Dennis Hopper: Interviews

Chronology

xvii Chronology 1936 Born Dennis Lee Hopper on May 17 in Dodge City, Kansas, to Jay Millard Hopper and Marjorie Mae Hopper. 1946 Moves with family from Dodge City to Kansas City, Missouri. 1950 Moves to San Diego, California, where he becomes involved with the city’s Old Globe Theatre. Subsequently, he takes summer jobs at the Pasadena Playhouse and La Jolla Playhouse, the latter run by film actress Dorothy Maguire and her husband, photographer John Swope, who mentor Hopper. 1954 Voted most likely to succeed by his graduating class at Helix High School in La Mesa, California. 1955 Following his appearance on an episode of the TV show Medic as an epileptic, Hopper receives contract offers from several Hollywood studios. Hopper signs with Warner Bros., and his first credited film role is in Rebel Without a Cause, starring James Dean. During the shooting of Giant, in which Dean plays the lead and Hopper a supporting role, Dean dies in a car accident, aged just twenty-four. 1956 Giant is released. 1957 Plays Napoleon Bonaparte in The Story of Mankind. 1958 While making the Western From Hell to Texas, Hopper has a famous falling out with the film’s director, Henry Hathaway, who is intolerant of Hopper’s Method approach to acting. Subsequently , Hopper is blackballed by Hollywood. 1959 Studies under Lee Strasberg at the Actors Studio in New York City. 1961 Marries Brooke Hayward, the daughter of actress Maureen Sullavan and Hollywood agent Leland Hayward, after acting opposite her in a Broadway production of Mandingo. Starts working as a photographer for Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Plays the lead in the independent film Night Tide, directed by Curtis Harrington. xviii chronology 1962 Hopper and Brooke Hayward have a daughter, Marin. 1964 Appears in Andy Warhol’s films Tarzan and Jane Regained . . . Sort of and The Thirteen Most Beautiful Boys. Hopper’s contact with Warhol originates from his involvement in the Los Angeles art scene centered around the Ferus Gallery. He subsequently appears in a number of Warhol’s Screen Test movies. 1965 Acts in the Western The Sons of Katie Elder, directed by Henry Hathaway, ending his exile from Hollywood. 1966 Reteams with director Curtis Harrington on the horror Queen of Blood. 1967 Plays a supporting role in Roger Corman’s The Trip, an LSD movie starring Brooke Hayward’s stepbrother, Peter Fonda, and written by Jack Nicholson. Hopper and Fonda collaborate on directing second unit footage for the film. Has a small role in Cool Hand Luke. 1968 Appears in the Western Hang ’Em High and has a cameo in Bob Rafelson’s Monkees vehicle, Head, which is co-written by Rafelson and Jack Nicholson. Directs and acts in Easy Rider, an existential motorcycle movie with a screenplay by Hopper, Peter Fonda (who plays the lead role), and Terry Southern, and Nicholson in a supporting role. 1969 Gets divorced from Brooke Hayward, later claiming he left because of her lack of faith in Easy Rider. After winning the Prix de la première œuvre (Best First Film) at the Cannes Film Festival, Easy Rider is released by Columbia Pictures and becomes a monumental , era-defining success that grosses an initial $19 million at the domestic box office, despite costing just $340,000. 1970 Directs and acts in The Last Movie, his much-anticipated followup to Easy Rider, on location in Peru. At the Academy Awards, Easy Rider is nominated for Best Supporting Actor (Jack Nicholson ) and Best Original Screenplay. Moves to Taos, New Mexico, where he edits The Last Movie. Marries Michelle Phillips, of the pop group The Mamas & The Papas. Their marriage lasts eight days. 1971 The Last Movie, despite winning the Critics Prize at the Venice Film Festival, is a critical and commercial disaster on its release. The film’s failure—and rumors of Hopper’s destructive, hedonistic lifestyle—greatly damages Hopper’s career. 1972 Marries Daria Halprin, the lead actress in Michelangelo Anto- chronology xix nioni’s Zabriskie Point. Their daughter Ruthanna Khalighi Hopper is born. 1973 Kid Blue, a comedy Western shot in 1971, is belatedly released. 1976 Divorces Daria Halprin. Goes to the Philippines to play a supporting role as a crazed war photographer in Francis Ford Coppola ’s Apocalypse Now. 1977 Plays the lead roles in Tracks, a U.S. independent film directed by Henry Jaglom, and The American Friend, Wim Wenders’s adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s Ripley’s Game...