Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational or personal use tips the balance in favour of fair use
Category
📚
LearningTranscript
00:00Oh, we represent to them, man, as somebody who needs a haircut.
00:14Oh, no.
00:15What you represent to them is freedom.
00:18The groundbreaking 1969 film Easy Rider forever defined actor Dennis Hopper, a surly, shaggy-haired
00:26maverick, a man outside the system.
00:28Dennis has always been a rebel, always.
00:31That's what made Easy Rider so great.
00:33In the next hour, we will chronicle the wildly successful but chaotic career of Dennis Hopper,
00:39the man, the artist, the movie star.
00:42He's just passionate, passionate about what he does.
00:44It is a career that spans decades, a career that featured some of the most startling roles
00:50in movie history.
00:51When the surreal becomes real, that's Dennis Hopper.
00:54A career that encompassed four failed marriages, interludes of alcohol and drug abuse, and
01:00episodes of madness.
01:05I was really, really out.
01:07At the time, I thought there was a hit out on me.
01:10A career that survived professional defeats and a trip to a psychiatric ward.
01:16When Dennis ended up in a straitjacket in the hospital, almost dead, he realized he
01:21was killing himself.
01:23We will follow Hopper's amazing trip to hell and back.
01:26I don't know anybody else who came back from that far.
01:29Along with interviews from friends, family members, and celebrities, we will get an exclusive
01:35first-hand account from Dennis Hopper about how the actor survived a life or death battle
01:40with his personal demons and climbed back to the top of the industry that rejected him.
01:46I feel like I'm just making it for a waste of time.
01:49This is the story of one man's journey to the heights of success and depths of personal
01:54madness.
01:55A dark and dangerous ride which has been anything but easy.
01:59This is Dennis Hopper's story.
02:01The E!
02:02True Hollywood Story.
02:03Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:04Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:05Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:06Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:07Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:08Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:09Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:10Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:11Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:12Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:13Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:14Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:15Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:16Her life's ambition was to be a star.
02:23Dodge City, Kansas.
02:25Its vast horizons and open prairies were once home to lonely cowboys and outlaws.
02:31Dodge City is also the home of another native rebel, Dennis Hopper.
02:37Born on May 17, 1936, Dennis was the first of Marjorie and Jay Hopper's two sons.
02:43As a child, Dennis didn't see much of his parents.
02:47His father was off at war, and his mother worked at a local swimming pool.
02:52Dennis spent his childhood on his grandparents' farm,
02:55an ideal place for a boy with a vivid imagination,
02:59brother David Hopper.
03:01We couldn't play just cops and robbers or cowboys and Indians or whatever.
03:05We had complete dramas with lines and positions and everything,
03:09and he would even make cameras and stuff.
03:12He was very serious.
03:13As a boy, Hopper daydreamed about the world outside of Kansas.
03:19You know, cowboys were great, but I was looking for something.
03:22I was wondering where the trains were going, how did they make those movies.
03:26In 1950, when he was 14 years old,
03:29Dennis Hopper and his family moved to San Diego.
03:33As a Southern California teenager in the 1950s,
03:37Dennis showed an extraordinary talent for painting,
03:40but as a schoolboy, preferred pool halls to classrooms.
03:44I just decided that I didn't need to read, I didn't need to learn, I needed to live,
03:49and I spent most of my time in Tijuana, you know, trying to get some education,
03:54if you know what I mean.
03:55In high school, Dennis joined the drama department
03:58and won three statewide speech competitions.
04:01Not much of a student, Hopper believed acting was his ticket to success.
04:06His father disagreed.
04:08My father was a very practical man.
04:10You know, he thought that Dennis was going to be in a lot of trouble,
04:14so creative people end up in bars or behind bars,
04:18and he was essentially right about Dennis on that level.
04:22During the summer of 1953,
04:24a 17-year-old student received a scholarship
04:27to the National Shakespeare Festival at San Diego's Old Globe Theater.
04:32Theater director Craig Noll remembers Dennis
04:35as a promising but difficult young actor.
04:38There was always, Dennis, it's time to do this,
04:41or Dennis, stop doing that,
04:43or Dennis, come on, we're rehearsing here, you know.
04:46And so there was always a slight disciplinary problem with Dennis,
04:51but there was no doubt that he was very talented.
04:55Very talented, but unmotivated in school.
04:58Probably the most ironic thing of all
05:00was when he was a senior in high school,
05:02he was voted most likely to succeed by his class,
05:06and he was failing.
05:07But Hopper did get his high school diploma in 1954.
05:12That year, Dennis was eager to test his skills in Hollywood.
05:16I just talked to Dr. Moore.
05:18He says I'm pretty well.
05:20At the age of 18,
05:22Hopper won a part on the television series The Medic,
05:26playing a young epileptic.
05:31Dennis was terrific.
05:33People actually, you know,
05:34were convinced that he was a real epileptic.
05:36They sent in money for Dennis's, you know, case and whatever.
05:40The next day, seven studios called and put me under contract.
05:44Dennis Hopper wasn't bashful about his talent,
05:47but in 1955, his moxie nearly ended his career before it started.
05:52The young actor had a run-in
05:54with the legendary head of Columbia Studios, Harry Cohn.
05:58The studio boss told Hopper to forget his Shakespearean training,
06:02and the 19-year-old lost his cool.
