Linda Manz, Richard Gere‘s spunky younger sister in Days of Heaven, has died of lung cancer at age 58.

15 year-old Manz gave one of the 20th Century’s most indelible supporting performances in Terrence Malick‘s 1978 classic. Reciting Malick’s narration with that glorious New York street accent, smoking hand-rolled cigarettes, yanking feathers out of a dead chicken, laughing, lost in thought aboard a westbound freight train or on a boat cruising down a Texas river…perfection.

Manz played the lead role in Dennis Hopper‘s Out Of The Blue (’80), which I’ve only seen once. She was also in Phillip Kaufman‘s The Wanderers (’79) and Harmony Korine‘s Gummo (’97).

Manz’s final Days of Heaven line: “This girl, she didn’t know where she was gonna go or what she was gonna do. Maybe she’d meet up with a charactuh. I was really hopin’ things would work out for huh. She was a good frenna mine.”