Really Easy Ride
Or
Apocalypse Now
Or
Now It’s Dark
Dennis Hopper, best remembered as Lieutenant Lefty Enright in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 74. Hopper was a boy wonder, starring alongside Jimmy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, taking his coming of age turn as a Fuhrer-wannabe in The Twilight Zone episode “He’s Alive,” and playing sniveling pansies in Westerns like Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Sons of Katie Elder, Hang ‘Em High and True Grit. Then he found cocaine, marijuana, rum, beer, peyote, mushrooms, LSD and certain substances that no one else who had sampled had survived long enough to name, and the next 15 years are a blur, dotted by roles in Easy Rider (for which he scored an Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination), and Apocalypse Now and an 8-day marriage to Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas. He emerged on the far side to become one of the best and most prolific character actors in Hollywood, scoring an Oscar nod as drunk hoops nut Shooter in Hoosiers, and creating one of the creepiest characters in film history as the expletive-dropping, nitrous huffing sadomasochist Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. He openly parodied his celebrated youth, hosting Saturday Night Live and having difficulty remembering large sections of his past in an It’s Your Life-esque skit. More recently, he proudly said he hadn’t said no to a project in years, which would explain King Koopa in Super Mario Bros., the Exxon Valdez-piloting Deacon in Waterworld, and Kaufman, ruler of the last zombie-free city on earth in Land of the Dead.
Apocalypse Now
Or
Now It’s Dark
Dennis Hopper, best remembered as Lieutenant Lefty Enright in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, has died of prostate cancer at the age of 74. Hopper was a boy wonder, starring alongside Jimmy Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, taking his coming of age turn as a Fuhrer-wannabe in The Twilight Zone episode “He’s Alive,” and playing sniveling pansies in Westerns like Gunfight at the OK Corral, The Sons of Katie Elder, Hang ‘Em High and True Grit. Then he found cocaine, marijuana, rum, beer, peyote, mushrooms, LSD and certain substances that no one else who had sampled had survived long enough to name, and the next 15 years are a blur, dotted by roles in Easy Rider (for which he scored an Best Original Screenplay Oscar nomination), and Apocalypse Now and an 8-day marriage to Michelle Phillips from the Mamas and the Papas. He emerged on the far side to become one of the best and most prolific character actors in Hollywood, scoring an Oscar nod as drunk hoops nut Shooter in Hoosiers, and creating one of the creepiest characters in film history as the expletive-dropping, nitrous huffing sadomasochist Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. He openly parodied his celebrated youth, hosting Saturday Night Live and having difficulty remembering large sections of his past in an It’s Your Life-esque skit. More recently, he proudly said he hadn’t said no to a project in years, which would explain King Koopa in Super Mario Bros., the Exxon Valdez-piloting Deacon in Waterworld, and Kaufman, ruler of the last zombie-free city on earth in Land of the Dead.
posted by The Grim Reaper at 9:38 PM
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