06:05I was kicked out of there.
06:06I told him to go f**k himself.
06:07He kicked me out of the studio.
06:09He banned the agency.
06:10He banned me.
06:11I mean, like, you know, okay.
06:13That was my beginning.
06:14Despite Hopper's rocky start,
06:16Warner Bros. Studios recognized Dennis's talent.
06:19He was cast as a young hoodlum
06:21in the 1955 screen classic Rebel Without a Cause.
06:25As one of Hollywood's rising stars,
06:28Dennis enjoyed his celebrity perks,
06:30posing for studio publicity shots
06:32with some of Tinseltown's most beautiful women,
06:35including Natalie Wood and Jane Mansfield.
06:38As near as I could tell,
06:39Dennis was the greatest lover that ever hit Hollywood.
06:42Despite his playboy status,
06:44Dennis Hopper was serious about acting.
06:47On the set of Rebel Without a Cause,
06:49Hopper met an actor who changed his life forever,
06:52James Dean.
06:53Hopper was fascinated by Dean's approach to acting,
06:56known as method,
06:57a technique that drew upon a performer's memory
07:01and experience.
07:02I was great at line readings.
07:03I was great at gestures,
07:04all preconceived, all, like, thought out,
07:06all worked out.
07:07He said, forget all that.
07:08You've got to work on a moment-to-moment reality level.
07:11Hopper followed Dean's advice
07:13and in 1956 won over critics and audiences
07:17in the film Giant.
07:18But Hopper's success was mixed with sadness.
07:21Before the film's release,
07:22his Giant co-star, James Dean,
07:25died in a car crash in 1955.
07:28His death was just mind-boggling to me.
07:31He was going to direct movies.
07:33He was going to go on and do other things.
07:35He was like my teacher at that point.
07:37Hopper was determined to carry on Dean's legacy,
07:40even at the cost of his own career.
07:42Like Dean,
07:43Dennis had no intention of becoming a director's puppet.
07:47I was not a star,
07:48so I got in a lot of trouble.
07:50I mean, Dean was at least a star.
07:52In 1958, on the film From Hell to Texas,
07:56Hopper met his match
07:57in one of Hollywood's toughest directors,
08:00Henry Hathaway.
08:01Hathaway was determined to make Hopper follow his direction.
08:06The stubborn actor refused.
08:08He said, now we've got this scene today
08:10and you're going to do this scene
08:12just the way I tell you.
08:14I'm going to give you every line reading,
08:16every gesture,
08:18and we're going to sit here
08:19until you do it my way.
08:21After 15 hours on the set
08:23and over 80 takes,
08:25Hathaway got his one line read.
08:27I finally just start crying
08:29and I said, okay, I can't do it anymore.
08:31What do you want, what do you want?
08:32He tells me, he gives me the line.
08:34I do it, he prints it, that's it.
08:37I'm out of there.
08:38The director told Hopper
08:39he would never work in film again,
08:42and he nearly didn't.
08:43The upstart was cast out of Hollywood
08:46for the next seven years.
08:53Coming up next,
08:54Dennis Hopper joins the generation of love
08:57and trips out.
08:58We all overdid it.
08:59Dennis overdid it.
09:00Most of the people I know overdid it.
09:06In the late 1950s,
09:08Dennis Hopper's obstinance
09:09nearly ruined his budding acting career.
09:12The 22-year-old maverick's crusade against conformity
09:15was just getting started.
09:16His demeanor was, in fact,
09:19just theater at its best.
09:22He was way out there.
09:30Hopper's reputation suffered
09:32after his run-in with director Henry Hathaway,
09:35and the major studios refused to hire the actor.
09:38Hopper's anger with the Hollywood establishment
09:40didn't help matters.
09:42Friend and artist, Larry Bell.
09:44He was the only actor that I knew
09:47that took an aggressive stand
09:50against what he saw as the tyranny of Hollywood.
09:55Hopper's only chance to act in films
09:57was in small, obscure movies
09:59like the drama Night Tide.
10:01Hey, Wade.
10:03Um, just let me talk to you for a little while.
10:07I'll just walk along with you.
10:10You shouldn't be out alone on a night like this anyway.
10:12Hopper played a sailor
10:14who falls in love with a carnival mermaid,
10:17the film's director, Curtis Harrington.
10:19He saw the artistic quality
10:21and the fact that it was offbeat
10:23and that it was different,
10:24and he would be very attracted to that.
10:27After Night Tide,
10:28the actor decided to try his luck in New York City.
10:32The move east opened up a whole new world for him,
10:35both creatively and spiritually.
10:38He spent most of the next nine years there
10:41studying at the actor's studio,
10:43doing his still photography,
10:45writing his poetry,
10:47painting abstract expressionism,
10:49and hanging out with a very heady group of people
10:52that were going to change the world in the next decade.
10:55Hopper hung out with New York's most notable bohemians,
10:59artist Andy Warhol and beat poet Allen Ginsberg.
11:03He kept busy working on dozens of television shows
11:07and concentrating on his new passion, photography.
11:10I started taking a lot of photographs
11:12because that was my creative outlet.
11:14In 1961, during rehearsal for an off-Broadway play,
11:18Mandingo, Hopper met Brooke Hayward.
11:21She was Hollywood royalty.
