Harry Dean Stanton

Harry Dean Stanton (July 14, 1926 – September 15, 2017) was an American actor and musician. In a career that spanned more than six decades, Stanton played supporting roles in films including Cool Hand Luke, Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), Escape from New York (1981), Christine (1983), Repo Man (1984), One Magic Christmas (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Dream A Little Dream (1989), Wild at Heart (1990), The Straight Story (1999), The Green Mile (1999), The Man Who Cried (2000), Alpha Dog (2006), Inland Empire (2006), Rango (2011), The Avengers (2012), and Seven Psychopaths (2012). He had rare lead roles in Paris, Texas (1984) and Lucky (2017).

Early life and education Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Sheridan Harry Stanton, a tobacco farmer and barber, and Ersel (née Moberly), a cook.

Stanton had two older half sisters, Quincy Alice Stanton (Brown) and Lillian Hester Stanton (McKenna) two younger brothers (Ralph and Archie) and a younger half-brother, Stan McKnight). His family had a musical background. Stanton attended Lafayette High School and studied journalism and radio arts. "I could have been a writer," he told an interviewer for a 2011 documentary, Harry Dean Stanton: Crossing Mulholland, in which he sings and plays the harmonica. "I had to decide if I wanted to be a singer or an actor. I was always singing. I thought if I could be an actor, I could do all of it." Briggs encouraged him to leave the university and become an actor. He studied at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, where his classmates included his friends Tyler MacDuff and Dana Andrews.

During World War II, Stanton served in the United States Navy, including a stint as a cook aboard the USS LST-970, a Landing Ship, Tank, during the Battle of Okinawa. came with the lead role in Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas. Playwright Sam Shepard, who wrote the film's script, had spotted Stanton at a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1983 while both were attending a film festival in that city. The two fell into conversation. "I was telling him I was sick of the roles I was playing," Stanton recalled in a 1986 interview. "I told him I wanted to play something of some beauty or sensitivity. I had no inkling he was considering me for the lead in his movie."

Stanton appeared in indie and cult films such as Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Cockfighter (1974), Escape from New York (1981), Repo Man (1984), The Straight Story (1999), and Inland Empire (2006), as well as mainstream Hollywood productions, including Cool Hand Luke, (1967), Kelly's Heroes (1970), Dillinger (1973), The Godfather Part II (1974), Alien (1979), The Rose (1979), Private Benjamin (1980), Young Doctors in Love (1982), Christine (1983), Red Dawn (1984), One Magic Christmas (1985), Pretty in Pink (1986), The Last Temptation of Christ (1988), Wild at Heart (1990), Down Periscope (1996), Fire Down Below (1997), The Green Mile (1999), The Man Who Cried (2000), Alpha Dog (2006), and Rango (2011). He had eight appearances between 1958 and 1968 on Gunsmoke, four on the network's Rawhide, three on The Untouchables, two on Bonanza, and an episode of The Rifleman. He played the wrongly accused Lucius Brand (credited as Dean Stanton) in The Wild Wild West S3 E7 "The Night of the Hangman" (1967). He later had a cameo in Two and a Half Men (having previously appeared with Jon Cryer in Pretty in Pink and with Charlie Sheen in Red Dawn). Beginning in 2006, Stanton featured as Roman Grant, the manipulative leader/prophet of a polygamous sect on the HBO television series Big Love. He appeared in the Dwight Yoakam music video for "Sorry You Asked", He worked with a number of musical artists, Dylan, Art Garfunkel, and Kris Kristofferson among them, and played harmonica on The Call's 1989 album Let the Day Begin.

In 2010, Stanton appeared in an episode of the TV series Chuck, reprising his role in the 1984 film Repo Man. In 2011, the Lexington Film League created an annual festival, the Harry Dean Stanton Fest, to honor Stanton in the city where he spent much of his adolescence. The second annual Harry Dean Stanton Fest was held over a weekend in May 2012 at the Kentucky Theater and other venues in downtown Lexington. Festival co-producer Lucy Jones visited with Stanton in California and brought back a filmed greeting for the festival, with introductions to the films and talk about films he was working on. The May 2013 Stanton festival in Lexington included an appearance by Crispin Glover, a co-star with Stanton in Wild at Heart, the 1989 comedy Twister and the Lynch-directed HBO original series Hotel Room in 1993; and a pre-release screening of the documentary Partly Fiction.

