Harry Dean Stanton past away on September 15, 2017. He had been acting in TV shows and a vast array of Movies for over six decades.

He is another one of those character actors who you would instantly recognise but not necessarily remember his name.
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Harry Dean Stanton as Engineer Bret in Alien (1979)

Stanton cut his teeth in the early days of American TV throughout the fifties and sixties and had small roles in Movies during the seventies. It was towards the end of this decade that Stanton came to my attention playing the character of Bret, one of the engineers on board the doomed spaceship the Nostromo, in the brilliant sci-fi / horror Alien (1979).

The film changed the way that Hollywood viewed space travel. This wasn’t a scientific mission or an exploration “…to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before." This was a cargo vessel with a crew of only seven and Stanton’s character Bret was one of two engineers, the other being Parker, Chief engineer played by Yaphet Kotto. Their main worry was that they wanted more of a percentage of the companies bonus payment. Just like any other worker wanting to make a living.

Not sure why but I remember having a fondness for Bret with his slow and soft delivery of that Kentucky drawl.
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Escape from New York with Kurt Russell

Stanton made a couple of other sci-fi films, Escape from New York (1981) where he played the character Brain in this John Carpenter action adventure and starred Kurt Russell. There was also a little known sci-fi called UFOria (1985) with Cindy Williams (TVs Laverne and Shirley) and Fred Ward (Tremors 1990, Southern Comfort 1981) but it was Repo Man (1984) with a young Emilio Estevez that projected Stanton to a starring role.
However, the pinnacle of his career was also released in the same year, when he played drifter Travis Henderson in the powerful Paris Texas (1984) a film about ‘loss upon loss’ as coined by the great US critic Robert Ebert. Also, the tight screenplay was written by the late Sam Shepherd.
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Paris Texas (1984)

Harry Dean Stanton never stopped working and was still making movies right into 2017 with Sick of it All, Lucky, Twin Peaks 2017 (TV) and Frank and Ava (in post-production). Not bad for a 91-year old.

A rare talent with a great work ethic.