The image of actor Dennis Hopper as a wild and intense bad boy has softened in recent years, but he's still famous for his many roles in independent movies and for his work in a handful of cinema classics. He started in the movies in the early 1950s, appearing in Nicholas Ray's Johnny Guitar (1954), Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). In the '60s his reputation as a "difficult" actor who favored improvisation kept him from getting many mainstream roles, and he appeared in several low-budget movies, including the "hippie" cult favorites The Trip (1967) and Head (1968). He directed and starred in 1969's Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson, a box office success that steered Hollywood toward counterculture marketing. During the 1970s Hopper was mostly known for being out of control and out of work, excepting a memorable role as a whacked-out journalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now (1979, starring Martin Sheen). His career was revived in the late 1980s by crazed performances in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) and the teen-angst drama River's Edge (1986), and by a surprisingly understated presence in Hoosiers (1986, starring Gene Hackman). He followed with a spurt of good parts in smaller films, including TV's Paris Trout (1991) and the feature films Nails (1992) and Boiling Point (1993, with Wesley Snipes). Since then his most memorable role has been as the villain in Speed (1994, starring Keanu Reeves), but he seems to pop up often enough in independent films and spots on TV, including as a ruthless villain in the first season of 24 (starring Kiefer Sutherland) and as a member of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff in the 2005 series E-Ring (co-starring Benjamin Bratt).
Hopper is also an art collector, painter and photographer.
Career Highlights: Easy Rider, Speed, Red Rock West
First Major Screen Credit: Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
Biography
The odyssey of Dennis Hopper has been one of Hollywood's longest, strangest trips. A onetime teen performer, he went through a series of career metamorphoses -- studio pariah, rebel filmmaker, drug casualty, and comeback kid -- before finally settling comfortably into the role of character actor par excellence, with a rogues' gallery of killers and freaks unmatched in psychotic intensity and demented glee. Along the way, Hopper defined a generation, documenting the shining hopes and bitter disappointments of the hippie counterculture and bringing their message to movie screens everywhere. By extension, he spearheaded a revolt in the motion picture industry, forcing the studio establishment to acknowledge a youth market they'd long done their best to deny.
Born May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper began acting during his teen years, and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic. In 1955 he made a legendary collaboration with the director Nicholas Ray in the classic Rebel Without a Cause, appearing as a young tough opposite James Dean. Hopper and Dean became close friends during filming, and also worked together on 1956's Giant. After Dean's tragic death, it was often remarked that Hopper attempted to fill his friend's shoes by borrowing much of his persona, absorbing the late icon's famously defiant attitude and becoming so temperamental that his once-bright career quickly began to wane.
Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which previously dotted his resume, Hopper began training with the Actors Studio. However, on the set of Henry Hathaway's From Hell to Texas he so incensed cast and crew with his insistence upon multiple takes for his improvisational techniques -- the reshoots sometimes numbering upwards of 100 -- that he found himself a Hollywood exile. He spent much of the next decade mired in "B"-movies, if he was lucky enough to work at all. Producers considered him such a risk that upon completing 1960's Key Witness he did not reappear on-screen for another three years. With a noteworthy role in Hathaway's 1965 John Wayne western The Sons of Katie Elder, Hopper made tentative steps towards a comeback. He then appeared in a number of psychedelic films, including 1967's The Trip and the following year's Monkees feature Head, and earned a new audience among anti-establishment viewers.
With friends Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson in front of the camera, Hopper decided to direct his own movie, and secured over $400,000 in financing to begin filming a screenplay written by novelist Terry Southern. The result was 1969's Easy Rider, a sprawling, drug-fueled journey through an America torn apart by the conflict in Vietnam. Initially rejected by producer Roger Corman, the film became a countercultural touchstone, grossing millions at the box office and proving to Hollywood executives that the ever-expanding youth market and their considerable spending capital would indeed react to films targeted to their issues and concerns, spawning a cottage industry of like-minded films. Long a pariah, Hopper was suddenly hailed as a major new filmmaker, and his success became so great that in 1971 he produced an autobiographical documentary, American Dreamer, exploring his life and times.
