Dennis Hopper's four decade-plus film career as a performer and filmmaker has gained in stature retrospectively due in part to the canny self-promotion and mythicizing that accompanied his remarkable comeback in the 1980s. That his screen debut, "Rebel Without a Cause" (1955), became the stuff of 50s movie legend helped make the case for his significance. Hopper's later critical and commercial success as the director, writer and star (with Peter Fonda) of "Easy Rider" (1969), one of the zeitgeist films of the 60s, added luster to his story. His subsequent descent into self-indulgence, drugs and alcohol served as a lively cautionary tale about the excesses of 70s Hollywood. Hopper's final transformation in a sober, hard-working, middle-aged character lead provided the necessary upbeat ending for the reactionary 80s.
As "Rebel" became a clarion call for a generation revolting against middle-class American respectability, Hopper himself came to symbolize that revolution, particularly as other actors associated with "Rebel" died. (By 1981, Hopper and Corey Allen were the lone survivors of the film's major players.) His early acting career often cast him in secondary roles, playing sensitive young men, as in "Giant" (1956) and a spate of westerns. His intuitive, improvisatory approach was at odds with many old-time Hollywood professionals; during the making of "From Hell to Texas" (1958), director Henry Hathaway and Hopper reportedly battled through 100-plus takes, an infamous incident that Hopper claimed banned him from major studio productions for eight years. In any event, he was dropped from his Warner Brothers contract. Hopper left Hollywood for NYC where he studied Method acting under Lee Strasberg for five years, worked extensively in TV drama and began a secondary career as a photographer.
Hopper's first starring role came in a little-known gloomy, indie mood piece entitled "Night Tide" (1961; shelved until 1963) that was written and directed by former avant-garde filmmaker Curtis Harrington. He registers growing bewilderment and enchantment as a lonely young sailor smitten with a seaside circus performer who might be a mermaid. Hopper next turned up in "Tarzan and Jane Regained. . . Sort of" (1964), an experimental 16mm film by celebrated pop artist Andy Warhol. A better-behaved Hopper returned to Hollywood where he worked in a Western, the John Wayne-Dean Martin vehicle "The Sons of Katie Elder" (1965), again helmed by Hathaway. Things proceeded smoothly with Hopper earning positive notices as the weak-willed son of the villain who confesses his father's crimes to a vengeful Wayne. He reteamed with director Harrington playing a doomed astronaut in an entertaining low-budget sci-fi flick entitled "Queen of Blood" (1966).
Hopper enhanced his counter-culture credentials with appearances in Roger Corman's fondly remembered druggy exploitation movie "The Trip" (1967) and Bob Rafelson's "Head" (1968), a zany vehicle for The Monkees, co-scripted by Jack Nicholson. Additional supporting roles in Westerns followed ("Hang 'Em High" 1968; "True Grit" 1969) before his anti-establishment reputation was consolidated by his direction of "Easy Rider". A road movie on motorcycles through reactionary America--a trip in more than one sense--the film featured a notorious psychedelic sequence, shot in a cemetery in New Orleans. Hailed by critics, feted at the Cannes Film Festival as a major new filmmaker, Hopper also found success at home when the low-budget movie was a boxoffice smash--taking in over $50 million in Hopper's recent estimation. The "Easy Rider" phenomenon sent shockwaves through Hollywood, where dozens of production executives found themselves pink-slipped, and marked the changeover from the Old Guard to the youth culture inside the studios.
The renewed legend of Dennis Hopper proceeded through a documentary self-portrait called "The American Dreamer" (1971) and reached a culmination of sorts in "The Last Movie" (1971), a free-form experimental film shot in Peru about a movie crew making a Western among natives who decide to ape them using real bullets. The film's aspirations were deemed ludicrous, and Hopper was virtually abandoned by critics and other filmmakers. (Of course, the film is now hailed as a masterpiece in some circles.)
For the next 15 years, the often substance-addled Hopper acted mostly in films shot outside the US, where audiences remained loyal to his impervious, impenetrable American swagger. Among his credits were "Mad Dog "(1976), filmed in Australia; "Resurrection" (1979), in Spain; "The American Friend" (1977), directed by Wim Wenders, who initiated the process of Hopper's rehabilitation as a talent, and "White Star" (1981), in West Germany; "Couleur chair" (1977), "The Apprentice Sorcerers" (1977) and "L'Ordre et la Securite du Monde" (1978) in France.
