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| “ | You and me, mister... we can really out-ugly them sumbitches, can't we? | „ |
| ~ Mr. Eddy to Fred Madison; also his last words. |
| “ | Don't tailgate! Don't you f***ing ever tailgate! Do you know how much space is needed to stop a car traveling at 35 miles per hour? Six car lengths! Six f***in' car lengths! That's a hundred and six f***in' feet, mister! If I had to stop suddenly, you woulda hit me! I want you to get a f***in' driver's manual, and I want you to study that motherf***er! And I want you to obey the the goddamn rules of the road! Fifty-f***in' thousand people were killed on the highways last year 'cause of f***in' a**holes like you! Tell me you're gonna get a manual! | „ |
| ~ Mr. Eddy while beating up a tailgater. |
Dick Laurent, also known as Mr. Eddy, is the secondary antagonist of David Lynch's 1997 neo-noir film Lost Highway. He is a gangster and producer of BDSM pornographic films who forces his moll Renee Madison/Alice Wakefield, to perform in his "work", while menacing her lover Pete Dayton with the help of the Mystery Man.
He was portrayed by the late Robert Loggia, who also portrayed Frank Lopez in Scarface, Bill Sykes in Oliver and Company, and Feech La Manna in The Sopranos.
Biography[]
Overview[]
Dick Laurent, also known as "Mr. Eddy", is a powerful gangster who also produces BDSM-themed pornographic films. He "auditions" his moll, Alice Wakefield, to perform in these films by forcing her to strip for him at gunpoint. He makes several porn movies with Alice as his "star". She does not love or even like him, but she stays with him because he keeps her in a lavish lifestyle, and because she fears he will kill her if she tries to leave.
Mr. Eddy takes Pete Dayton, a young auto mechanic, under his wing as a protege, paying him well to maintain his vintage Cadillac. He is also involved in a way that is never fully explained with the Mystery Man, an enigmatic, otherworldly figure who serves as a harbinger of paranoia and murder everywhere he goes.
Lost Highway[]
Mr. Eddy stops by Pete's garage with Alice in tow, and seems to notice that Pete is immediately taken with her; he "off-handedly" tells Pete that he would kill any man who touched her. After Pete tunes up the car, Mr. Eddy takes him for a ride on a desert highway. When another driver tailgates him, Mr, Eddy cuts him off, drags him out of the car, and savagely pistol-whips him while screaming at him about the dangers of tailgating.
Pete and Alice eventually become lovers, and Mr. Eddy finds out. He menaces his rival by calling him at his parents' house and threateningly asks if he is "doing OK" before handing the phone to the Mystery Man, who further intimidates Pete with a story about condemned prisoners "in the Far East" being sentenced to live with death hanging over their heads, never knowing when the fatal blow is coming. Mr. Eddy then says that he is glad that Pete is "doing OK" before hanging up. Terrified, Pete goes to Alice for help, and joins her in a plan to rob her former lover, and Mr. Eddy's associate, Andy and go on the run. Alice, who is also Renee Madison, who earlier in the film had apparently been murdered by her husband - and Pete's doppelgänger - Fred, eventually reverts to her former self and abandons Pete, who then turns back into Fred.
Fred follows Alice/Renee to a motel where she is having sex with Mr. Eddy, and kidnaps him. Fred takes Mr. Eddy to the middle of the desert, where he shoots Mr. Eddy in the chest, mortally wounding him, as the Mystery Man looks on. As he dies, Mr. Eddy remarks to Fred that they can both "out-ugly them sumbitches." Fred then drives to his own residence and leaves the message via the intercom that "Dick Laurent is dead," which he had first heard at the beginning of the film.
Trivia[]
- In 1986, Loggia had been in talks with Lynch to star in his film Blue Velvet as Frank Booth. On the day Loggia was to audition, however, Lynch was held up by production issues and kept him waiting for hours. By the time Lynch got to Loggia, he told him that he had decided to cast Dennis Hopper as Booth. Angry at having had his entire day wasted, Loggia started screaming at Lynch, launching into a profanity-laced tirade. While writing the screenplay for Lost Highway years later, Lynch used this incident as the inspiration for Mr. Eddy's road rage scene.