Throughout a 60-year career in television and film, Harry Dean Stanton was the pure definition of a working actor, thanks to looks and voice,
both of which were unique.
His looks are that of a bony-slim cowboy with deep cracks in the
facial edifice. A train wreck spurned by
the world around him and resigned to a fate reserved for the losers of this
world.
He reminds us of the guy next to you at the local dive, elbows up
at the bar and a cigarette burning between yellowed fingers. He tells stories with a Mason-Dixon dialect;
not too Southern to suggest ‘redneck’ and not too Northern to suggest ‘refined’.
The editors at Nitflix will remember him most for his performance
as in Cool Hand Luke combining into one depressingly beautiful character. A hang-dog look with a church hymnal voice, as
he plays a depressingly beautiful rendition of “Just a Closer Walk with Thee”
on acoustic guitar.
Unique, memorable and will be missed.
