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.

Choosing to be the Hero, the Joker, the Villain: An Interview with Arthur Dong

Oliver Wang interviews documentary filmmaker Arthur Dong. Originally from San Francisco, Dong began his career as a student filmmaker in the 1970s before releasing the Oscar-nominated short film, Sewing Woman in 1982. Since then, his films have focused on the role of Chinese and Asian Americans in entertainment industries as well as on anti-LGBQ discrimination. In the interview, Wang and Dong discuss Dong's beginnings as a high school filmmaker, his decision to turn the story of his seamstress mother into Sewing Woman, his struggle to bring together the Asian American and queer film communities and his recent experience in staging a “Hollywood Chinese” exhibit inside a renovated bar in West Hollywood.

The Final Years

Hopkins loses money on an investment and is forced to sell her art collection and her Sutton Place townhouse. Her friend Ward Morehouse dies and, from that, Hopkins is reacquainted with his wife, Becky, and they become best friends. Morehouse recounts her first visit to Hollywood, going to parties and Hopkins’s denial of having a Southern accent. Michael is transferred to March Air Force (now Reserve) Base, sixty miles from Los Angeles. Michael’s regrets, Hopkins’s sometimes stormy relationship with her daughter-in-law, and her affection for her grandson, Tom, are explored. Hopkins’s famous parties, as well as her obsession with psychics, her views on African Americans, and her fear of being forgotten are discussed. Hopkins appears on television and in films, including The Savage Intruder, playing a drunken, aging movie star. With her health waning, she’s given up on love and confines herself to her West Hollywood apartment, drinking champagne and calling friends in the middle of the night.

West Hollywood to Burbank

Samuel Goldwyn loans Hopkins to Warner Bros. for a four-picture deal. Hopkins is slipping at the box office, so Anatole Litvak suggests that they cast her in their new property Dark Victory. But Bette Davis is assigned to the role and Hopkins hires a new agent, Charles Feldman, and battles with Warner Bros. over her parts, even offering to reduce her salary to be given better roles. Hopkins newfound liberal beliefs, a result of her marriage to Litvak, attract the FBI’s attentions. Litvak has a weekend affair with Bette Davis, Hopkins finds out, and threatens to divorce him and name Davis as correspondent. Jack Warner talks her out of it and searches for the right role for her, going back and forth on several projects, until finally they agree on The Old Maid, costarring . . . Bette Davis. Tests on the film continue until Academy Awards night, when Bette Davis receives the Best Actress Oscar for Jezebel; Hopkins reacts by trashing her own home.