The true follow-up to Easy Rider, however, was 1971's The Last Movie, an excessive, self-indulgent mess that, while acclaimed by jurors at the Venice Film Festival, was otherwise savaged by critics and snubbed by audiences. Once again Hopper was left picking up the pieces of his career; he appeared only sporadically in films throughout the 1970s, most of them made well outside of Hollywood. His personal life a shambles -- his marriage to singer/actress Michelle Phillips lasted just eight days -- Hopper spent much of the decade in a haze, earning a notorious reputation as an unhinged wild man. A bizarre appearance as a disturbed photojournalist in Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now did little to repair most perceptions of his sanity.
Then in 1980, Hopper traveled to Canada to appear in a small film titled Out of the Blue. At the outset of the production he was also asked to take over as director, and to the surprise of many, the picture appeared on schedule and to decent reviews. Slowly he began to restake his territory in American films, accepting roles in diverse fare ranging from 1983's teen drama Rumble Fish to the 1985 comedy My Science Project. In 1986 Hopper returned to prominence with a vengeance. His role as the feral, psychopathic Frank Booth in David Lynch's masterpiece Blue Velvet was among the most stunning supporting turns in recent memory, while his touching performance as an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers earned an Academy Award nomination.
While acclaimed oddball turns in subsequent films like 1987's The River's Edge threatened to typecast Hopper as a professional sociopath, there was no doubting his return to Hollywood's hot list, and in 1988 he directed Colors, a charged police drama starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. While subsequent directorial efforts like 1989's Chattahoochee and 1990's film noir The Hot Spot failed to create the same kind of box office returns as Easy Rider over two decades earlier, his improbable comeback continued throughout the 1990s with roles in such acclaimed, quirky films as 1993's True Romance and 1996's Basquiat. Hopper was also the villain-du-jour in a number of Hollywood blockbusters, including 1994's Speed and the following year's Waterworld, and was even a pitchman for Nike athletic wear. He also did a number of largely forgettable films, one exception being Ron Howard's EdTV (1999). In addition, he also played writer and Beat extraordinaire William S. Burroughs in a 1999 documentary called The Source with Johnny Depp as Jack Kerouac and John Turturro as Allen Ginsberg.
In 1997 Hopper was awarded the distinction of appearing 87th in Empire Magazine's list of "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time." ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
"You want to hear about insanity? I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico. At the Mexico City airport, I decided I was in the middle of a movie and walked out on the wing on takeoff. My body... my liver... okay, my brain... went."
Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas, the son of Marjorie Mae (née Davis) and Jay Millard Hopper.[1] After the end of World War II, the family moved to Kansas City, Mo, where the young Hopper attended Saturday art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute taught by Thomas Hart Benton. At the age of 13, Hopper and his family moved to San Diego, where his mother worked as a lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager (Hopper has acknowledged, though, that his father was in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA).[2] Hopper was educated at Wooster School, Danbury, Connecticut and was voted most likely to succeed by his high school class (Helix High School, La Mesa, California, a suburb of San Diego). It was there he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego,[3]California and the Actors Studio in New York City, New York (studied with Lee Strasberg for five years). Hopper struck up a friendship with actor Vincent Price, whose passion for art influenced Hopper's interest in art. He was especially fond of the plays of William Shakespeare.
Film career
Hopper debuted in an episode of the Richard Boone television series Medic in 1955, portraying a young epileptic. He was reported to have an uncredited role in Johnny Guitar in 1954 but he has stated that he was not even in Hollywood when this film was made.[4] Hopper was then cast in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a 1955 car accident affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterwards that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film From Hell To Texas. Hopper refused directions for eighty takes over several days.
He appeared as an arrogant young gunfighter, the Utah Kid, in the 1956 episode "Quicksand" of the first hour-long television westerntelevision series, ABC's Cheyenne, starring Clint Walker. In the story line, the Kid gave Cheyenne Bodie no choice but to kill him in a gunfight.
Hopper had a supporting role as "Babalugats," the bet-taker in Cool Hand Luke (1967). Hopper acted in mainstream films including The Sons of Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969). Both of these films starred John Wayne, and in both Hopper's character is killed. During the production of True Grit, he became well acquainted with Wayne. Although the screen legend would regularly (and good-naturedly) assail Hopper for his archliberal social and political leanings, a genuine kinship developed between the two men.
It was not until he teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern, and Jack Nicholson in making Easy Rider that he really shook up the Hollywood establishment. This iconic film of the Vietnam War era is one of the most successful independent films ever made. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing. However, the production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of his marriage to Brooke Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk, and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol.