11:23Her father was Hollywood's biggest stage actor
11:26and her mother was Margaret Sullivan,
11:28who was a huge movie star in the 30s and 40s.
11:32On August 9, 1961,
11:34Dennis Hopper married Brooke Hayward.
11:37The following year, the Hoppers returned to Hollywood
11:40and the couple's daughter, Maren, was born.
11:43The 26-year-old actor was optimistic about his future.
11:47Friend and poet Michael McClure.
11:49Dennis and Brooke were easily like the most beautiful couple
11:52and the place in the world filled with the most beautiful couples.
11:55Former West Coast editor of Interview magazine, Joan Quinn.
11:59Everyone flocked to their parties
12:01and, of course, they were interesting.
12:03They had interesting people.
12:05They had a great art collection
12:07and they had writers, poets, authors over all the time.
12:12With no film authors,
12:14Hopper focused on photographing L.A.'s artists
12:17and collecting pop art.
12:19Artist Chuck Arnoldi.
12:21He was around like Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp
12:25and people like that early, early on.
12:28But in 1965,
12:30Dennis Hopper found himself in front of the cameras again.
12:34The actor was hired to appear in the Western
12:37The Sons of Katie Elder with John Wayne,
12:40directed by his old enemy, Henry Hathaway.
12:43But this time, Hopper decided not to fight.
12:46He gives me a line. I do it.
12:48He comes up to me.
12:50I cry. I got tears coming down.
12:52He says, That was great, kid! That was great!
12:55That was great!
12:56And I said, You see, Henry, I'm a much better actor
12:59now than I was eight years ago.
13:01He said,
13:03You're not a better actor, kid.
13:05You're just smarter. You're just smarter.
13:08As the 1960s rolled on,
13:10the rebellious actor was drawn to rebellious causes.
13:14I was very involved in the 60s.
13:16I marched from Selma to Montgomery with Martin Luther King.
13:19I was in the free speech movement at Berkeley.
13:21I was really involved.
13:22And I was involved in drugs and rock and roll.
13:25Drugs, in fact, had become an important part of Hopper's life.
13:29He and his friends experimented extensively.
13:32My goal was to take every drug that existed,
13:35but not to take them more than once.
13:38And I suspect Dennis probably had similar goals.
13:42Hopper's wife, Brooke, didn't approve of Dennis' new habit.
13:46Things were going to go through a transition
13:49from what was very conservative
13:51to what was really wild and radical.
13:54Brooke didn't make the transition.
13:57In 1967, Hopper enhanced his counterculture status
14:01with his performance in the druggie movie, The Trip,
14:05written by a young actor-turned-screenwriter, Jack Nicholson,
14:09and co-starring Peter Fonda.
14:11Hopper played a pusher and took method acting to the extreme.
14:15I figured I can't be a guy pushing ass and not having ever done it.
14:19And I had a really wonderful experience.
14:21During the filming of The Trip,
14:23Hopper also experienced working as a director for the first time.
14:27He directed the movie's notorious acid scene.
14:30That year, he got another chance to work behind the camera
14:34in the 1967 biker movie, The Glory Stoppers.
14:37The film was moderately successful,
14:40but Hopper's next picture
14:42would make him one of Hollywood's hottest directors.
14:49Coming up next,
14:51Hopper rides his Harley into Hollywood lore.
14:56I can't get out of here.
14:58And later, crashes and burns.
15:00Dennis would find his way up to the tower on top of the house,
15:04and he had already dropped acid.
15:13After seven years of rejection by Hollywood,
15:16Dennis Hopper returned to the silver screen
15:19and became the sons of Katie Elder.
15:21By 1969, the actor was ready to rock the film industry
15:25with his own modern-day western,
15:27where outlaws were the heroes.
15:29Dennis has always been a rebel.
15:31Always. That's what made Easy Rider so great.
15:40By 1967, Dennis Hopper and Peter Fonda
15:44had made names for themselves in low-budget movies
15:47that featured drugs and motorbikes.
15:49But the actors were looking to do something different.
15:52Peter and I had promised each other
15:54we were not going to make a motorcycle picture
15:57because we thought we were going to come like the singing cowboys.
16:00We were just going to make these motorcycle pictures,
16:02and that was going to be it.
16:03But in fact, Peter Fonda had an idea
16:05for a different kind of biker film,
16:07a cross-country road trip featuring two hippie drug pushers.
16:11Fonda made an offer Dennis couldn't refuse.
16:14They said, great, you know, and you can direct
16:17and you can act in it too with me and so on and so on.
16:20What do you think?
16:21And I said, I think it's a great idea.
16:23To lend credibility to their project,
16:25the actors enlisted veteran writer Terry Southern
16:28to help with the script.
16:30Southern eventually titled the film Easy Rider,
16:33but getting money to make the picture was no easy task.
16:37Fonda and Hopper turned to friend Jack Nicholson,
16:40then a young screenwriter and actor
16:43who also worked for one of Hollywood's hot young producers,
16:46Bert Schneider, producer Paul Lewis.
16:49They gave it to Jack somehow or other,
16:51and Jack brought it to Bert Schneider,
16:53and Bert Schneider said, let's do this picture,
16:55and I'll finance the picture.
16:57Schneider and his partner, director Bob Rafelson,
17:00financed Easy Rider for less than $400,000.
