The Loveless: Willem Dafoe as Leather-clad Biker Vance
Willem Dafoe in The Loveless (1981)
Vitals
Willem Dafoe as Vance, lone biker and ex-convict
Rural Georgia, Summer 1959
Film: The Loveless
Release Date: August 7, 1981
Directed by: Kathryn Bigelow & Monty Montgomery
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
Happy 70th birthday to Willem Dafoe, the versatile actor born July 22, 1955, in Appleton, Wisconsin—not far from Sheboygan, where I just spent the weekend!
After an uncredited part cut from Michael Cimino’s ambitious 1980 Western epic Heaven’s Gate, Dafoe made his credited screen debut as the lead in The Loveless, which also marked the directorial debut of Kathryn Bigelow and Monty Montgomery, who co-wrote the screenplay.
Dafoe stars as Vance, a brooding biker who describes himself as “what you’d call… ragged,” joining up with his small gang at a truck stop off U.S. Highway 17 in Georgia, en route to Daytona to catch the NASCAR races. The year’s never stated, but context clues—like the cars, music, and 10¢ Cokes—suggest the summer of 1959, the same year Lee Petty won the first Daytona 500.
As in the film’s spiritual predecessor The Wild One (1953), the gang sparks mixed reactions from the townspeople: suspicion and fear from the older generation, curiosity and desire from the younger. As the sun sets and the tension rises, both visitors and locals grow increasingly drunk… and increasingly armed.
You never can tell on a day like this. Things could be goin’ jake one minute, then presto—before you know it, you’re history.
What’d He Wear?
While his confederates mix their moto jackets with dark jeans, sporty shirts, and the occasional cap, Vance opts for a purer, more austere biker look—neck-to-toe black leather, free of any prominently embellishments. (Bigelow would revisit this imagery with another leather-clad outlaw in her following feature, Near Dark.)
Vance echoes Marlon Brando’s iconic costume from The Wild One in his black leather motorcycle jacket with its silver-toned stars pinned to each shoulder epaulet. These five-pointed stars and the overall design echo the iconic Schott “One Star” Perfecto® Model 613 jacket.
Likely crafted from drum-dyed black steerhide, the waist-length jacket has the usual asymmetrical heavy-duty front zip with a silver-toned pull and matching teeth, zipping over the lower half of the wide-notched lapels that each feature a silver-toned snap that fastens against the chest. The set-in sleeves are finished with zip-back cuffs, and i-swing back panels have grommet-vented underarm footballs for an expanded range of movement and ventilation.
An attached half-belt pulls through loops in the front and closes through a heavy nickel-plated single-prong squared buckle. The zippered three-pocket design dates to the late ’40s, consisting of a pair of slanted hand pockets joined by another pocket slanted in an opposing direction higher on the left side of the chest; the small flapped set-in coin pocket low on the left side began as an option in the early ’50s before it was standardized on the One Star model by 1955.
Under his motorcycle jacket, Vance wears only a plain white ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt. These tank top-style undershirts had been popular for men since at least the late 1920s, gaining the “A-shirt” nickname (short for “athletic shirt”) considered a more appropriate alternative to the more derogatory “wife-beater” appellation.
Wearing only this undershirt beneath his jacket gives Vance a more crudely carnal appearance as he sneers his way through interactions with women along highway 17.
Vance’s black leather motorcycle pants mirror the rugged protection of his matching jacket—reinforcing his tougher, more committed look compared to the dark jeans favored by his fellow riders. These close-fitting pants follow a design similar to regular trousers, albeit with more securely fastened pockets to keep the contents from spilling out. The two slanted front pockets have zippers, and the set-in back-right pocket has a single-snap closure. The waistband has long belt loops that go unused and a zip-up fly that closes through two buttons along the top.
Vance’s trousers have brass-toned zippers, as opposed to the silver-toned zippers on his jacket.
Vance wears black leather engineer boots, a rugged and practical choice that complements the form and function matching moto jacket and trousers. Originally developed in the 1930s for railroad firemen, engineer boots were quickly embraced by motorcyclists for their durable construction, laceless design, and tall stovepipe shafts—ideal for protecting legs from engine heat and avoiding snags in drive belts. The style gained iconic status in postwar biker culture and became synonymous with youthful rebellion on screen in films like The Wild One (1953), Rebel Without a Cause (1955), and The Young Savages (1961). Vance’s pair are classic examples, with bullhide uppers rising to mid-calf and the signature buckled straps—one across the instep and another around the gusseted top of each shaft—secured in sturdy brass.
Vance completes his practical protective gear with a set of black leather gloves, though he often also pulls on a set of black wraparound sunglasses with sharply flared temples and upswept outer edges—an exaggeration of the “cat-eye” frame that was fashionable through the fabulous fifties. The high-gloss black acetate frames are detailed with five visible pins on each temple—three in a triangular configuration behind the hinge, an arrangement frequently found on contemporary eyewear such as the dramatic frames crafted by French eyewear house François Pinton, founded in 1953.
