Erik Visits an American Grave, Part 2,096

This is the grave of Dennis Hopper.

Dennis Hopper….OK, this is a lot.

Born in 1936 in Dodge City, Kansas, Hopper grew up without anything too special in terms of privilege. What changed his life was getting out of Dodge City. His family moved to Kansas City during World War II and the young Dennis began attending art classes and spending a lot of time in museums. Then they moved to San Diego, where his father worked in the post office. Hopper went to high school there, was into the arts, very popular, and extremely ambitious. He decided acting was his goal, though he remained a major patron of art his whole life, and he was accepted into Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio. There, he became close friends with Vincent Price, a generation older and already a successful actor. Price introduced Hopper to much of the New York art world.

But even before his 1959 move to New York, Hopper was in Hollywood. He had small roles in both Rebel Without a Cause and Giant. He was personally close to James Dean and was devastated upon his death. Hopper was already known as a very difficult guy. Shortly after Dean’s death, Hopper got a role in Henry Hathaway’s From Hell to Texas (keep me in Hell please). He was a rising actor and was billed fourth. But he bullied Hathaway into doing 80 takes a shot and Hathaway was determined to kill Hopper’s career after that. That’s what led Dennis to New York. Being difficult in the Actors Studio? Well, who wasn’t?

It was hard for Hopper to break back into Hollywood after his problems with Hathaway. He did a lot of TV in the early 60s, usually bad westerns. It was John Wayne who ended up helping him out. Hopper had married the daughter of the actress Margaret Sullavan, who was friends with Wayne, who then had him cast in 1965’s The Sons of Katie Elder. That got Hopper back where he wanted to be. He started getting meaty film roles again, with key supporting parts in Cool Hand Luke, Hang Em High, and True Grit. I never really saw Hopper as a western actor who should be supporting the Duke all the time, it’s weird to see him in these films now, but that’s only because I know too much about Dennis Hopper after this.

Of course, Hopper’s life changed with the creation of Easy Rider. I always liked Hopper’s character more than Peter Fonda or Jack Nicholson. My favorite scene in the movie is at the commune, which is outside of Taos, where Fonda is groovy and Hopper gives off such negative vibes that no one wants anything to do with him. That’s the way to experience a commune–if the hippies like you, the problem is you. Hopper fell in love with Taos at that time and a few years later, bought Mabel Dodge Luhan’s iconic house. That Hopper was able to get funding to direct this film was a sign of just how much Hollywood had changed. No one knew what was going to make money anymore, so someone like Hopper could get funding. It’s still quite watchable today, in my opinion. Hopper then got to make The Last Movie, which is, uh, less watchable. After that, he fell on hard times. The drugs were….a lot. He was a mess. After The Last Movie, no one was going to give him more money. He acted occasionally. By the time Francis Ford Coppola brought Hopper in on Apocalypse Now, he really needed the work.

Can we talk for a second about Hopper in Apocalypse Now? One of my favorite parts about this film is Hopper’s insane rantings. When Martin Sheen is locked in that cage and Hopper comes over to talk about Kurtz and does his bit where, among other things, “What are they gonna say about him? What are they gonna say? That he was a kind man? That he was a wise man? That he had plans? That he had wisdom? Bullshit man!” Sheen is not acting when he is looking at Hopper like “what in the living fuck is this lunatic talking about?” Hopper later admitted to being a mess during the film.

Hopper spent the next decades sort of appearing in iconic roles while also disappearing again for a long time between them. He was in quite a few films, it’s just that most of them are terrible. The obvious exceptions are Blue Velvet, where Lynch casting him was absolutely gold, I mean really who else are you going to cast there, and then Hoosiers, which I find odd that this is what so many people remember him for today. Does Hoosiers really hold up today? But it’s where a lot of sports fans types who don’t really watch a lot of good movies but love nostalgia engage with him and of course you can see the memories of this on his grave. Evidently, when Hopper read the Blue Velvet script, he told Lynch “You have to let me play Frank Booth. Because I am Frank Booth!” And I mean, yes, but OMG.

One more thing to mention here–John Lurie’s ridiculous but awesome series Fishing with John. Many of you have seen this but it was a 6 part absurdist series where Lurie goes fishing with his famous friends. The best one is with Willem Dafoe, who is the only one who truly gets the joke and leans in and when Dafoe leans in, he’s all fucking in. Tom Waits is great, but Waits was pissed the whole time because it turns out he got really sea sick. Jarmusch and Matt Dillon seem to have no idea what’s going on. But then there’s the two-part episode with Dennis Hopper, where they supposedly go fishing fo the giant squid in Thailand. Lurie’s commentary (available on Criterion Channel right now) is well worth it because he talks about Hopper was a complete lunatic, who at this point in his life basically survived on eating sugar, which isn’t uncommon for recovering addicts. There’s so many great parts to this but the bit when they are driving in southern Thailand and Hopper says something like “Look at this scenery! This could only be in Asia. Or wherever we are.” I mean this is among the funniest things I’ve ever heard.

I had almost forgotten that Hopper directed Colors, in 1988. Most of his later work was in bad films, but whatever, who cares. Then there’s the photography, the art collection, the marriages, the man lived a life. The post is too long as it is though, so if you want to talk about this stuff, feel free to do so in comments.

Hopper was pretty sick with cancer the last few years of his life, which ended in 2010, at the age of 74. Interestingly, one of his last moves in his life was coming around to support Barack Obama. He had been a Republican his whole life, which is kind of amazing to me, but he was rich after all. But he said he was so sickened by the rise of Sarah Palin that he couldn’t vote for McCain.

Dennis Hopper is buried in Jesús Nazareno Cemetery, Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico.

This grave really infuriated the locals. This is just a local cemetery, almost all Hispano or Native American. This was a place for peaceful remembrance of your loved ones. Hopper might have saw himself as a local of Taos, but let’s face it, he was not. When he was buried, especially in the year or two after, there were so many visitors to the grave and they would live a Dennis Hopper lifestyle while visiting–drinking, smoking weed, dropping acid. This truly angered everyone else with a stake in this cemetery, as you can imagine. I think it’s declined since it’s been awhile and Hopper doesn’t mean that much to the kids these days. But this is also part of his legacy.

If you would like this series to visit some of the people Hopper worked with, you can donate to cover the required expenses here. John Wayne is in Newport Beach, California and Don Gordon, who starred in The Last Movie, is in Los Angeles. Previous posts in this series are archived here and here.