A Kentucky native who appeared in more than 200 films will be honored in Lexington this weekend. Harry Dean Stanton grew up in West Irvine and attended college at the University of Kentucky. Then he went on to a prolific and award-winning film career. Lucy Jones is the creator and organizer of Harry Dean Stantonfest, an annual event that premiered in 2011. She said she was sick at home with a fever when she discovered Stanton had answered her initial letter with a voicemail.
“He said, ‘You know, I thank you so much for the invitation. Give me a call.’ We had a nice phone chat. As it turns out, he has a cousin who works for the FBI. So he had already done a background check on me to make sure that I wasn't some sort of lunatic.”
Stanton, who died in 2017, attended his own festival in 2014 at the insistence of former Mama’s and the Papa’s singer and actress Michelle Phillips. Jones says it’s usually leading men and women who are chosen for such honors. That’s why she picked Stanton – and she’s glad she did.
“This festival has been an incredible blessing in my life. I have made so many lifelong friends through the festival. We have a group of people who return every year, who come from various parts of the country and we all reconvene and it becomes basically a family reunion.”
Among this weekend’s Harry Dean Stantonfest highlights are a free Friday night screening of his final movie, “Lucky,” at Bluegrass Memorial Gardens in Nicholasville – where he is buried.
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