Age, Biography, and Wiki
Dennis Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas, to James and Marjorie Hopper. He was of Scottish descent and had two brothers, David and Marvin. Following World War II, his family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, and later to San Diego, California, where he began his artistic journey. Hopper attended Helix High School and pursued acting at the Old Globe Theatre and the prestigious Actors Studio in New York City.
| Occupation | Photographers |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 17 May 1936 |
| Age | 89 Years |
| Birth Place | Dodge City, Kansas, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Taurus |
| Country | U.S |
| Date of death | 29 May, 2010 |
| Died Place | Los Angeles, California, U.S. |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Although specific details about Dennis Hopper's height and weight are not widely documented, his presence in films often highlighted his lean build and tall stature typical of many actors of his era.
Besides showing drug use on film, it was one of the first films to portray the hippie lifestyle. Hopper became a role model for some male youths who rejected traditional jobs and traditional American culture, partly exemplified by Fonda's long sideburns and Hopper wearing shoulder-length hair and a long mustache. They were denied rooms in motels and proper service in restaurants as a result of their radical looks. Their long hair became a point of contention in various scenes during the film. Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion". Film critic Matthew Hays wrote "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper".
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Dating & Relationship Status
Dennis Hopper was married five times throughout his life. His wives included Brooke Hayward, Michelle Phillips, Daria Halprin, Katherine LaNasa, and Victoria Duffy. He had four children from these marriages.
After World War II, the family moved to Kansas City, Missouri, where the young Hopper attended Saturday art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute. When he was 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, having previously served in the Office of Strategic Services, the precursor to the Central Intelligence Agency, in World War II in the China Burma India Theater. Hopper was voted most likely to succeed at Helix High School, where he was active in the drama club, speech and choir. It was there that he developed an interest in acting, studying at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, and the Actors Studio in New York City (he 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.
Hopper's fascination with art began with painting lessons at the Nelson-Atkins Museum while still a child in Kansas City, Missouri. Early in his career, he painted and wrote poetry, though many of his works were destroyed in the 1961 Bel Air Fire, which burned hundreds of homes, including his and his wife's, on Stone Canyon Road in Bel Air. His painting style ranges from abstract impressionism to photorealism and often includes references to his cinematic work and to other artists.
Ostracized by the Hollywood film studios due to his reputation for being a "difficult" actor, Hopper turned to photography in 1961 with a camera bought for him by his first wife Brooke Hayward. During this period he created the cover art for the Ike & Tina Turner album River Deep – Mountain High (released in 1966). He became a prolific photographer, and noted writer Terry Southern profiled Hopper in Better Homes and Gardens as an up-and-coming photographer "to watch" in the mid-1960s. Hopper's early photography is known for portraits from the 1960s, and he began shooting portraits for Vogue and other magazines. His photographs of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s 1963 March on Washington and the 1965 civil-rights march in Selma, Alabama, were published. His intimate and unguarded images of Andy Warhol, Jane Fonda, The Byrds, Paul Newman, Jasper Johns, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Brown, Peter Fonda, Ed Ruscha, the Grateful Dead, Michael McClure, and Timothy Leary, among others, became the subject of gallery and museum shows and were collected in several books, including 1712 North Crescent Heights. The book, whose title refers to the house where he lived with Hayward in the Hollywood Hills in the 1960s, was edited by his daughter Marin Hopper. From 1960 to 1967, before the making of Easy Rider, Hopper created 18,000 images that chronicled the remarkable artists, musicians, actors, places, happenings, demonstrations, and concerts of that period. Dennis Hopper: Photographs 1961–1967 was published in February 2011, by Taschen. German film director Wim Wenders said of Hopper that if "he'd only been a photographer, he'd be one of the great photographers of the twentieth century." In The New Yorker, Hopper, as photographer, was described as "a compelling, important, and weirdly omnipresent chronicler of his times."
Hopper has been widely reported to be the godfather of actress Amber Tamblyn; in a 2009 interview with Parade, Tamblyn explained that "godfather" was "just a loose term" for Hopper, Dean Stockwell and Neil Young, three famous friends of her father's, who were always around the house when she was growing up, and who were big influences on her life.
On January 14, 2010, Hopper filed for divorce from his fifth wife Victoria Duffy. After citing her "outrageous conduct" and stating she was "insane", "inhuman" and "volatile", Hopper was granted a restraining order against her on February 11, 2010, and as a result, she was forbidden to come within 10 ft of him or contact him. On March 9, 2010, Duffy refused to move out of the Hopper home, despite the court's order that she do so by March 15.
On April 5, 2010, a court ruled that Duffy could continue living on Hopper's property, and that he must pay US$12,000 per month spousal and child support for their daughter Galen. Hopper did not attend the hearing. On May 12, 2010, a hearing was held before Judge Amy Pellman in downtown Los Angeles Superior Court. Though Hopper died two weeks later, Duffy insisted at the hearing that he was well enough to be deposed. The hearing also dealt with who would be the beneficiary on Hopper's life insurance policy, which listed his wife as a beneficiary. A very ill Hopper did not appear in court though his estranged wife did. Despite Duffy's bid to be named the sole beneficiary of Hopper's million-dollar policy, the judge ruled against her and limited her claim to one-quarter of the policy. The remaining US$750,000 was to go to his estate.
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| Husband | Brooke Hayward (m. 1961-1969) Michelle Phillips (m. October 31, 1970-November 8, 1970) Daria Halprin (m. 1972-1976) Katherine LaNasa (m. June 17, 1989-April 1992) Victoria Duffy (m. April 13, 1996-2010) |
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Net Worth and Salary
At the time of his death, Dennis Hopper's net worth was approximately $40 million. His wealth was primarily derived from his successful career in film and television, as well as his artistic endeavors.
