Dennis: I wondered for years what would take you out. Hard living? Drugs? Women? What? In the end it was something as prosaic and mundane as cancer. What a drag. No fiery ends, no explosions, no gunplay, no ruptured arteries, no massive heart attack from too much speed or broads or benders. Man, but what a ride it was, none the less.
You rocked my world in Rebel Without a Cause without me even knowing it. You were always there for me on my idle days, handling my Saturday afternoon matinee jones for a madman with your over the top madman roles like the frustrated bomber you played in Speed and that twisted leader of seagoing madmen in Waterworld. You challenged my date night sensitivities with the likes of your Photojournalist role in Apocalypse Now and when you played the coach's rummy assistant in Hoosiers and in the end I was glad for it.
You rocked my world in Rebel Without a Cause without me even knowing it. You were always there for me on my idle days, handling my Saturday afternoon matinee jones for a madman with your over the top madman roles like the frustrated bomber you played in Speed and that twisted leader of seagoing madmen in Waterworld. You challenged my date night sensitivities with the likes of your Photojournalist role in Apocalypse Now and when you played the coach's rummy assistant in Hoosiers and in the end I was glad for it.
You took me to end of the line and freaked me out in Blue Velvet and gave one masterfully vulgar cameo in True Romance, which had to made Christopher Walken crack up in spite of himself. God, man, you were always on, a benign drug addled fool, a philosophical crazed demon, an underappreciated artist, a man who took the proverbial candle and burned it at both ends while trying to find a way to set it on fire in the middle, too.
I looked at your face in the papers the other day when they laid down your star on Hollywood Blvd and said to myself "there goes one of the last of the old order". You outlived everyone's expectations, you blew up all the bets they had going on you in Vegas, you took the world by storm and the world treated you with indifference and it didn't seem to bother you a bit. You flipped one big finger at world and you kept right on going, living hard, spining your art, sharing your talent, showing the weasles that you were in for a penny, in for a pound of flesh. In the end you were whittled down by disease and an estranged wife who was just a bit too grasping. What a drag, what a way to go, to hell with it all.
So, tonight, for you, I'll dig out my battered VHS copy of Easy Rider, roll a pinner, play some Steppenwolf. You were the man, Dennis Hopper. Thanks for sharing that hell of a ride that was your life. Rest in peace.
Action!
I looked at your face in the papers the other day when they laid down your star on Hollywood Blvd and said to myself "there goes one of the last of the old order". You outlived everyone's expectations, you blew up all the bets they had going on you in Vegas, you took the world by storm and the world treated you with indifference and it didn't seem to bother you a bit. You flipped one big finger at world and you kept right on going, living hard, spining your art, sharing your talent, showing the weasles that you were in for a penny, in for a pound of flesh. In the end you were whittled down by disease and an estranged wife who was just a bit too grasping. What a drag, what a way to go, to hell with it all.
So, tonight, for you, I'll dig out my battered VHS copy of Easy Rider, roll a pinner, play some Steppenwolf. You were the man, Dennis Hopper. Thanks for sharing that hell of a ride that was your life. Rest in peace.
Action!
Great Allmovie post:
http://blog.allmovie.com/2010/6/2/crazy-man-crazy-dennis-hopper-1936-2010/
IMDB: Dennis Hopper Bio:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000454/
LA Times obit:
You Tube: True Romance: the "n-word" scene with Christopher Walken:
The opening credits to Easy Rider:
NY Times obit:
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