Harry Dean Stanton, Quintessential American Actor, Dies at 91

Harry Dean Stanton, the character actor with the world-weary face who carved out an exceptional career playing grizzled loners and colorful, offbeat characters in such films as Paris, Texas and Repo Man, has died. He was 91.

Stanton, who also was memorable in Cool Hand Luke (1967), Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), Ridley Scott’s Alien (1979), John Carpenter’s Escape From New York (1981) and John Hughes’ Pretty in Pink (1986) — in fact, what wasn’t he memorable in? — died Friday afternoon of natural causes at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, his agent, John Kelly, told The Hollywood Reporter.

Stanton was eerily creepy as evil polygamist and self-proclaimed Mormon prophet Roman Grant on HBO’s Big Love, and he partnered regularly with David Lynch, appearing in the director’s Wild at Heart (1990), Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992) and the series' recent return, the 1993 miniseries Hotel Room, The Straight Story (1999) and Inland Empire (2006). (He said he turned down a meeting with Lynch about playing Dennis Hopper’s part as a serial killer in Blue Velvet.)

Stanton was great pals with actor Jack Nicholson, and they roomed together in a Laurel Canyon house on Skyline Drive in the early 1960s. (Nicholson moved in after sharing a place with screenwriter Robert Towne.) They first appeared together in Monte Hellman’s Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), which Nicholson also wrote, and Stanton always said he learned about “acting natural” from that experience.

“Harry, I’ve got this part for you. His name is Blind Dick Reilly, and he’s the head of the gang. He’s got a patch over one eye and a derby hat,” Stanton, in a 2008 interview with Esquire, recalled Nicholson pitching him. “Then he says, ‘But I don’t want you to do anything. Let the wardrobe play the character.’ Which meant, just play yourself. That became my whole approach."

He and Nicholson caroused and worked together in Arthur Penn’s The Missouri Breaks (1976), Man Trouble (1992), The Pledge (2001) and Anger Management (2003). Stanton also became friends with Marlon Brando, another actor from Missouri Breaks, and they engaged in long phone calls for years before Brando’s death in 2004.

Meanwhile, Stanton was an elegant musical performer with an angelic tenor voice. He sang and played rhythm guitar and harmonica in a Tex-Mex band that did weekly gigs at The Mint in Los Angeles. (He also was a regular in front of and behind the bar at Dan Tana's in West Hollywood.)