17:04While Hopper's career was taking off,
17:06his 8-year marriage to Brooke Hayward was falling apart.
17:10In 1968, the marriage came to an abrupt end
17:14as the 32-year-old Hopper was about to begin filming Easy Rider.
17:19My wife, Brooke Hayward at the time,
17:22is driving me to the airport,
17:24telling me that I'm making the biggest mistake of my life,
17:28that this is going to be a screw-up,
17:30that I shouldn't be doing this,
17:31and I'm going to embarrass her and everybody else,
17:33and I suddenly stop and I say, I want a divorce.
17:38And she says, fine.
17:40Hopper left for New Orleans to shoot the Mardi Gras
17:43for the last scenes of the film.
17:45They shot some footage down in New Orleans,
17:47but nobody realized when Mardi Gras was.
17:50So everything was done at the last minute.
17:53Actress Toni Basil.
17:55I think a lot of the chaos was just the fact that it was Mardi Gras.
17:58You know, trying to get through the streets,
18:00trying to get to where we were supposed to shoot,
18:02took us hours.
18:04Hopper's career was on the line.
18:06He said, look, I'll let you go down there.
18:08Shoot this at 16 millimeter.
18:11But this is your test.
18:12If I don't like what happens there, that's it.
18:15To make matters worse, the script was unfinished.
18:18Actress Karen Black recalls a heated argument
18:21involving Hopper, Fonda, and writer Terry Southern.
18:24We would have these meetings at night about what will we shoot.
18:27Well, no decision was ever made.
18:31You know, we'd argue and they'd do this,
18:34and we'd talk, and it was nuts.
18:36Cinematographer Baird Bryant recalls Hopper's temper.
18:40He just brought the whole crew out onto the parking lot,
18:43and he started hurraying us and saying,
18:47everybody, Orson Welles and everybody else,
18:49has tried to shoot the Mardi Gras,
18:51and they've never been able to do it.
18:53But I'm going to do it.
18:55After the New Orleans fiasco,
18:57Hopper hit the road scouting for locations.
19:00Fonda and Southern returned to New York
19:02to finish the screenplay.
19:04Dennis called Peter and said,
19:06how's it going with the script?
19:08And Peter said, well, I've got three pages done.
19:10Hopper then left for New York to work on the movie.
19:13Ten days later, Dennis got back to L.A.
19:15with the script that he wrote,
19:18with Terry, but basically Dennis wrote the script.
19:21And a lot of it incorporated a lot of things
19:23that happened on the trip that we had taken.
19:25But there were still problems.
19:27Stage actor Rip Torn,
19:29who was under consideration for a supporting role,
19:31pulled out due to financial reasons
19:33and scheduling conflicts.
19:35At the urging of producer Bert Schneider,
19:37Hopper cast Jack Nicholson in Torn's role.
19:40The 31-year-old Nicholson
19:42made the most of his part
19:44as the alcoholic lawyer George Hanson.
19:46They got this here, see,
19:49scissor-happy, beautify America thing going on around here.
19:53They're trying to make everybody look like Yul Brynner.
19:56When filming resumed,
19:58Hopper was determined to make his movie
20:00dramatically different.
20:02He wanted to give you America at that time
20:04and what it was like for hippies
20:06or for freer people at that time.
20:08That was his intention, and in fact,
20:10that's what he got.
20:12Hopper demanded realism,
20:14from the movie's use of rock & roll
20:16to its depiction of drugs.
20:18No, man, this is grass.
20:21You mean marijuana?
20:24We were using alcohol.
20:26Sometimes we used it on camera,
20:28sometimes you showed it on camera,
20:30but it never interfered, never stopped,
20:32it never changed your creative process.
20:34Hopper even cast non-actors in pivotal roles.
20:37The last scene of the picture,
20:39basically the killing of Dennis and Peter,
20:41Dennis and I were at a gas station,
20:43and Dennis looked and said,
20:45get that guy with the goiter.
20:47This guy had this big goiter on his neck.
20:49So we called him over,
20:51and Dennis said, do you want to be in a picture?
20:53Easy Rider, open to critical acclaim in 1969,
20:57was a huge box office success.
20:59Hopper won the 1969 Cannes Film Festival Award
21:03for Best Movie by a New Director,
21:05and he was nominated for an Oscar
21:07for Best Screenplay,
21:09along with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern.
21:11Hollywood couldn't get enough of Dennis Hopper.
21:14He seemed to know the magic formula for success.
21:17Director Henry Jaglum.
21:19Dennis Hopper definitely had the answer,
21:21because he looked weird, had long hair,
21:23and had made Easy Rider.
21:25And the picture he wanted to make
21:27was the last movie.
21:29At his moment of triumph,
21:31Dennis Hopper seemed like a prophet.
21:33But the last movie would truly
21:35become his last movie
21:37for a very, very long time.
21:45Coming up next,
21:46the rebel cowboy gets bucked.
21:49As much as he had been embraced
21:51after Easy Rider,
21:53he was shunned after the last movie.
21:55It was insane.
22:09By 1970, 34-year-old Dennis Hopper
22:12was riding high with his counterculture hit,
22:15Easy Rider.
22:16The new guru of the film world
22:18was determined to flip Hollywood upside down
22:21with his next film.
22:22The person who got turned upside down
22:24was Hopper himself.