Within The Loveless’s rebellious rockabilly milieu, Vance’s sunglasses suit his outsized presence, making him feel more like a mythic projection of masculine cool than a guy you’d meet at the corner diner.
The Bike
Vance rides a red Harley-Davidson FL “Hydra-Glide”, a heavyweight motorcycle from the company’s iconic Big Twin line—so named for the large-displacement V-twin engines that powered these bikes and helped define the postwar American road culture. The Hydra-Glide marked a significant step in Harley-Davidson evolution, most notably with its telescopic front forks introduced in 1949 as a smoother and more modern alternative to the older springer suspensions—hence the name “Hydra” referencing its hydraulic damping system.
By the time The Loveless is set in the late 1950s, the FL Hydra-Glide would have been the standard-bearer for big American touring bikes. It was powered by the “Panhead” engine, a 1,200-cc (74 cubic inch) air-cooled V-twin that had debuted in 1948 and remained in production through the mid-’60s. Named for the distinctive shape of its aluminum rocker covers (resembling upside-down pans), the Panhead was a relatively modern engine for its time—offering improved oil circulation and more reliable top-end performance over its Knucklehead predecessor. While not exactly fast by modern standards, the Panhead delivered solid torque and cruising comfort, ideal for long-distance riders and highway rebels alike.
Telena: You know, without that motorcycle of yours, you’d really be a nobody.
Vance: Yeah, a real deadbeat. So what’s a bum gotta do to drive this thing?
Telena: Turn the key.
Vance finds a kindred soul in the troubled Telena (Marin Kanter) after she pulls her pristine cherry-red 1960 Chevrolet Corvette into the service station. She reveals that the car had been given to her by her abusive father… who then fires two shells from a shotgun into it after catching her at the motel with Vance.
The 1960 Corvette was among the last of the “solid-axle” first-generation C1 models that cover the introductory 1953 model year through 1962, when it was replaced by the Stingray series. By the 1960 model year, all Corvettes were powered by a small-block 283 cubic-inch (4.6L V8), which ranged in output from a base 230 horsepower up to 315 horsepower when equipped with Ramjet fuel injection. All could be mated to either a three- or four-speed manual transmission, though only the lower output 230-, 245-, and 270-horsepower engines could also be mated to GM’s two-speed Powerglide automatic transmission.
What to Imbibe
“I want some beer and some Thunderbird,” Vance explains when he drives up to a rural liquor store. “I need two cases of Dixie and four pints of Thunderbird,” he clarifies after producing the cash with a smirk. After drinking one of the latter pints behind the wheel of Telena’s Corvette, Vance throws the bottle back onto the road with a crash to her amusement.
A pint of Thunderbird tucked in his belt, Vance distributes Dixie beers to his crew.
As suggested by its name, Dixie beer was a regional favorite in the South for more than a century after Valentine Merz founded the Dixie Brewing Company on Tulane Avenue in New Orleans in 1907. Following nearly a century of operations, the brewery was severely damaged—and looted—during Hurricane Katrina in 2005, so production temporarily migrated north into Yankee territory. Dixie beer was manufactured under contract for over a decade in Monroe, Wisconsin, before it returned below the Mason-Dixon in 2019, first brewed in Memphis before operations returned to New Orleans and the rebuilt Dixie Brewery. Though Dixie beer had returned home, the name hardly lasted a year as the brewery and its output were officially rebranded under the Faubourg name in 2021.
Thunderbird is one of three popular fortified wines produced by the Modesto, California-based E & J Gallo Winery. Launched in 1957 with an ABV around 20% (which would be slightly lowered in the decades to follow), Thunderbird was intentionally aimed at low-income drinkers and marketed with the jingle “What’s the word? Thunderbird!” before it gained its current nickname as “The American Classic”.
How to Get the Look
Willem Dafoe in The Loveless (1981)
In his debut screen role as leather-clad loner Vance, Willem Dafoe channels a mythic rebel aura in raw, road-hardened black leather from head to toe: Perfecto-style biker jacket, matching motorcycle pants, engineer boots, and gloves—completed with a set of oversized and slightly otherworldly sunglasses.
- Black leather Perfecto-style motorcycle jacket with widely notched lapels (with collar snaps), asymmetrical zip-up lancer front, snapped epaulettes/shoulder straps (each decorated with a single star), zip-up slanted hand pockets, zip-up slanted left chest pocket, left-side coin pocket (with pointed single-snap flap), half-belt (with mitred-corner steel single-prong buckle), zip-back sleeves, and bi-swing pleated “action back”
- White ribbed cotton sleeveless undershirt
- Black leather motorcycle pants with belt loops, two-button waistband and zip-fly, slanted zip-up front pockets, and single-snap set-in back-right pocket
- Black leather engineer boots with brass-toned buckles
- Black acetate-framed wraparound cat-eye sunglasses
- Black leather gloves
Do Yourself a Favor and…
Check out the movie.
The Quote
Every one of us… dollar chips in one big floatin’ crap game.
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