Actor and director. Rebel Without a Cause. Giant. Gunfight at the OK Corral. Cool Hand Luke. Easy Rider. True Grit. Apocalypse Now. Blue Velvet. Hoosiers. River's Edge. True Romance. Speed.
"I'm not usually in one of those movies that leaves you feeling good when you leave the theater."
(Well, I'm sure some of those movies made people feel good--KJ)
I'll never forget Hopper sucking on that oxygen in Blue Velvet. So weird, yet so compelling.
ReplyDeleteThat scene with Christopher Walken in True Romance is one of the best scenes I've ever seen. It was perfect. The movie was a B-, but his scene was A++.
ReplyDeleteI met him once in an odd set of circumstances. His family were from San Diego. His mother lives (or lived, I'm not certain whether she has passed away) in a retirement home in Lemon Grove where I gave a quilting class one year. He had come to visit her and was quite open and natural about saying hello to the awed. He was one of those human beings who gives off an electrical current. Vibrating. One could almost hear it.
ReplyDelete@Kass--This is from the New York Public Library web site:
ReplyDelete"Hopper definitely made the Frank Booth character [the bad guy in Blue Velvet] his own. In the original script Lynch had Booth inhaling helium throughout the film. The idea was that the helium would effect his voice, adding a dark quality to the character. It was Hopper's idea to have Booth use nitrous oxide instead, the effects of which Hopper apparently had some recreational experience with."
@Badger--That scene sticks out in my memory, too. Two great weirdo actors (I mean that as a compliment) playing off each other.
ReplyDeleteLimesNow--Dennis Hopper came to your quilting class? I hope you kept him away from the needles.
ReplyDeleteAll kidding aside, I've read that he was very approachable. Especially after he kicked any number of bad habits.
Oh, yeah, Kirk ~ I'm very engaging, don't you know? I magnetically attract all manner of celebrities to my small gatherings where I show how to make a fabric sandwich.
ReplyDeleteI assure you, I did nothing to contribute to his delinquency. His mother was in the room!
Love Dennis. Sad to see him go, but happy he left us with SO MANY great movies to watch.
ReplyDeleteI just came back from his Wikipedia entry where I counted 160 movies, though some of those were documentaries. In my own personal listing, I added three movies I've seen but forgotten about.
ReplyDeleteSee, LimesNow,
ReplyDeleteYou never mentioned this in the brushes with fame comments, lets add humble to your list of qualities shall we?
Time for you to make a blue velvet inchy now.
Kirk , thanks for posting this, did you ever see that Rivers Edge movie? He was in full Dennis hopper style, creepy movie for sure.
Ha, Kim! Well, the brief brush with Hopper doesn't seem as substantial as the shirt-tail relationship with Gene Autry. A blue velvet inchie . . Actually I may break some very happy news in the very near future about inchies and me.
ReplyDeleteWV - plate. Let's rent some Hopper movies and plate them on the DVD player.
@Numinosity--River's Edge is one of three movies I just now added to the list under the title. Dennis played a middle-age '60s type in that movie, almost an older version of the character he played in Easy Rider. You know who was creepy in River's Edge? Crispin Glover, who played the leader of the group of teenagers in that movie. He was more creepy than the kid who murdered his girlfriend!
ReplyDelete@Limes--Gene Autrey?
Oh, sorry, Kirk. He was my stepmother's uncle. Kim *Numinosity* put up a post recently about brushes with fame and I commented on it.
ReplyDeleteSam Cooke's nephew will be jealous.
ReplyDeleteRoaring! That is hilarious, Kirk. I'm sure as shootin' known for attracting them. Not.
ReplyDelete@Numinosity--I just remembered something else about River's Edge. Hopper had a rather unusual "girlfriend"
ReplyDelete