Dennis Hopper must be one of the coolest and most iconic actors in film history. A close friend of James Dean after they met on Rebel Without a Cause (1955), studied at the Actors Studio with Marlon Brando, wrote and directed and starred in iconically cool film Easy Rider (1969) was the oxygen sniffing sadomasochist in Blue Velvet (1986), the insanely brilliant photographer in Apocalypse Now (1979), the disgruntled ex cop villain in superb actioner Speed (1994), starred in Tarantino's greatest ever scene in True Romance (1993), was the ludicrously silly villain in the ludicrously silly Waterworld (1995) as well as being the original bad guy facing off against Jack Bauer in 24.It amazing how you forget how many iconic films Hopper starred in and more importantly how many of them are iconic because of him. I'm not interested in how crazy his personal life, because what's left are some of the most entertaining, brilliant and enjoyable films made in the past 50 years and with a career that included working alongside James Dean, Marlon Brando, John Wayne,Christopher Walken, Kiefer Sutherland, Martin Sheen, Clint Eastwood, Paul Newman, Burt Lancaster and Kirk Douglas.
as well working with directors as talented as David Lynch, Nicolas Ray, Francis Ford Coppola, George A. Romero, Tony Scott, Henry Hathaway and John Sturges.
Hopper was irrepressible, he was eye catching, scene stealing and always watchable, even in the most dire films he churned out along the six decades he worked.
He will be missed but he will also be remembered, for the films that live on are always better for his involvement.
And in the words of the great Frank Booth - Let's hit the fuckin' road.
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