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Hellraiser Dennis Hopper dies from cancer
Level 2
Intermediate
Hellraiser Dennis Hopper dies
from cancer
Easy Rider star has died peacefully at his Los
Angeles home after five decades of hard living
Paul Harris in New York
30 May, 2010
Dennis Hopper, the hard-living Hollywood star
with acclaimed roles in films including Apocalypse
Now and Easy Rider, died yesterday of prostate
cancer. He passed away at his home in Venice,
California, at the age of 74.
He was surrounded by his family and friends and
died peacefully at around 9am local time. Hopper
had been taken ill last September with serious flu-
like symptoms. Doctors quickly discovered he had
cancer, which then spread to other parts of his body.
Hopper’s career was one of the most long-lived
in a notoriously difficult industry. It began in the
1950s with a role opposite James Dean in Rebel
Without a Cause
, flowered in art films of the
1960s and 1970s, and then transitioned into the
modern era of the blockbuster, as he specialized
in psychotic villains. “Great actor. Great director.
Great American. Terrible loss. God bless the wild
man with the gentle soul. May he rest in peace,”
wrote John Nolte, editor-in-chief of the Big
Hollywood blog. “We all knew this was coming,
but that does not lessen the blow.”
Certainly not every role Hopper took was a great
one. Especially towards the end of his career, he
appeared in many movies that did little to impress
critics or audiences. In his filmography cinematic
failures such as Hell Ride and The Crow: Wicked
Prayer sit alongside true classics including Blue
Velvet, Cool Hand Luke and Speed. But Hopper’s
wild-eyed performances often lifted the quality of
any B-movie, reminding viewers that he was one
of the most watchable of Hollywood stars. “There
are moments that I’ve had some real brilliance,
you know,” he reflected recently. “But I think
they are moments. And sometimes, in a career,
moments are enough.”
With a reputation as a difficult actor to work
with, Hopper had also begun working as a
photographer in the 1960s. That flowered into an
alternative career that included painting and poetry.
His private life was as variable as his professional
one. He married five times and fathered four
children. One of his marriages, to his second
wife, Michelle Phillips, a singer in the group The
Mamas and the Papas, lasted just eight days in
1970. Of the experience, Hopper famously said:
“Seven of those days were pretty good. The
eighth day was the bad one.” His final marriage,
to actress Victoria Duffy, took place in 1996. The
pair were undergoing a bitter divorce when he
died. So bitter, in fact, that a dreadfully ill Hopper
sought a restraining order against his wife even
though he was dying and virtually bedridden.
Hopper’s private life was often full of tales of hard-
drinking and drug-taking. He confessed that he
used cocaine in order to sober himself up so he
could binge on more alcohol. His problems and
lifestyle became the stuff of Hollywood legend –
or nightmare.
But nothing in Hopper’s personal life could
overshadow a handful of truly great screen
performances. In 1969’s Easy Rider, which he
directed, co-wrote and co-starred in, Hopper
explored people’s reactions to the Vietnam war.
The film was a roaring critical success which
paved the way for the New Hollywood of the
1970s and directors such as Martin Scorsese and
Francis Ford Coppola. Then, in Apocalypse Now
Hopper mixed reality and fiction with his portrayal
of a burned-out and insane war photographer.
Finally, Hopper’s portrayal of a sadistic brute,
Frank Booth, in David Lynch’s surreal
Blue Velvet
introduced the actor to an entirely new generation
of fans.
He was born in Dodge City, Kansas, in 1936.
After the Second World War, the Hoppers moved
to Kansas City, Missouri, where Hopper went to
Saturday art classes. They moved again, to San
Diego in California where Hopper was better able
to express his interest in the arts.
He hung out with actors and actresses and
eventually won a role playing opposite James
Dean in Rebel Without a Cause. The young heart-
throb, whose life was to be tragically cut short,
left a major impression on Hopper. Aside from
the drug problems, Hopper often refused to take
a director’s advice and instructions and wanted
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