22:26In the 25 years I've been in Hollywood,
22:28I've never seen a town turn around
22:30about one person that way like that.
22:38After the success of Easy Rider,
22:40Universal Studios was quick
22:42to approach Dennis Hopper
22:44about his next project,
22:45a script he had written
22:47about a Hollywood film crew
22:48making a movie in the backlands of Peru.
22:51Everybody's saying,
22:52we want to see new films,
22:53we want to see new films,
22:54we want to see, boy,
22:55have I got a new film for you.
22:57And so I go almost immediately to Peru
23:00to make the last movie,
23:02which was not a great career move.
23:07Hopper was hired to star in
23:09and direct the film.
23:11The cast included Hopper's friend,
23:13Peter Fonda,
23:14and Dennis' then-girlfriend,
23:16pop singer Michelle Phillips
23:18of the group the Mamas and the Papas.
23:20Filming began in 1970.
23:22From the start,
23:23reports of out-of-control parties
23:25trickled back to the studio.
23:27Dennis' brother, David Hopper,
23:29worked on the movie.
23:30Peru is a high place,
23:32and there's a lot of high drugs there,
23:35and it must have been one of the best times
23:37that anybody ever had making a movie.
23:40Despite the outrageous antics
23:42on the set of the last movie,
23:44the film was important
23:45to the 34-year-old director.
23:47Hopper wanted to prove
23:49his earlier success with Easy Rider
23:51was no fluke.
23:53He returned to the United States
23:55with more than 37 hours of film.
23:58To the dismay of executives at Universal,
24:00Hopper decided to edit his
24:02Miles of Celluloid outside of their view.
24:05This created a degree of difficulty
24:07because Universal Pictures
24:08wasn't quite ready for us
24:10to leave town, you know,
24:12other than our location making the movie.
24:14Hopper set up shop
24:15in a large adobe mansion
24:17in Taos, New Mexico.
24:18An area then well-known
24:20for its hippie communes.
24:22Girlfriend Michelle Phillips
24:24moved in with him.
24:25Phillips was a free spirit
24:27who also knew how to flex her muscle.
24:29They were tough together,
24:31and people would be driving by
24:32going, hey, gringo,
24:34you know, and I never seen
24:37anything like Michelle Phillips.
24:39She and Dennis were both,
24:40okay, come on.
24:41Within months of arriving in Taos,
24:43Dennis Hopper surprised friends
24:45and married Michelle Phillips
24:47on October 31st, 1970.
24:49Eight days later,
24:51Phillips moved out
24:52and the couple divorced in 1971.
24:55It was an eight-day marriage,
24:57but we did everything
24:59you could possibly think of
25:00in those eight days.
25:01It was great.
25:02A great honeymoon.
25:03It would have been probably
25:04a terrible, terrible marriage.
25:06After Michelle left,
25:07Dennis' psychedelic lifestyle
25:09began to catch up with him.
25:11Film editor David Berlatsky.
25:13In the afternoon,
25:14around one or two o'clock,
25:16Dennis would find his way
25:17up to the tower
25:18on top of the house,
25:20and he had already dropped acid.
25:22So he was getting ready
25:24for the weekend.
25:25The local hippies
25:26quickly became a distraction.
25:28We'd have as many as 85 people
25:30come to dinner,
25:31and Dennis would be paying the bills.
25:33Sometimes he'd walk into the kitchen
25:35to get a cup of coffee
25:36and not know anybody there.
25:38The hippies even made their way
25:40to the editing room.
25:41They could get drunk there
25:42and do drugs there
25:43and just have a ball.
25:45The townspeople didn't care
25:47for Hopper and his long-haired friends.
25:50If you were walking into town at night
25:52or walking out of town at night
25:53and you looked like a hippie,
25:55if you had long hair,
25:56they might find you the next morning
25:58on the side of the road.
25:59Hopper and his friends
26:00armed themselves for protection.
26:03Everybody was wearing guns.
26:04At that time, we could wear guns.
26:05We could wear them in the bars.
26:06We wore them everywhere.
26:08We had guns with us,
26:09and we were an armed camp.
26:11The whole thing culminated
26:12when Dennis and a couple actors,
26:14friends of his,
26:15were jumped by some teenage hoodlums,
26:18and some others of us
26:19got the call on the radio
26:20and came up there
26:21and put them up against the fence with guns
26:23and called the cops,
26:24and the cops came and arrested us.
26:26After 16 months,
26:27worried studio bosses demanded
26:29to see Hopper's cut of the last movie.
26:32The executives made a special trip to Taos.
26:35In walk 15 or 20 men in gray suits.
26:39In those days,
26:40everybody at Universal wore gray.
26:42And walked like in a fog,
26:45sat down together,
26:46said roll the film.
26:48They rolled the film.
26:49Not a word.
26:50At the end of it,
26:51got up and walked out.
26:52They hated the picture.
26:54But not everyone hated the film.
26:56In 1971, Hopper won the award
26:59for Best Feature at the Venice Film Festival.
27:02Despite his success,
27:03critics panned the movie.
27:05Universal demanded Hopper change the picture.
27:08I refused to re-edit the movie.
27:10That was the end of my directing
27:12and also the end of my financial world.
27:19Hollywood's dream boy was finished.
27:22As much as he had been embraced
27:24after Easy Rider,
27:25he was shunned after the last movie.
