How Harry Dean Stanton and Bob Dylan ruined one of Sam Peckinpah’s shots
There was a niche, yet potent, contingent of American actors who thrived in eccentricity, with the enigmatic Harry Dean Stanton being one such cinematic icon. A creative butterfly, Stanton was an actor, musician, singer and all-around favourite of filmmakers including Sam Peckinpah, John Milius and David Lynch. Passing away in 2017, the legacy he leaves is an impressive one, becoming a sage of the silver screen in his 66 years in the industry.
Brought up in a musical background, Stanton performed at the Guignol Theatre under the direction of British theatre director Wallace Briggs whilst studying journalism and radio arts in his youth. Speaking in a 2011 interview, the actor recalled, “I had to decide if I wanted to be a singer or an actor. I was always singing. I thought if I could be an actor, I could do all of it,” with the world of cinema thanking him for his eventual decision.
Putting his dream of the silver screen on ice, Stanton would serve in the United States Navy during WWII, a role which included a stint as a chef aboard a landing ship during the battle of Okinawa. Seeing a remarkable amount of action, Stanton no doubt used his time in the war to inform his later performances.
Starring in endless TV roles throughout his early career in the 1950s and 1960s, it wasn’t until the 1970s that Stanton would take to the cinema industry, appearing in such films as Kelly’s Heroes, the iconic road movie Two-Lane Blacktop and Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, directed by the great Sam Peckinpah.
A biographical western, the film, directed by Peckinpah and written by Rudy Wurlitzer, tells the story of Pat Garrett (James Coburn), a man hired as a lawman on behalf of a group of wealthy New Mexico cattle barons to bring down his old friend Billy the Kid (Kris Kristofferson). Stanton appears as only a supporting character in the tale, alongside none other than the American folk musician Bob Dylan who also wrote the film’s rousing score.
During the production of the movie, Stanton and Dylan became quite the nuisance for Peckinpah in a truly unexpected way. Planning a big sunset shot for his western epic, Peckinpah had set one evening aside to capture the one-time moment, only for the two actors to ruin the sequence by jogging through the scene, forcing a reshoot the very next day.
As leading man Kris Kristofferson recalls, Stanton tried to blame Dylan for the blunder, crying, “Sam, I was running after him, trying to tell him!”.
Initially only hiring Dylan to write the title song, Dylan eventually ended up writing the entire score, as well as taking a supporting role in the movie. Among the many tracks on the album was the famous song ‘Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door’, with the whole record being nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Original Score.
Dylan went on to grow in stature in the American music industry, and so too did Harry Dean Stanton, appearing in Ridley Scott’s 1979 movie Alien, a role that would catapult him to further cinematic success and make him a true national icon.
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