HARRY DEAN STANTON

He had a face that looked like it had worn out three or four bodies. But Harry Dean Stanton, who died recently at 91, had a great run. His career began in 1954 and spanned over 60 years. He appeared in over 100 movies and 50 TV shows. He even had a part in a still-to-be-released movie at the time of his death (Frank And Ava, now in post-production).
Wise Blood (1969), a weird movie from a weird Flannery O’Connor novel, features Bard Dourif as an anti-preacher, roaming the South spouting hateful drivel against Christianity and its followers. This film is definitely not for all tastes, but it does have a cult following. John Huston, master of weird stories, directs. Harry Dean Stanton has an excellent turn as a standard, and fraudulent, sidewalk preacher. 
The Black Marble (1980) is one of the more successful adaptations of Joseph Wambaugh’s delicious cop novels. Robert Foxworth and Paula Prentiss play LA cops ordered to investigate the kidnapping of a Beverly Hills socialite’s pet dog. Harry Dean Stanton is just spot-on as the sleazy kidnapper, who runs a beauty shop for pets and desperately needs money to pay his debts.
Goldie Hawn is an Oscar nominee for Private Benjamin (1980) as a socialite adrift after her new husband dies on their wedding night. A very questionable Army recruiter, ably played by Harry Dean Stanton, convinces her that the US Army is fun and games, almost like a vacation. She quickly discovers it is not that at all, but she can’t unenlist. Her expectations meeting the reality of basic training are the stuff of high comedy. 
Perhaps the capstone of Mr. Stanton’s career was his role in Paris, Texas (1984). He appears as Travis Henderson, a mute amnesiac wandering through Texas. The extremely convoluted plot involves Travis eventually finding his son and wife after four missing years. The Straight Story (1999) is one of my favorite movies you’ve probably never heard of. It is the late Richard Farnsworth’s crowning achievement. He plays Alvin,an aging man who is estranged from his brother Lyle (Harry Dean Stanton). Learning that Lyle has had a stroke, Alvin decides he must go visit him in the hopes of a reconciliation before Lyle dies. Since Alvin has no driver’s license, he drives the 240 mile journey on his John Deere lawn tractor! 
You can also catch good HDS moments in Cool Hand Luke (1967) as one of Paul Newman’s fellow convicts, and as Molly Ringwald’s Dad in Pretty In Pink (1986). He also has a brief, but important, part in The Green Mile (1999) 
All of the flims in this article are available on DVD and are for grown-ups.