Lucy Jones. Photo by Emily Giancarlo
This month, Lexington will host the ninth annual Harry Dean Stanton Festival, a tribute to the late Kentucky-born character actor who appeared in more than 120 films before passing away in 2017 at the age of 91. With an impressive and wide-ranging acting career that included westerns, art films, cult classics, blockbusters and everything in between, Stanton – whose eccentric quirks and gentle demeanor deem him an essentially universally lovable actor – is clearly the reason d’être for the unique community festival. But the festival would certainly not exist without Lucy Jones, the Lexington film buff and community organizer who founded the event in 2011 and has remained at its helm ever since.
“Ever since I was a 12-year-old kid, one of my favorite annual events has been the James Dean Festival in Fairmount, Indiana,” Jones explained recently when asked about her inspiration to start the event. “I always enjoyed the sense of community that it creates – people come from all over the world to converge on this tiny town, and for one glorious weekend, they revel in their shared love of film.
“It only made sense to honor Harry Dean in a similar way,” she continued. “He’s Lexington’s James Dean.”
A passionate collector and cinephile with a soft spot for nostalgia in various forms, Jones largely traces her love of vintage films and pop culture to childhood years spent growing up on a rural farm, without many kids her age around.
“I spent a lot of time alone, and I spent a lot of that alone time watching television,” she said. “Fox had just become a network, but they didn’t have much original programming so they broadcast a lot of vintage television and movies. Those films became my safe place, and the characters who populated them became my surrogate friends.”
Jones’ longtime love of film eventually led her to pursue to a handful of jobs in the film industry. After college, she worked for a film promotion and publicity company in Atlanta, and eventually she moved to Los Angeles, where she briefly held a job working for a film production company before discovering she didn’t have a particularly strong interest in “watching how the sausage gets made,” as she puts it.
“That ruins it,” she said with a laugh. “Turns out, movie production was not for me.”
In 2009, Jones moved back to the Bluegrass, where she joined the organizational team behind the Lexington Film League and helped kickstart various film-related events around Lexington, including a small-scale film festival called Filmslang as well as the Harry Dean Stanton Festival. Now taking place on Stanton’s birthday weekend each year (July 12-14 this year), the multi-venue event features a series of film screenings and special celebrity guests – Stanton himself made a cameo in 2014 – as well as other community events.
While Jones’ love of vintage culture may have started with movies and television, it doesn’t stop there. She does credit her early love of mid-century films with spawning an eventual love of all things from that era, from architecture and decor to clothing and accessories.
“[Growing up] obsessed with films from the 1950s and 1960s, it only made sense that I would want my apartment to look like those sets,” she said, adding that she still owns the first piece of mid-century furniture she ever bought: a padded-vinyl and wood cocktail bar she purchased for her college dorm in Atlanta.
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Lucy Jones. Photo by Emily Giancarlo
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Lucy Jones. Photo by Emily Giancarlo
In recent years, the mid-century maven has made two of the most notable purchases in her “vintage salvage” career. The first was a 1966 Eastland area home, which she bought in 2015 in a state of disarray and has painstakingly restored and furnished to its full original “Mad Men”-esque glory. More recently, she pulled the trigger on purchasing a unique mid-century building on Winchester Road that was originally an ice cream parlor and was most recently home to the now-defunct restaurant Great China. Jones is working diligently to restore the building, which had long been in disrepair, and is working her way around remedying a series of code violations toward her ultimate goal for the building: opening an all-vegan diner called The Mockingbird.
Jones said while “restaurateur” hadn’t necessarily been at the top of her short list of possible careers, the opportunity fell into her lap in a unique and organic way that hit on several of her personal passions at once: historic preservation, veganism and mid-century design. The decision to purchase the building, which was potentially in danger of being razed, was driven in large part by having witnessed several heartbreaking demolitions of much admired buildings in Lexington, despite enormous efforts to save them.
“I did not set out to start a restaurant – I wanted to protect a potentially endangered building that had once been a restaurant,” she explained. “But I quickly realized what a great opportunity it was to combine my love of design and my passion for animal welfare.”
Interestingly – and rather sweetly – Jones credits a favorite childhood book for her passion for things that are about to be lost to time: Margery Williams’ “The Velveteen Rabbit,” which centers on a toy that is tossed out and longs for a second chance.
“I think reading that story was the beginning of my always seeing value in discarded things,” Jones said.
Lucy Jones. Photo furnished
What are five films you consider must-sees? I would be scared to mention five films because I know that I’ll be up all night worrying about the ones that I left off the list, so I will mention one perfect film instead: ‘The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.’ John Huston’s 1948 classic [starring Humphrey Bogart] is a rare and perfect example of the medium’s potential: It transports us to an unfamiliar landscape; it creates carefully nuanced and complex characters in whom we can emotionally invest; and it presents a conflict that, ultimately, sheds light on the human condition and forces us to look within ourselves. Plus, it is beautifully shot and the performances are outstanding. If I were to teach a class called ‘What Film Is’ and could only use one example, this would be it.
Harry Dean Stanton has appeared in so many great scenes in so many great movies — do you have a favorite scene from one of his movies? There are so many perfect scenes that it is hard for me to choose. But the scene I think of the most these days is the concluding scene in ‘Lucky.’ It was Harry’s last film and was released two weeks following his death. It’s a character study that imagines how Harry’s life would have turned out if he’d never gone to Hollywood and never become a star. How different would things be if he was just an ordinary Joe? In it, Harry grapples with his own mortality in dialogue pulled straight from his life. The film ends with a close-up of Harry, alone in the desert, staring straight into the camera. As he breaks the ‘fourth wall’ and looks at the audience for the first [and last] time, a kindly and beatific smile spreads across his face. It is perfect and beautiful.
What is something people would be surprised to know about you? I was once on a game show hosted by first childhood crush, Christopher Knight [the actor who portrayed Peter Brady on the ‘The Brady Bunch’]. Everything was proceeding swimmingly until I got to the final round and it was just me and ‘Peter Brady’ standing face to face under hot lights. I had a total and complete brain meltdown.
If the final question had been ‘what is your name?’ I would not have been able to answer it. I’m generally not one to become star-struck, but Peter Brady was my undoing.
Describe your idea of a perfect night out in Lexington. Dinner at Pearl’s (the cashew ‘ricotta’ that they put on their pizza is insane), followed by Gallery Hop and a movie at the Kentucky Theatre.
If you could go back and tell your teenage self something, what would it be? Stop worrying and just go for it! I was so inside my own head as I kid. I was petrified of failure, so I rarely took any creative chances. I was also painfully shy until I got to college. It was there that I learned what I wish I’d known all along: All of us are just looking for connection in this world. No one is going to laugh at you for being friendly or reaching out. So, take that chance! Be vulnerable! Be fearless! Oh, and learn to play the guitar. Why did I never learn to play the guitar?
For entrepreneurs out there dreaming up a variety of ideas, start-ups and businesses in Lexington, what’s your best advice? People will give you a million reasons why your idea can’t work, but if you believe in it enough, you just have to go for it. Every time that I have tried something and failed, I have learned something. I don’t regret any of those lessons because, as much of a cliché as it may be, it has made me who I am. What I do regret is the chances that I haven’t taken and the times that I have allowed self-doubt to prevent me from doing something that I really wanted to do. As long as you remain financially responsible and build a safety net into your dreams, there’s no reason not to be bold.