By the late 70s, his drug habits and erratic behavior had virtually sent him into exile, although he reveled in the role of the ugly American. His character in "Apocalypse Now" (1979)--a flipped-out, camera-obsessed journalist--only served to reinforce his reputation. While acting in "Out of the Blue" (1980), a Canadian film shot in the US, Hopper took over direction of the film in mid-production. Though generally ignored some, like the reviewer for London's TIME OUT, found the results edgy and extraordinary. "The teenage [Linda] Manz, in a quite sensational performance under Hopper's direction, embodies the nihilistic ethos of punk in a way that other mainstream projects. . . couldn't begin to achieve."
By this time, Hopper had become an accomplished photographer, and was showing his work in galleries. The breadth of his experience, combined with his bizarre point of view, made his work a unique record of an absurd popular culture.
Hopper's comeback began in earnest with his unnerving appearance as a memorably crazed criminal in "Blue Velvet" (1986). Director David Lynch vociferously defended Hopper's talent against accusations of typecasting. Cast as an alcoholic basketball coach in the bathetic "Hoosiers" (also 1986), the actor seemed to find a perfect vehicle to proclaim "See, I'm clean!" and received a Best Supporting Actor Oscar nomination for his efforts. Ironically, a follow-up film, "River's Edge" (1987), again featured Hopper as an insane derelict. His rehabilitation seemed complete with his successful direction of "Colors" (1988), a drama about L.A. gang wars, followed by "The Hot Spot" (1990), a film noir for the 90s that featured Don Johnson in an underrated performance as an honorable sleaze in an obscure Texas town full of much worse.
In recent years, Hopper has replaced his old image as a drug-crazed freak with the profile of a regularly employed character lead in film and TV, effortlessly segueing from drama to comedy, from big-budget spectacular to low-budget indies. In 1991 alone, he appeared in Sean Penn's directorial debut, "The Indian Runner", two made-for-cable movies, "Paris Trout" (Showtime) and "Doublecrossed" (HBO), served as an awards show presenter, and participated in two documentaries. In 1993, Hopper turned in four showy feature performances. In "Boiling Point", a lukewarm attempt to recreate a 50s-styled crime flick, Hopper played a rather likeable loser whose desire to stay alive causes many deaths. In "Super Mario Brothers", based on the video game, Hopper is the literally reptilian villain King Koopa. John Dahl's "Red Rock West" found him playing a smarmy psychotic hitman while Tony Scott's "True Romance" gave him one of his favorite scenes of his film career. As the generally sympathetic former cop father of the anti-hero Christian Slater, Hopper gets tortured by gangster Christopher Walken before launching into an unforgettable Quentin Tarantino-scripted speech about the ancestry of Sicilians.
By the mid-1990s, Hopper had become a reliable villain for such special effects-driven blockbusters as "Speed" (1994) and "Waterworld" (1995) while still appearing in such low-profile efforts as the comedy "Search and Destroy", as a late-night cable guru and novelist, and the documentary "Who Is Henry Jaglom?" (both 1995). The nearly 60-year-old Hopper starred in the romantic comedy-drama "Carried Away" (1996) in a change-of-pace "normal" role. He was convincing as a fortysomething school teacher who cares for his invalid mother and juggles a long-term, low-intensity relationship with another teacher (Amy Irving) and a passionate affair with a 17-year-old student (Amy Locane). The aging trooper reported some embarrassment at doing full frontal nudity for this limited release. He subsequently turned up in Julian Schnabel's downtown biopic "Basquiat" (1996), as a European art dealer.
In 1999, Hopper was cast as Hank, the father of Matthew McConaughey's character Ed in the comedy feature, "Edtv". He then portrayed the character Vince Drazen in in the television series "24" (2001), starring Keifer Sutherland as a cop racing through time to prevent the assassination of a popular presidential candidate. In 2002, he joined Vin Diesel and John Malkovich for the Brian Koppelman and David Levien comedy "Knockaround Guys."