27:28It was insane.
27:29It was as if he had done something criminal.
27:32You know,
27:33he had had all the opportunity in the world
27:36and he had not done what they expected with it.
27:38He had done a movie that turned out to be
27:40a commercially unsuccessful movie.
27:41That's the only reality.
27:47Coming up next,
27:48Dennis Hopper indulges in booze and drugs
27:52and later,
27:53the Hollywood outcast explodes.
28:02Dennis Hopper!
28:03Dennis Hopper!
28:04Ladies and gentlemen!
28:09In less than one year,
28:11Dennis Hopper went from Hollywood's golden boy
28:14to Tinseltown outcast.
28:16His career was shattered
28:18after the critical and commercial failure
28:20of his 1971 film,
28:22The Last Movie.
28:23The 35-year-old was traveling down
28:25a dark and dangerous road.
28:27Within the year,
28:28I'm the top to the bottom.
28:30Yeah,
28:31it was hard.
28:39After the failure of his film,
28:41The Last Movie,
28:42Dennis Hopper remained in Taos, New Mexico
28:45to lick his wounds.
28:46The actor's life became a study in desperation.
28:49Friend and photographer Lisa Law explains.
28:52During that time,
28:53it was difficult for him
28:55and probably drugs did affect him.
28:57I think had he not taken so many,
28:59he probably would have been okay.
29:00Despite his heavy drug use,
29:02Hopper managed to find some work.
29:04In 1972,
29:06he got a part in the film,
29:07Kid Blue,
29:08playing an outlaw trying to go straight.
29:11But critics didn't like the movie
29:13or Hopper's performance.
29:15Over time,
29:16the rejection began to affect the actor.
29:18He essentially degenerated from
29:21not being allowed the creative outlets
29:24that he needed.
29:26For a brief moment,
29:27Hopper appeared to escape his hellish nightmare.
29:30He fell in love with a beautiful young actress
29:33named Daria Halperin.
29:35In 1972,
29:36the couple married
29:38and a year later had a daughter.
29:40But Hopper's lifestyle became too much
29:43for his third wife.
29:44It was at the height of my drug craze time.
29:48The marriage ended after four years.
29:51Meanwhile,
29:52Hopper's career was stalled.
29:54But he caught a break with friend
29:56and independent director Henry Jaglum.
29:59He was an angry man at this point in his life
30:01and I used that anger.
30:02Jaglum cast the actor in his 1976 film,
30:06Tracks,
30:07a story about a Vietnam veteran
30:09who escorts his comrade's coffin back home.
30:12But the role did not restore
30:14Hopper's damaged reputation
30:16with Hollywood power brokers.
30:18The only thing they wanted less
30:19than a movie about Vietnam
30:21was a movie with Dennis Hopper in it.
30:22Like his character,
30:24Dennis Hopper knew all about rage
30:26and shattered dreams.
30:28And I hate.
30:29And because I love.
30:31Because I love, I hate.
30:33Because I love, I hate.
30:34He'd given me every emotional feeling
30:36he had of anger
30:37at everything,
30:38at America, at Hollywood
30:39for the past five or six years.
30:41By the mid-1970s,
30:42Hopper became an expatriate
30:44appearing in foreign films.
30:47In 1976,
30:48the actor got a big opportunity
30:50with a small role
30:51in director Francis Ford Coppola's film,
30:54Apocalypse Now.
30:56The director cast Dennis
30:57as a demented photographer.
30:59Hopper then believed that drugs
31:01enhanced his performance.
31:03With the right medication,
31:04you can medicate yourself
31:05right into a role.
31:07You know, you didn't want to do too much,
31:09but if you did enough coke,
31:10you did a little marijuana,
31:11you did a couple of drinks,
31:12you get in the right thing,
31:14you'd be a lot more vulnerable
31:16and a lot easier for you
31:17to get to your subconscious.
31:19From the jungles of the Philippines,
31:21Dennis Hopper traveled to Germany
31:23to work on the movie
31:24The American Friend.
31:27He stepped off the plane totally crazed
31:30from the experience
31:31and to shoot Apocalypse.
31:35Drugged out of his mind,
31:36I must say.
31:38Open wounds on his body
31:40that he hadn't taken care of
31:42in the jungle.
31:43I mean, bad, stinking wounds.
31:46He was a total mess.
31:47Drugs were destroying
31:49the 40-year-old actor.
31:51He was suicidal.
31:52He was lethal.
31:53He would never sleep.
31:55He was in a hammock for a week
31:56and he hadn't slept once.
31:58Hopper returned home a broken man.
32:01Miraculously, the actor's drug use
32:03didn't kill him or his career.
32:05Paul Lewis hired Dennis
32:07to direct the 1980 film
32:09Out of the Blue.
32:10It was all on Dennis.
32:11I mean, he wrote it,
32:12he was acting in it,
32:13he was directing it.
32:14Out of the Blue was well-received
32:16at the 1980 Cannes Film Festival,
32:18but the movie didn't hold up
32:20at the box office.
32:21Hopper numbed the pain of rejection
32:23with more poison.
32:25His behavior was bizarre,
32:28not rational.
32:31It was, you know,
32:32like he needed help.
32:33Hopper's madness reached
32:34a feverish high in 1983.
