getting to work with everybody you ever wanted to.

“God kept me alive for something. Now I just want to work.”