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Dennis Lee Hopper (born May 17, 1936) is an Academy Award-nominated American
actor and film-maker, known for his roles in Blue Velvet, 24 and Easy Rider.
Early life
Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas to Marjorie and Jay M. Hopper. He grew up on
a farm and later moved to San Diego with his family, where his mother worked as a
lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager. 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,
California). It was there he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old
Globe Theatre in San Diego, California and the Actors Studio in New York City, New
York (studied with Lee Strasberg for five years). He was especially fond of the
plays of William Shakespeare.
 Career
Hopper made his acting debut on an episode of the Richard Boone television show
Medic in 1955 playing a young epileptic. 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 80 takes
over several days. This infamous incident resulted in his being blacklisted from
films for several years.
In his book Last Train to Memphis, American popular music historian Peter Guralnick
says that in 1956 when Elvis Presley was making his first film in Hollywood, Dennis
Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and
socialized together. Hopper moved to New York and studied at the famous Lee
Strasberg acting school. He appeared in over 140 episodes of television shows such
as Bonanza, The Twilight Zone, The Defenders, The Big Valley, The Time Tunnel, The
Rifleman and Combat!. Hopper also became an accomplished professional photographer
(he has had many exhibitions of his work). He also was very talented as a painter
and a poet as well as being an enthusiastic collector of Art, particularly Pop Art.
One of the first art works Hopper owned was an early print of Andy Warhol's
Campbell's Soup Cans bought for $75.
Hopper had a supporting role as "Babalugats," the bet-taker in Cool Hand Luke
(1967). Hopper was able to resume acting in mainstream films including The Sons of
Katie Elder (1965) and True Grit (1969), and in both of these films he had death
scenes with John Wayne. During the production of True Grit, he became acquainted
Wayne in earnest. 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. Ironically, Hopper would eventually emerge as a
staunch supporter of the Republican Party and the administration of President
George W. Bush in the 1990s and 2000s (see below).
It was not until he teamed with Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson and made Easy Rider
that he really shook up the Hollywood establishment. This film came to represent
the lost generation of the Vietnam War and to this day is one of the most
successful independent films ever made. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director of
the film 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, and an unwillingness
to leave the editor's desk – all of which could be attributed to accelerating abuse
of drugs and alcohol that would prove to be fatally detrimental to the production
of his next film.
In 1971, Hopper released The Last Movie. Expecting an accessible follow-up to Easy
Rider, audiences were treated to inscrutable artistic flourishes (the inclusion of
"scene missing" cards) and a hazily existentialist plot that verged on the
nonlinear and 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 and never entered national release. During the tulmultuous editing
process, Hopper ensconced himself in Taos, New Mexico for nearly a year, publicly
cavorting with young women. 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. This whirlwind of negative publicity, combined with the failure of
The Last Movie, ensured that the former wunderkind became a pariah within the
industry, widely regarded as the New Hollywood's first "drug burnout".
Although he was shunned by the mainstream American film industry, 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, the first indication that a fragment of his creative talents had
remained intact.
Immediately thereafter, Hopper starred as an aging freebase-addled rock star in the
low-budget Neil Young-Dean Stockwell collaboration Human Highway with the new wave
group Devo. Production was often delayed by his unreliable behavior. Hopper's
character clearly parallels the then-concurrent problems of David Crosby, who
served as the basis for his Billy in Easy Rider. 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 amyl nitrite-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!" Hopper won critical acclaim and several awards for this
role and the same year won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for
Hoosiers. It is widely believed that the nomination was actually in recognition for
his work in Blue Velvet, but that the Academy was reticent to recognize his
portrayal of such a vile and irredeemable character.
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 co-starred in the 1994 blockbuster Speed with Keanu Reeves and
Sandra Bullock. He recently contributed to the film 1 Giant Leap with provocative
anecdotes on spirituality, unity and culture. In 1995 Hopper played the villan
"Deacon" in Waterworld.
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 24 drama on the
Fox television network. Hopper also starred in the NBC 2006 television series
E-Ring, a drama set at The Pentagon, but the series was cancelled after 14 episodes
aired.
On the 2005 Gorillaz album Demon Days, Hopper performs the spoken word track "Fire
Coming Out of the Monkey's Head." In July 2006, Hopper appeared in the music video
for "Smiley Faces" by Gnarls Barkley, portraying faux music historian Milton
Pawley.
Jan De Bont, director of Speed and Speed 2: Cruise Control, has enforced Hopper's
contractual obligation to star in the third and final installment of the trilogy
Speed 3: Highway to Hell, resurrecting the legendary character Howard Payne.
Shooting begins this October. Speed 3: Highway to Hell is set to release in the
summer of 2009.
Personal
life
Hopper has been married five times and has four children
Brooke Hayward (1961 - 1969) (divorced), daughter of Leland Hayward, 1 child
(daughter Marin Hopper 1961)
Michelle Phillips (31 October 1970 - 8 November 1970) (divorced)
Daria Halprin (1972 - 1976) (divorced) 1 child (daughter Ruthanna Hopper 1974)
Katherine LaNasa (17 June 1989 - April 1992) (divorced) 1 child (son Henry Lee
Hopper 1990)
Victoria Duffy (13 April 1996 - present) 1 child (daughter Galen Hopper 2003)
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.
Source : Some of the information on this page came
from a Wikipedia article and is licensed under the GNU Documentation
License. ©2008 www.geneticmatrix.com.
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Dennis
Hopper - Manifesting Generator - Biography