32:37At a Houston racetrack,
32:38the actor attempted
32:39a death-defying trick
32:41as a promotional stunt
32:42for his one-man art show.
32:44The 47-year-old folded himself up
32:46under a chair wired with dynamite.
32:49We're getting ready.
32:53Why don't we get in there?
33:02Hopper was suffering
33:03from delusions.
33:05At the time, I thought
33:06there was a hit-out on me.
33:08I thought there was
33:09a hit-out on me,
33:10and if they were gonna kill me,
33:11they might as well do it there.
33:12In 1983, Hopper finally hit bottom
33:15while working in Mexico
33:16on the film Jungle Fever.
33:18According to Hopper,
33:19his managers tried
33:20to stop him from drinking.
33:22Without alcohol,
33:23Hopper says,
33:24he went into shock.
33:25I start seeing, like,
33:26hologram stuff
33:27in the middle of the night.
33:28I decide for someone
33:29who knows why
33:30that if I'm naked,
33:31they can't kill me.
33:33So I walk out into the jungle
33:35naked in the middle of the night.
33:37Producers put Hopper
33:38back on a plane to Los Angeles
33:41where he entered a drug
33:42and alcohol rehabilitation program.
33:45But his ordeal
33:46was far from over.
33:48The side effects
33:49of his medication
33:50resulted in terrible tremors
33:52and shakes.
33:53I would have my hand here
33:54and try to get it to my,
33:55I was smoking at that time,
33:56try to get it to my mouth.
33:57It was like,
33:58you know,
33:59I couldn't make sentences.
34:00Hopper's condition improved
34:02after he changed his medication,
34:04but he couldn't change
34:05his dangerous habits.
34:07He gave up alcohol,
34:08but not cocaine.
34:10I was just wired like this
34:11for a whole year,
34:12totally crazy.
34:14It ended up worse
34:15than I'd ever been.
34:16Within a year,
34:17Dennis Hopper returned
34:19to Los Angeles
34:20and was hospitalized.
34:21The 48-year-old
34:22was later transferred
34:23to a psychiatric ward.
34:25When Dennis ended up
34:28in a straitjacket
34:29in the hospital
34:30and almost dead,
34:32he realized
34:33he was killing himself.
34:39Coming up next,
34:41Dennis Hopper
34:42confronts his demons
34:43and takes control
34:44of his life.
34:45It's like it was another person.
34:47It's like a snake
34:48having shed his skin.
35:02In 1984,
35:03after years of alcohol
35:05and drug abuse,
35:06Dennis Hopper hit bottom.
35:08The 48-year-old actor
35:10was confined
35:11in a psychiatric ward
35:12on medication
35:13with no way out.
35:15If anybody thinks
35:16about cocaine
35:17not being addictive
35:18and not being a problem,
35:19forget that one.
35:26In 1984,
35:28Dennis Hopper
35:29was in bad shape.
35:31I was hearing
35:32the wires on the telephone
35:33were talking to me.
35:35The radio was speaking
35:36only to me.
35:37It was totally
35:38out of my mind.
35:39The actor's condition
35:40was so severe,
35:41he wasn't allowed
35:42to check out
35:43of the hospital
35:44on his own.
35:45Hopper's old friend,
35:46Bert Schneider,
35:47the producer of
35:48Easy Rider,
35:49came to Dennis' rescue.
35:50He helped get Dennis
35:51out of the hospital
35:52in July of 1984
35:54and put the actor
35:55back on the road
35:56to recovery.
35:57He said,
35:58here's what you're going to do.
35:59You're going to stay
36:00with me for three days
36:01and then you're going
36:02to go back to Taos
36:03for four days
36:04and then come back
36:05and stay with me
36:06for three days.
36:07Oh, I can't go back to Taos.
36:08They told me
36:09I can't go back
36:10to Taos.
36:11They told me
36:12you can drive a car.
36:13Hopper joined
36:14a recovery program
36:15and got sober,
36:16but he worried
36:17if he could act
36:18without the drugs.
36:19It was scary
36:20because I didn't know.
36:21It was an unknown.
36:22I'd used the crutch
36:23of alcohol and drugs
36:24for so long
36:25as an acting tool
36:26that I didn't know.
36:27Dennis Hopper
36:28found out
36:29he hadn't lost
36:30his creative touch.
36:31In 1986,
36:32at the age of 50,
36:33Hopper made
36:34his second comeback,
36:35playing the psychotic
36:36Frank Booth
36:37in the film
36:38Blue Velvet.
36:39The joyride
36:40with Frank
36:41in Blue Velvet,
36:42for those of us
36:43that know Dennis,
36:44a pretty awesome experience.
36:47It's so real.
36:49And that's when
36:50the surreal becomes real.
36:51That's Dennis Hopper.
36:53But it was a very
36:54different role
36:55that put Hopper
36:56back on Hollywood's A-list.
36:57In 1986,
36:59the actor also
37:00played a drunk
37:01in the film
37:02Hoosiers.
37:03He can play
37:04a recovering alcoholic
37:05because he's
37:06a recovered alcoholic.
37:07I mean,
37:08he plays his parts
37:09in the films
37:10because he comes
37:11from those places.
37:12He knows where
37:13those places are at.
37:14His role
37:15in Hoosiers
37:16earned Dennis
37:17an Academy Award
37:18nomination
37:19for Best Supporting Actor.
