Dennis Lee Hopper is a legendary American actor, director, producer and screenwriter who has received many awards, prizes and nominations during his career, including: Oscar, Golden Globe, Emmy, Directors Guild of America, Festival de Cannes.
Hopper became famous in the 50s when he starred in his first Hollywood films with actor and friend James Dean. During his career, Dennis has performed more than 150 film and television roles, as well as directed several of his own films. He received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame shortly before his death.
Childhood and adolescence
The boy was born in America in 1936. The family of Scottish settlers lived in the city of Joge City, and as soon as the war ended, they moved to Kansas, where the boy went to school.
Already in elementary school, Dennis became interested in art, painting and singing. He attended Sunday classes at the Institute of the Arts, where he studied acting and stage speech, also sang in the choir and, along with school friends, participated in theatrical performances.
A few years later, the family moved again and settled in San Diego, where the father gets a position in one of the post offices, and the mother goes to work at a rescue station. In the post-war period, it was extremely difficult to find a job, so the family was forced to interrupt with temporary earnings and constantly move.
In San Diego, Hopper again manages to continue his acting education, first at the Shakespeare Theater, and later at Lee Strasberg's New York Studio, where the young man studied for several years.
The first film works
Dennis played his small roles in television productions and serials, but his acting biography began much later, when the young man was invited to a big, real movie. He was helped by his close friend and director Nicholas Ray, who invited Hopper to play several roles in his films.
Several years of work in the cinema did not bring the actor neither fame nor good luck. They began to talk about him as a "problem teenager" with whom it is very difficult to work. As a result, Hopper was no longer invited to the shooting.
But Dennis did not stop making art and already at the end of the 60s decided to make a film on his own, having received the support of his friend Jack Nicholson and private entrepreneurs who financed the project. His first work was called Easy Rider. The film about the life of bikers has become a cult film that won the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar.
In the future, Hopper returned to directing more than once, but his acting work in cinema, which became a real classic of cinema, brought him worldwide fame. Among his famous works in cinema can be called films: "Blue Velvet", "Water World", "Speed", "Fighting Fish" and many others, of which there were more than a hundred during his career.
Hopper devoted almost his entire adult life to art. In recent years, he has drawn extensively, took up photography and continued to act in films. Dennis Hopper passed away in 2010 from cancer.
Personal life
The actor's life was full of romantic stories and flirting. He became an official husband five times, and each time his next wife was younger than the previous one. He divorced the last of them shortly before his death. The actor has four children from different marriages.
