Dennis Hopper
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopperwas an American actor, filmmaker, photographer, and artist. He attended the Actors Studio, made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared alongside James Dean in Rebel Without a Causeand Giant. In the next ten years he made a name in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films. Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionMovie Actor
Date of Birth17 May 1936
CityDodge City, KS
CountryUnited States of America
I was always involved in art and when I went under contract at Warner Bros. at 18, it afforded me the possibility of never having to stop painting, never having to stop taking photographs and so on, and to actually live a cultural life.
Like all artists, I want to cheat death a little and contribute something to the next generation.
Banks wont even loan each other money, everybody's going broke, and here we are inside here, these people are going to be out on the street selling apples and pencils and they're still going to be buying paintings for this money, so I don't know what's going on in this world.
The reality of things going on around me is more interesting than the fantasies of the world I work in.
When I was about 14. I saw my first mountain. I saw the ocean for the first time. I remember thinking that that ocean looked very similar to our wheat fields. I didn't know what I thought I would see when I looked out at the ocean, but I thought I'd see something different.
People keep asking me, 'What evil lurks in you to play such bad characters?' There is no evil in me, I just wear tight underwear.
My whole written history is one big lie! I mean, I can't even believe my history.
As an actor, you have no control really.
When we're out of the eighties, the nineties are gonna make the sixties look like the fifties!
I think not being a professional photographer was actually a blessing, because it allowed me to shoot things professional photographers wouldn't shoot, or wouldn't try or attempt to shoot without lights. So I did all my stuff natural and without lights.
I'm still around artists. I don't have anymore wall space. And I don't have the money to collect anymore, the prices are outrageous.
I've always been doing some sort of art. I started off, when I was very young, painting.
I was an abstract expressionist before I had seen any abstract expressionist paintings. I started when I was a kid and continued just doing abstract stuff all through high school.
I didn't see an abstract painting until I was 18, when I went to Vincent Price's house and saw Richard Niebencorn, Wolff, Jackson Pollack. He had an amazing collection. I didn't know people painted abstractly, I thought I was just doing something wholeheartedly.