37:20That was great,
37:21except that
37:22I really thought,
37:23I really thought
37:24I was going to be
37:25nominated for
37:26Blue Velvet.
37:27So I was a little
37:28off again.
37:29Although Hopper
37:30lost the Oscar,
37:31the actor
37:32was on a roll.
37:33In 1988,
37:34the 52-year-old
37:35directed the film
37:36Colors,
37:37a drama about
37:38L.A. gang wars.
37:39The movie
37:40re-established Hopper
37:41as a director
37:42who could deliver.
37:43Hopper's success
37:44seemed complete
37:45in 1989
37:46when he married
37:47his fourth wife,
37:48dancer Catherine Lanasa.
37:50The following year,
37:51the couple had a child,
37:53Hopper's first son,
37:54Henry.
37:55But the actor
37:56struck out at love again,
37:58ending his marriage
37:59in 1992.
38:00By the mid-1990s,
38:02Dennis Hopper
38:03had captivated
38:04a whole new generation
38:05of young fans,
38:06playing Christian Slater's
38:07father in True Romance
38:09and a villain in Speed.
38:11But there were
38:12storms on the horizon
38:13for the Easy Rider.
38:14On May 31, 1994,
38:16Hopper appeared
38:17on The Tonight Show
38:18with Jay Leno.
38:20Hopper got in trouble
38:21when he told Leno
38:22that actor Rip Torn
38:23was dropped
38:24from the film
38:25Easy Rider
38:26when Torn pulled
38:27a knife on him.
38:28Torn sued Hopper
38:29for damage
38:30to his reputation.
38:31At the trial in 1996,
38:33the judge believed
38:34the accounts of Torn
38:35and other witnesses
38:36who said that
38:37it was Hopper,
38:38not Torn,
38:39who pulled the knife.
38:40The judge also found
38:41that since Torn
38:42was never available
38:43to make Easy Rider,
38:44he could not have been
38:45dropped from the film
38:46as Hopper alleged.
38:48The court awarded Torn
38:49$475,000 in damages.
38:53After Hopper's
38:54courtroom drama,
38:55the actor was down
38:56but not out.
38:57He appeared in
38:58big-budget films
38:59such as Waterworld
39:00and small art house movies
39:02like Basquiat.
39:04Director Julian Schnabel
39:06He was a real champion
39:07of the film
39:08and because of his involvement,
39:10other artists,
39:11other actors
39:13worked in the film.
39:14In 1996,
39:16at the age of 60,
39:17Dennis Hopper
39:18was still the rebel
39:19without a pause.
39:21That year,
39:22he married his fifth wife,
39:23actress Victoria Duffy.
39:26The veteran actor
39:27even got excited
39:28about a new arena.
39:30Bad things, man.
39:32I mean bad things.
39:34It was so much fun
39:35because a whole new world
39:37for me of recognition.
39:44Coming up next,
39:45Dennis Hopper
39:46looks to the future.
39:47I'm going to write a film
39:48about my life
39:49and it's a very difficult thing
39:50because it's not a pretty,
39:52pretty picture.
40:04By 1996,
40:06Dennis Hopper's comeback
40:07was complete.
40:08He received
40:09an Academy Award nomination,
40:10published a collection
40:11of his photographs
40:12and directed several
40:13Hollywood movies.
40:14But the 60-year-old actor
40:16was just getting started.
40:18He's just passionate,
40:19passionate about what he does.
40:28Dennis Hopper's journey
40:29has been a long
40:30and dangerous ride.
40:32He's lived every role.
40:34Rebellious actor,
40:35hippie, dropout
40:37and movie star.
40:38But his greatest part
40:40is survivor.
40:42I don't think of myself
40:43as being a wild guy.
40:45I know that I was
40:46but it doesn't,
40:47it's like it was another person.
40:49It's like a snake
40:50having shed his skin.
40:55Another life.
40:56Dennis Hopper
40:57has come a long way
40:58from his days
40:59as a Hollywood outcast.
41:01In 1998,
41:02the actor was named
41:03as a George Eastman
41:04Honorary Scholar
41:05by the Eastman Kodak Company
41:07for his contribution
41:08to the arts.
41:09I think he'll be working
41:10until he drops over,
41:11you know.
41:14He's an actor's actor.
41:16These days,
41:17Hopper is focusing
41:18on his acting career,
41:19writing a script
41:20about his path
41:21to sobriety
41:22and enjoying his role
41:24as a father.
41:25He's becoming
41:26a beautiful family man.
41:29Who would have ever thought?
41:32And he's wonderful
41:33with his son.
41:34I mean, just,
41:35he's a really good daddy.
41:37And it's a long way
41:39to get there.
41:41I'm happy for him
41:42that he found
41:44some peace of mind
41:45because he certainly
41:46didn't have any peace
41:49for a long time
41:50of his life.
41:51He has a strength
41:52of character
41:53which I think
41:54has surprised people
41:55time and time again.
41:56Dennis Hopper's journey
41:57is far from over.
41:58But with lessons learned,
42:00it is a much smoother ride.
42:02Life is so much easier.
42:04The work is so much easier.
42:06It's so much easier
42:07to get along with people.
42:09Yeah.
42:10electric guitar solo
42:40electric guitar solo