Harry Dean the Punk Icon

Repo Man and Paris, Texas firmly established Harry Dean Stanton as what one writer called "the patron saint of the edgy set." In his sixties now, he hung out with the so-called "Brat Pack"--Sean Penn, Madonna, Johnny Depp. He was partying with Robert De Niro at the Chateau Marmond the night comedian John Belushi died of a drug overdose there. Dan Tana's in West Hollywood was his favorite hangout, however, and he held court there with pals like actors Ed Begley Jr. and Dabney Coleman. The lead roles he'd expected after Paris, Texas never came, but important supporting roles did. He rejoined Sam Shepard in Fool for Love in 1985, and he widened his following with his performances in Pretty in Pink in 1986 and Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation in 1988. More important, however, was his work with director David Lynch, including four Lynch projects in the 1990s and several more after the turn of the century. The weirdness of the Lynchian world even seemed to touch his personal life with an armed robbery at his home in 1996 and the embezzlement of his personal finances by his financial manager a few years later.