Stanton was a favorite of film critic Roger Ebert, who said that "no movie featuring either Harry Dean Stanton or M. Emmet Walsh in a supporting role can be altogether bad." However, Ebert later admitted that Dream a Little Dream (1989), in which Stanton appeared, was a "clear violation" of this rule.

Personal life Stanton was never married, though he had a short relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay from 1981 to 1982. "I might have had two or three [kids] out of marriage," he once told the Associated Press. "But that's another story."

Death Stanton died aged 91 on September 15, 2017, from heart failure, at the Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California.

Legacy In popular culture Stanton was celebrated in "I Want That Man", a 1989 song recorded by Deborah Harry which begins with the line "I want to dance with Harry Dean." In her memoir, Harry writes that Stanton heard the song and arranged to meet her at a club in London.

Stanton is mentioned in the 2013 song "Christmas in L.A." by the Killers. The song's music video begins with a dialogue between the voices of Owen Wilson and Harry Dean Stanton.

Pop Will Eat Itself released a track titled "Harry Dean Stanton" on their album The Looks or the Lifestyle? His lead role in the film Paris, Texas, was memorialized in Hayes Carll's 2019 song "American Dream" with the lyrics, "like Harry Dean Stanton on a drive-in screen, a tumbleweed blowing through Paris, Texas, he fell down into the American dream."

Ian McNabb recorded the song "Harry Dean Stanton" on his album Utopian, released in January 2021. McNabb noted the following about the track: "I didn't know too much about him and didn't really want to because I knew I had to write a song using his name as the title, so I wrote these lyrics for and around him – I imagined what it must be like to be him – while dropping some of my own experiences into the narrative. I was lurking around Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" and "Lenny Bruce" – I wanted that atmosphere. I've never claimed to be original."

Harry Dean Stanton appears in the 2004 documentary Dig!, which chronicles the rivalry between bands The Brian Jonestown Massacre and The Dandy Warhols. He is not the subject of the film, but rather makes a memorable cameo at one of the band's parties.

Filmography

Selected credits Film

Revolt at Fort Laramie (1957) Cool Hand Luke (1967) Day of the Evil Gun (1968) Kelly's Heroes (1970) Two-Lane Blacktop (1971) Dillinger (1973) Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (1973) Where the Lilies Bloom (1974) The Godfather Part II (1974) Farewell, My Lovely (1975) The Missouri Breaks (1976) Straight Time (1978) Alien (1979) The Rose (1979) Wise Blood (1979) Private Benjamin (1980) Escape from New York (1981) Christine (1983) Repo Man (1984) Paris, Texas (1984) Red Dawn (1984) One Magic Christmas (1985) Pretty in Pink (1986) The Last Temptation of Christ (1988) Wild at Heart (1990) Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) Down Periscope (1996) Fire Down Below (1997) Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (1998) The Green Mile (1999) The Straight Story (1999) The Man Who Cried (2000) The Pledge (2001) The Wendell Baker Story (2005) Alpha Dog (2006) Inland Empire (2006) This Must Be the Place (2011) Rango (2011) The Avengers (2012) Seven Psychopaths (2012) The Last Stand (2013) Lucky (2017)

Television YearTitleRole Notes1958 Decision Simeon Dawson Season 1, Episode 4: "The Tall Man"1960 Alfred Hitchcock Presents Lemon Season 5, Episode 37: "Escape to Sonoita"1968 The Virginian Clint Daggert Season 7, Episode 8: "Ride to Misadventure" 1969 Petticoat Junction Ringo Season 7, Episode 4: "One of Our Chickens is Missing" (credited as Dean Stanton) 1987 Faerie Tale Theatre Rip Van Winkle Season 6, Episode 1: "Rip Van Winkle" 2004 Two and a Half Men Himself Season 2, Episode 1: "Back Off, Mary Poppins" 2006–2010 Big Love Roman Grant 37 episodes 2010 Chuck Harry The Repo Man Season 4, Episode 1: "Chuck Versus the Anniversary" 2013–2015 Getting On Leonard Butler 3 episodes 2017 Twin Peaks: The Return Carl Rodd 5 episodes