Dutch Treat

CASPER VAN DIEN POINTED HIS chiseled chin down the aisle at Toys “R” Us in Woodland Hills, Calif., and walked out with a $200 swarm of alien bugs and action figures from Starship Troopers, the hot $100 million sci-fi movie he stars in. “I went wild,” the actor recalls. “I bought one of everything”—including, of course, the 10-inch Johnny Rico infantry leader that bears his own commanding visage. Van Dien says his son, Bo, 4, “calls it his ‘Daddy doll.’ ”

Dad’s a doll, all right, one who’s primed to become the next big action hero. His resume is in order: age and waistline roughly the same (28 years, 29 inches), boundless self-confidence (“I’m a very cocky man and I’ve always believed in myself”) and the right priorities (“I studied theater to meet women”). But Van Dien is also a guy who reads his two kids (Bo and baby Gracie, 1) to sleep at night and who, after dropping out of Florida State University to become an actor in 1988, brought his mom along on the drive to California. Abs of steel, heart of gold—sound familiar? Starship’s director, Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall), compares Van Dien to Arnold Schwarzenegger: “He has strength and vulnerability.”

The vulnerable side comes from real life. About six months ago Van Dien and his wife, actress Carrie Mitchum (the granddaughter of actor Robert), 32, separated after four years of marriage. “It was a horrible thing because we had kids,” he recalls. “We tried to make the marriage work.” Now, though they plan to divorce, “we get along great as friends,” he says. Although he has just rented a house in Tarzana, Calif., Van Dien often drops by Mitchum’s Calabasas ranch for dinner and story time with the kids—and to tease Carrie about the bowl haircut Bo (short for Casper Robert Mitchum) now sports. “I want him to get a crew cut, like I had,” says Van Dien.

Crew cuts were regulation around the Van Dien house. Descended from Dutch colonists, the family prides itself on generations of military service—and a curious tradition: firstborn males are named Casper. Van Dien’s father, Casper Robert (nicknamed Van), 65, is a retired naval commander and fighter pilot who served in Korea and Vietnam. The actor’s grandfather, Casper Anson, was a Marine who fought in both World Wars. The actor-to-be spent his early years in Florida and Okinawa, Japan, but when he was 4 his family settled into their ancestral hometown on Van Dien Avenue in Ridgewood, N.J. Although Casper tagged along when Van taught high school ROTC, their life was not all spit and polish. Every night after dinner, Diane and Van would put on records and dance with Casper and his three sisters: Debbie (Van’s daughter from a previous marriage), now a homemaker; Sudi, a medical-supply buyer; and Kristin, a massage-therapy business owner. After graduating from Florida’s Admiral Farragut Academy, Casper moved to L.A. two years short of graduating from Florida State.

In addition to bartending and training lifeguards, Van Dien made the rounds, landing parts in such movies as Night Eyes 4. He and Carrie met at a script reading in 1992, and before their ’93 marriage, she took him to Santa Barbara to meet her grandfather. “You’re the only boyfriend of Carrie’s I’ve ever liked,” Van Dien says the crusty Hollywood veteran told him. In Mitchum’s final role before his death last July, he appears with Casper and Carrie in James Dean: Race with Destiny, to be released in January, in which Van Dien plays the T-shirted ’50s sex symbol. Even the shirt will go next summer, when he stars in Tarzan and the Lost City.

But offscreen this Tarzan has no Jane. “I’m not even dating,” Van Dien says. “I wouldn’t have anything to put into a relationship.” And he still buys Carrie jewelry on their kids’ birthdays. “My dad told me to do that,” he explains. “He’s a huge romantic.” Like the name Casper, it runs in the family.

CAROL DAY

ANNE-MARIE OTEY in Los Angeles