In 1994, 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 US$475,000 in damages. Hopper then appealed but the judge again ruled in Torn's favor and Hopper was required to pay another US$475,000 in punitive damages.
Film Career
Hopper's breakthrough came with the 1969 film "Easy Rider," which he co-wrote and starred in alongside Peter Fonda. This film marked a significant moment in the New Hollywood era and earned him a nomination for Best Original Screenplay at the Academy Awards. He appeared in numerous iconic films, including "Apocalypse Now," "Blue Velvet," "Hoosiers," and "Speed."
Hopper was reported to have had an uncredited role in Johnny Guitar in 1954, but he was quoted as saying he was not in Hollywood when the film was made. Hopper made his debut on film in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a car accident in September 1955 affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterward that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Henry Hathaway on the film From Hell to Texas (1958). Hopper reportedly forced Hathaway to shoot more than 80 takes of a scene over several days before he acquiesced to Hathaway's direction. After filming was finally completed, Hathaway allegedly told Hopper that his career in Hollywood was finished.
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, Hopper was roommates with fellow actor Nick Adams and the three became friends and socialized together. In 1959, Hopper moved to New York to study Method acting under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio. In 1961, Hopper played his first lead role in Night Tide, an atmospheric supernatural thriller involving a mermaid in an amusement park. In a December 1994 interview on the Charlie Rose Show, Hopper credited John Wayne with saving his career, as Hopper acknowledged that because of his insolent behavior, he could not find work in Hollywood for seven years. Hopper stated that, because of his marriage to Brooke Hayward, he was the son-in-law of actress Margaret Sullavan, a friend of John Wayne, and Wayne hired Hopper for a role in The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), also directed by Hathaway, which enabled Hopper to restart his film career.
Though Hopper gave critically acclaimed performances in Coppola's Rumble Fish (1983) and Sam Peckinpah's The Osterman Weekend (1983), it was not until he portrayed the gas-huffing, obscenity-screaming villain Frank Booth in David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) that his career truly revived. On reading the script Hopper said to Lynch: "You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!" He won critical acclaim and several awards for this role, and in the same year received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role as an alcoholic assistant basketball coach in Hoosiers. Also in 1986, Hopper portrayed Lt. Enright in the comedy horror The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2.
Social Network
Although Dennis Hopper passed away before the widespread use of social media, his legacy continues to be celebrated on platforms like Instagram and Facebook by fans and admirers of his work.
Hopper studied acting at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and the Actors Studio in New York. He made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). He then played supporting roles in films like Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957), The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper made his directorial film debut with Easy Rider (1969), which he and co-star Peter Fonda wrote with Terry Southern. The film earned Hopper a Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Debut, and an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. He also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s.
Hopper was unable to capitalize on his Easy Rider success for several years. In 1970 he filmed The Last Movie, cowritten by Stewart Stern and photographed by László Kovács in Peru, and completed production in 1971. It won the prestigious CIDALC Award at that year's Venice Film Festival, but Universal Studios leaders expected a blockbuster like Easy Rider, and did not like the film or give it an enthusiastic release, while American film audiences found it confounding – as convoluted as an abstract painting. On viewing the first release print, fresh from the lab, in his screening room at Universal, MCA founder Jules C. Stein rose from his chair and said, "I just don't understand this younger generation." During the tumultuous editing process, Hopper ensconced himself at the Mabel Dodge Luhan House in Taos, New Mexico, which he had purchased in 1970, for almost an entire year. In between contesting Fonda's rights to the majority of the residual profits from Easy Rider, he married singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas and the Papas on Halloween of 1970. The marriage lasted eight days.
In 1987 he acted in the neo-noir thriller Black Widow alongside Debra Winger, the action comedy Straight to Hell, the adventure film Running Out of Luck starring Mick Jagger and the romantic comedy The Pick-up Artist starring Molly Ringwald and Robert Downey Jr. In 1988, he directed Colors, a critically acclaimed police procedural about gang violence in Los Angeles starring Sean Penn and Robert Duvall. Hopper plays an aging hippie prankster in the 1990 comedy Flashback, fleeing in a Furthur-like old bus to the tune of Steppenwolf's "Born to Be Wild". Hopper teamed with Nike in the early 1990s to make a series of television commercials. He appeared as a "crazed referee" in those ads. Hopper appeared on the final two episodes of the cult 1991 television show Fishing with John with host John Lurie. He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited or Anthology Series or Movie for the 1991 HBO film Paris Trout. Shortly thereafter, he played drug smuggler and DEA informant Barry Seal in the HBO film Doublecrossed.
In the late 1980s, Hopper purchased a trio of nearly identical two-story, loft-style condominiums at 330 Indiana Avenue in Venice Beach, California – one made of concrete, one of plywood, and one of green roofing shingles – built by Frank Gehry and two artist friends of Hopper's, Chuck Arnoldi and Laddie John Dill, in 1981. In 1987, he commissioned an industrial-style main residence, with a corrugated metal exterior designed by Brian Murphy, as a place to display his artwork.
Education
Hopper began his artistic education by taking painting lessons at the Nelson-Atkins Museum in Kansas City. He later studied acting at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego and the Actors Studio in New York City. Additionally, he took art classes at the Kansas City Art Institute.
Overall, Dennis Hopper's life was marked by his innovative contributions to film, art, and his enduring influence on American culture.
After staging a "suicide attempt" (really more of a daredevil act) in a coffin using 17 sticks of dynamite during an "art happening" at the Rice University Media Center (filmed by professor and documentary filmmaker Brian Huberman), and later disappearing into the Mexican desert during a particularly extravagant bender, Hopper entered a drug rehabilitation program in 1983.
