Dennis Hopper

Received his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6712 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on March 26, 2010.

Rushed to a New York City hospital with flu-like symptoms on September 30, 2009.

His acting career has taken him all over the world, and to date he has filmed movies in over 22 countries. (May 2007).

Despite his Republican affiliations, he intentionally parodied Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld while playing the greedy, racist villain, Mr. Kaufman in Land of the Dead (2005). He also endorsed and voted for Barack Obama in the 2008 election, and criticized the selection of Sarah Palin on the Republican ticket.

Is portrayed by Jarrod Dean in The Mystery of Natalie Wood (2004).

Dennis and Victoria Duffy Hopper's first child, daughter Galen Grier Hopper, was born on March 26, 2003 in Los Angeles, California.

1 September 2000 - A Canadian judge dismissed marijuana charges against Hopper stemming from an October 1999 arrest in Calgary.

In 1999, he, his young son, Henry, and two buddies were in Jamaica, heading to a golf course to play a few holes. As they drove through a small village, a speeding truck barreled head-on into their car. Hopper's friends were badly injured in the crash -- broken legs, head traumas -- but Hopper climbed out of the passenger seat without a scratch. He pulled Henry, then 10 years old, from the backseat, covered in splattered blood, also eerily unhurt. "At that point, I really thought, maybe there is a force looking out for me, because I can't figure out how we survived," Hopper said.

Was originally cast as Steiner in The Truman Show (1998), but dropped out due to creative differences. Ed Harris replaced him.

Ranked #87 in Empire (UK) magazine's "The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]

Reported that Rip Torn has won a $475,000 defamation suit against Hopper. Lawsuit came about after remarks made by Hopper on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno (1992) on 31 May 1994. [March 1997]

(1993), got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance (1993), led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed (1994) and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in Waterworld (1995).

Turned down the role of Bob Pidgeon in My Own Private Idaho (1991).

The enigmatic Hopper has continued to remain busy through the 1990s and into the new century with performances in The Night We Called It a Day (2003), The Keeper (2004) and Land of the Dead (2005). As well as his acting/directing talents, Hopper was a skilled photographer and painter, having had his works displayed in galleries in both the United States and overseas. He was additionally a dedicated and knowledgeable collector of modern art and has one of the most extensive collections in the United States.

In The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2 (1986), he says "Boys, boys, boys." when he first meets Leatherface and the Sawyer family. Hopper says the exact same thing when he first meets the heroes in Super Mario Bros. (1993).

He was superb in Rumble Fish (1983), co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend (1983), played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project (1985), was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge (1986) and, most memorably, electrified audiences as foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet (1986).

His parents are Jay and Marjorie Hopper. His father died in 1982 and his mother remarried.

He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue (1980).

With these two notable efforts, the beginning of the 1980s saw a renaissance of interest by Hollywood in the talents of Dennis Hopper and exorcising the demons of drugs and alcohol via a rehabilitation program meant a return to invigorating and provoking performances.

Interestingly, the offbeat Hopper was selected in the early 1980s to provide the voice of "The StoryTeller" in the animated series of "Rabbit Ears" children's films based upon the works of Hans Christian Andersen!Hopper returned to film direction in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors (1988), which was well received by both critics and audiences. He was back in front of the cameras for roles in Super Mario Bros.

He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now (1979).

Hopper is quoted in the book "Marilyn Beck's Hollywood" (1973) as saying that the Manson Massacre of Sharon Tate and friends was the backlash from a sex and drugs party the week previously, in which a drug dealer was tied up and whipped before a crowd for selling "bad dope" to the residents of 10050 Cielo Drive. As can be seen by Rip Torn's success in prosecuting a defamation suit against Hopper in the 1990s, he is not the most reliable witness to history.

However, Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie (1971), was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work.

His 1970 marriage to Michelle Phillips lasted just a few days, during his wild and woolly, drug-fueled period. She also appears briefly in The Last Movie (1971), Hopper's almost-disastrously appropriately entitled solo directorial effort, following Easy Rider (1969). At one point in this era, Hopper was arrested after he was found raving, naked. After early success as a child star in theater, his movie career was practically stillborn when Louis B. Mayer banned him from the MGM lot after Hopper responded forcefully, in kind, when the mogul belittled his desire to play Shakespearen roles.

However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing.

Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider (1969), starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers.

Father of Marin Hopper, born June 26, 1962, with Brooke Hayward.

Lamenting to an audience Q & A in Sydney that he had "never had any great roles", Hopper nominated Splendor in the Grass (1961) as the one he most wished he'd been given.

After his run-in with director Henry Hathaway, was blackballed from major Hollywood feature film roles from 1958 until 1965, during which time he was busy working on television.

Corral (1957).

Hopper portrayed a young Napoléon Bonaparte (!) in the star-spangled The Story of Mankind (1957) and regularly appeared on screen throughout the 1960s, often in rather undemanding parts, usually as a villain in westerns such as True Grit (1969) and Hang 'Em High (1968).

Hopper actually became good friends with James Dean and was shattered when Dean was killed in a car crash on September 30, 1955.

His first film role was in Johnny Guitar (1954), which was quickly followed by roles in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), Giant (1956) and Gunfight at the O. K.

The young Hopper expressed interest in acting from a young age and first appeared in a slew of 1950s television series, including Medic (1954), Cheyenne (1955) and Sugarfoot (1957).

With an amazing cinematic career of more than five decades, Dennis Hopper was a multi-talented and unconventional actor/director, regarded by many as one of the true "enfants terribles" of Hollywood. Hopper was born on May 17, 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, to Marjorie Mae (Davis) and James Millard Hopper.