American actor and director who first landed a role in “Rebel Without A Cause” at age 19. A year later he played the son of Rock Hudson and Elizabeth Taylor in “Giant”. When Dean was killed, Hopper seemed to absorb all of his friend’s wild ways and developed a difficult relationship with Hollywood directors and studios. Hopper’s addictions started early: “I used women all my life, just as I used alcohol and drugs. The idea was to break through inhibitions in order to become a better artist.” In between drugs and alcohol, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda to direct “Easy Rider,” a counterculture classic.
After moving into directing, he made “Blue Velvet,” 1986, in which he played Isabella Rossellini’s kinky lover. The last film that he directed, acted in and co-wrote was so self-indulgently undisciplined that it was the last movie anyone let him handle for ten years. This led to a self-imposed exile in Taos, New Mexico, where he stayed “stoned and drunk” painting and taking photographs as he cut himself off from Hollywood. His “derangement of the senses” as he calls it, ended with him walking naked down a Mexican highway at dawn in 1982, a re-play of his role in “Apocalypse Now.” His years of excess culminated in a psychotic breakdown and he was committed to a Los Angeles psychiatric ward.
Hopper’s first marriage was to actress Brooke Hayward, and his second marriage was to former Mamas & Papas singer-turned-actress Michelle Phillips, lasting for eight days in 1970. The third marriage, to actress Daria Halprin, 1972-76, produced two kids, and marriage No.4, in June 1989 to Katherine LaNasa, produced a son who was born on 11 September 1990. After a 1992 divorce, on 12 April 1996, he married for the fifth time to actress Victoria Duffy, 28, whom he had met two years earlier. The couple live in Venice, California.
After decades of legendary exploits with drugs and women, Hopper has stayed away from alcohol and mind altering chemicals since 1989, and is having the most productive years of his life. After ‘bottoming out’ and spending time in rehab, Hopper returned to sobriety and directed such films as “Colors” and “The Hot Spot.” His titles include “Super Mario Brothers,” 1993, “Speed,” 1994 and “Waterworld,” 1995. He says, ” I love being in the criminal life, the danger of it all. I love the involvement with the underworld.” His thrills now come from his screen roles, playing characters who remind him of his rebellious days, and directing films with gritty, raw-life material. Off-screen, his addiction is the game of golf which he first started in 1983.
On March 26, he and wife Victoria Duffy Hopper welcomed their daughter Galen Grier into the world. In early 2010 he filed for divorce from Duffy, his fifth wife. At about the same time he was hospitalized with a recurrence of prostate cancer, with which he had been diagnosed in the early 1990s. According to his death certificate Hopper died of a combination of liver failure and prostate cancer on 29 May 2010 at 8:30 AM in Venice, CA.
Link to Wikipedia biography