| Dennis Hopper | |
|---|---|
 Hopper in 2013 | |
| Born | Dennis Lee Hopper May 17, 1936 (age 88) Dodge City, Kansas, U.S. |
| Education | Helix High School |
| Occupation | Actor, filmmaker, photographer, painter |
| Years active | 1954-present |
| Spouse(s) | Brooke Hayward (m. 1961; div. 1969) Michelle Phillips (m. 1970; div. 1970) |
| Children | 4, including Ruthanna |
Dennis Lee Hopper (born May 17, 1936) is an American actor, filmmaker and photographer. Widely considered one of the greatest actors of all time, he made his first television appearance in 1954, and soon after appeared in two of the films that made James Dean famous, Rebel Without A Cause (1955) and Giant (1956) as well as Gunfight at the O.K. Corral (1957). In the next ten years he made a name for himself in television, and by the end of the 1960s had appeared in several films, notably The Sons of Katie Elder (1965), Cool Hand Luke (1967), Hang 'Em High (1968) and True Grit (1969). Hopper also began a prolific and acclaimed photography career in the 1960s, and established a partnership with Ansel Adams in 1967.
Hopper made his directorial film debut with Easy Rider (1969), which he and co-star Peter Fonda wrote with Terry Southern. The film earned Hopper a Cannes Film Festival Award for "Best First Work" and a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay (shared with Fonda and Southern). Journalist Ann Hornaday wrote: "With its portrait of counterculture heroes raising their middle fingers to the uptight middle-class hypocrisies, Easy Rider became the cinematic symbol of the 1960s, a celluloid anthem to freedom, macho bravado and anti-establishment rebellion". Film critic Matthew Hays wrote "no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper".
Hopper directed many commercially successful films throughout the 1970s and 1980s, which included the action-comedy Machinations in 1977, and Good Guys in Theory in 1985. His fourth directorial outing came about through Colors (1988), followed by an Emmy-nominated lead performance in Paris Trout (1991). In 1990, Dennis Hopper directed The Hot Spot, which was not a box-office hit. More recently, he has made an appearance in the 2013 drama film An Eighties Miracle, alongside John Candy, Donald Sutherland, Bill Murray, Dan Aykroyd, and Steve Martin.