Harry P. Stanton

Harry P. Stanton was an American actor born on July 14, 1926, in West Irvine, Kentucky, to Sheridan Harry Stanton, a tobacco farmer and barber, and Ersel (née Moberly), a cook. His parents divorced during his high school years, and both later remarried. Stanton had two younger brothers and a younger half-brother, and his family had a musical background. He attended Lafayette High School before enrolling at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where he studied journalism and radio arts and performed at the Guignol Theatre under theater director Wallace Briggs. Briggs encouraged him to leave the university and pursue acting professionally. Stanton subsequently trained at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, where his classmates included Tyler MacDuff and Dana Andrews. During World War II, he served in the United States Navy, working as a cook aboard the USS LST-970 during the Battle of Okinawa.

Early in his career, Stanton adopted the professional name Dean Stanton to avoid confusion with another actor named Harry Stanton. He made his first television appearance in 1954 in the Inner Sanctum episode "Hour of Darkness" and made his film debut in the 1957 Western Tomahawk Trail. His Broadway career began in 1955, when he appeared in Damn Yankees. On television, he accumulated multiple appearances on series including Gunsmoke, Rawhide, The Untouchables, Bonanza, and The Rifleman between 1958 and 1968.

Over a career spanning more than six decades, Stanton built an extensive body of work in both independent and mainstream Hollywood productions. His film credits include supporting roles in Cool Hand Luke (1967), 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), 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 also appeared in Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Cockfighter (1974), The Rose (1979), Private Benjamin (1980), Red Dawn (1984), and The Last Stand (2013), among others.

His breakthrough as a lead actor came with Wim Wenders' Paris, Texas (1984), in which he played the protagonist Travis. Playwright Sam Shepard, who wrote the film's script, had encountered Stanton at a bar in Santa Fe, New Mexico, in 1983 while both were attending a film festival, and subsequently offered him the role. Stanton later recalled telling Shepard at that meeting that he was tired of the parts he had been playing and wanted a role of greater beauty or sensitivity, without knowing Shepard was considering him for the lead. Stanton's final lead role came in Lucky (2017), in which he played a 90-year-old man confronting old age.

Beginning in 2006, Stanton took on the recurring television role of Roman Grant, the leader of a polygamous sect, in the HBO series Big Love. In 2017, he appeared in Twin Peaks: The Return, reprising his role as Carl Rodd from Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me. He also had a cameo in Two and a Half Men and, in 2010, appeared in an episode of Chuck reprising his Repo Man character. Stanton was a favored collaborator of directors Sam Peckinpah, John Milius, David Lynch, and Monte Hellman, and maintained close personal friendships with Francis Ford Coppola and Jack Nicholson, serving as best man at Nicholson's 1962 wedding.

Beyond acting, Stanton performed as a singer and guitarist, touring nightclubs and playing country-inflected cover material. He appeared in music videos for Dwight Yoakam, Ry Cooder, and Bob Dylan, and played harmonica on The Call's 1989 album Let the Day Begin. He also collaborated with artists including Dylan, Art Garfunkel, and Kris Kristofferson. In 2011, the Lexington Film League established the annual Harry Dean Stanton Fest in his honor. He was the subject of two documentaries: Harry Dean Stanton: Crossing Mulholland (2011) and Harry Dean Stanton: Partly Fiction (2013), the latter directed by Sophie Huber and featuring interviews with collaborators including Wenders, Shepard, Kristofferson, and Lynch.

Stanton was never married, though he had a relationship with actress Rebecca De Mornay from 1981 to 1982. He died on September 15, 2017, from heart failure at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, California, at the age of 91. His cremated remains were interred at a cemetery in Nicholasville, Kentucky.