Harry Dean Stanton Dead at 91

The actor and musician was known for Alien, Twin Peaks, and more
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Actor and musician Harry Dean Stanton has died, according to The Hollywood Reporter. He was 91. The cause of death has not yet been released; Pitchfork has reached out for comment. Known for his character work, Stanton began appearing in television and film projects in the ’50s. He once said he’d been in over 200 movies. Some of his most notable were 1979’s Alien, 1981’s Escape from New York, and 1992’s Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me. In recent years, Stanton had regular roles on HBO’s “Big Love” and “Getting On.” He also reprised his “Twin Peaks” character Carl Rodd for the revived series. “There’s nobody like Harry Dean,” David Lynch wrote in a statement. “Everybody loved him. And with good reason.”

Born in West Irvine, Kentucky, Stanton served in the Navy in the ’40s, and later enrolled at the University of Kentucky. While touring with a children’s play, he decided to stay in California and pursue acting in Hollywood. He appeared in “Alfred Hitchcock Presents,” “Gunslingers,” “The Untouchables,” and many more programs throughout the ’50s and ’60s. Beyond acting, Stanton performed music. In 1984, he covered Ry Cooder’s “Canción Mixteca” for Paris, Texas—a film in which he also starred. He was also a regular performer at Los Angeles’ The Mint. In 2014, he recorded the soundtrack for Harry Dean Stanton: Mostly Fiction, which found him covering the songs that shaped his ear at a young age. “I learned to sing when I was a child,” he told The Guardian in 2013. “I had a babysitter named Thelma. She was 18, I was six, and I was in love with her. I used to sing her an old Jimmie Rodgers song, ‘T for Thelma.’ I was singing the blues when I was six. Kind of sad, eh?”

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