Actor Dennis Hopper has died at the age of 74 from complications due to Prostate Cancer.Having first appeared in a number of 1950s television shows, including "Medic" "Cheyenne" and "Sugarfoot" he quickly made the leap to the big screen
His first film role was in Johnny Guitar, which was quickly followed by roles in Rebel Without a Cause and, Giant both with James Dean and then Gunfight at the O.K. Corral
Hopper was usually cast as a villain in westerns such as True Grit and Hang 'Em High. However, in early 1969, Hopper, fellow actor Peter Fonda and writer Terry Southern, wrote a counterculture road movie script and managed to scrape together $400,000 in financial backing. Hopper directed the low-budget film, titled Easy Rider, starring Fonda, Hopper and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was a phenomenal box-office success, appealing to the anti-establishment youth culture of the times. It changed the Hollywood landscape almost overnight and the major studios all jumped onto the anti-establishment bandwagon, pumping out low-budget films about rebellious hippies, bikers, draft dodgers and pot smokers.
Hopper's next directorial effort, The Last Movie, was a critical and financial failure, and he has admitted that during the 1970s he was seriously abusing various substances, both legal and illegal, which led to a downturn in the quality of his work.
He appeared in a sparse collection of European-produced films over the next eight years, before cropping up in a memorable performance as a pot-smoking photographer alongside Marlon Brando and Martin Sheen in Francis Ford Coppola's Vietnam War epic Apocalypse Now
He also received acclaim for his work in both acting and direction for Out of the Blue in 1980
He was superb in Rumble Fish co-starred in the tepid spy thriller The Osterman Weekend, played a groovy school teacher in My Science Project, was a despicable and deranged drug dealer in River's Edge and, most memorably, played opposite Gene Hackman in the great basketball drama Hoosiers. As foul-mouthed Frank Booth in the eerie and erotic David Lynch film Blue Velvet he certainly put his unique stamp on the role
Hopper returned to film directing in the late 1980s and was at the helm of the controversial gang film Colors , which was well received by both critics and audiences.
He was back in front of the cameras for roles in the vid-game pic Super Mario Bros., got on the wrong side of gangster Christopher Walken in True Romance, led police officer Keanu Reeves and bus passenger Sandra Bullock on a deadly ride in Speed and challenged gill-man Kevin Costner for world supremacy in the cluker Waterworld
The enigmatic Hopper will appear in 2010's The Last Film Festival and will be heard in Alpha and Omega
Rumble Fish Speed Easy Rider Colors and Hoosiers are examples of great cinema because of Hopper--A true Icon Is Gone...
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