In 1971, Hopper released The Last Movie. Expecting an accessible follow-up to Easy Rider, audiences were treated to artistic flourishes (the inclusion of "scene missing" cards) and a hazily existentialist plot that dabbled in non-linearity and the absurd. After finishing first at the Venice Film Festival, the film was dismissed by audiences and critics alike during its first domestic engagement in New York City. During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself in Taos, New Mexico for nearly a year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from Easy Rider, he married Michelle Phillips in October 1970. Citing spousal abuse and his various addictions, she filed for divorce a week after their wedding.
Hopper was able to sustain his lifestyle and a measure of celebrity by acting in numerous low budget and European films throughout the 1970s as the archetypical "tormented maniac", including Mad Dog Morgan (1976), Tracks (1976), and The American Friend (1977). With Francis Ford Coppola's blockbuster Apocalypse Now (1979), Hopper returned to prominence as a hypomanic Vietnam-era photojournalist, essentially portraying himself in the eyes of many viewers and critics. Stepping in for an overwhelmed director, Hopper won praise in 1980 for his directing and acting in Out of the Blue. Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an addled short-order cook "Cracker" in the low-budget Neil Young and Dean Stockwell collaboration Human Highway with the new wave group Devo. Production was often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Peter Biskind states in the New Hollywood history Easy Riders, Raging Bulls that Hopper's cocaine intake had reached three grams a day by this time period, complemented by an additional thirty beers, marijuana, and Cuba libres.
After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) using 17 sticks of dynamite at an "art happening" near Houston and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983. The not-entirely-rejuvenated Hopper gave powerful performances in Rumble Fish (1983) and The Osterman Weekend (1983). However, it was not until he portrayed the intoxicating gas-huffing, obscenity-screaming Frank Booth in David Lynch's film Blue Velvet (1986) that his career truly revived. After reading the script, Hopper called Lynch and told him "You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!"[6] Hopper won critical acclaim and several awards for this role and the same year received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for Hoosiers.
In 1988, Hopper directed a critically acclaimed film about Los Angeles gangs called Colors. He has continued to be an important actor, photographer and director. He was nominated for an Emmy award for the 1991 HBO films Paris Trout and Doublecrossed (in which he played real life drug smuggler and DEA informant Barry Seal). He also starred in Super Mario Bros. a 1993 critical and commercial failure loosely based on the video game of the same name and its entire franchise as King Bowser Koopa (which was strongly disliked by Hopper himself due to his experience on the project[7]). Despite the failure of the film, it boost his career to play villainous roles the following years. He also co-starred in the 1994 blockbuster Speed with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock. In 1995, Hopper played the villain "Deacon" in Waterworld. In 2003, Hopper was originally in the running for the dual lead in the indie horror drama Firecracker, but was most notably ousted at the last minute in favor of Mike Patton. He contributed to the film 1 Giant Leap with provocative anecdotes on spirituality, unity and culture.[who?] He recently co-starred in Elegy with Sir Ben Kingsley, Penelope Cruz and Debbie Harry (Harry plays Hopper's wife in the film).
Television work
Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of successful television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads. He portrayed villain Victor Drazen in the first season of the popular drama 24 on the Fox television network. Hopper also starred in the NBC 2005 television series E-Ring, a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was cancelled after fourteen episodes aired. Hopper currently plays the part of record producer Ben Cendars in the television series Crash.
Personal life
Hopper has been married five times and has four children.
Brooke Hayward (1937 – ) (daughter of Leland Hayward) (married 1961 – divorced 1969) 1 child, daughter Marin Hopper (born on June 26, 1962)
Daria Halprin (1948 – ) (married 1972 - divorced 1976) 1 child, daughter Ruthanna Hopper (born circa 1974)
Katherine LaNasa (1966 – ) (married June 17, 1989 – divorced April 1992) 1 child, son Henry Lee Hopper (born on September 11, 1990)
Victoria Duffy (1968 – ) (married April 13, 1996 – present) 1 child, daughter Galen Grier Hopper (born on March 26, 2003)
In 1999, actor Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According to Torn's suit, it was actually Hopper who pulled the knife on him. A judge ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was ordered to pay $475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another $475,000 in punitive damages.[8]
Despite being famous as an actor and director, Hopper sees himself primarily as an artist, and is an accomplished and much-respected painter, art collector and photographer.
