Dennis Hopper
Born: May 17 1936
Where: Dodge City, Kansas, USA
Few actors have weathered Hollywood's professional highs and drug and booze-cursed lows to emerge as relatively unscathed as Dennis Hopper.
From his early appearances with live-fast-die-young legend James Dean, whom he regarded as his bolshie mentor, directors had him pegged as "difficult".
(Louis B Mayer had him kicked off the MGM set after Hopper took exception to comments about his ability fo play Shakespeare).
His uncompromising, not to say stroppy, attitude led to a barren B-movie spell before he answered his detractors by directing and starring in the counter-culture classic Easy Rider.
Then it all went pear-shaped again thanks to booze and dope only for Hopper to return to the fray courtesy of David Lynch in the cult favourite Blue Velvet.
The final chapter of his career has seen him cornering villainous character roles in the good (Speed) and the not so good (Waterworld).
Outside movies, he confounds his critics as a well-regarded photographer (his work has been shown from America to Japan) and collector of modern art.
The son of Jay and Marjorie Hopper, he was voted the student "most likely to succeed" at San Diego's Helix High School.
(he had earlier been taught art as a youngster in Kansas City by renowned American painter Thomas Hart Benton).
He began acting during his teen years and made his professional debut on the TV series Medic.
In 1953 he made his film bow in Nicholas Ray's cult hit Western Johnny Guitar and two years later reunited with the director in the classic Rebel Without a Cause.
Hopper and Dean became close friends going on to work together in Giant before Dean was killed in a road accident in 1955.
Industry rumour has it that a traumatised Hopper chose to borrow his friend's notoriously defiant attitude and quickly fell out of favour with the big studios.
Seeking roles far removed from the stereotypical 'troubled teens' which he had made his own he began studying method acting at the Actors Studio.
However, this improvisational obsession to detail incensed cast and crew - particularly during the shooting of From Hell To Texas - and Hopper found himself on the Hollywood blacklist.
For the next ten years he was trapped in B-movies with only the John Wayne Western The Sons of Katie Elder and Monkees vehicle Head to keep him in the public eye.
In 1969, he re-invented himself as a director with the drug-fuelled, anti-Vietnam road movie Easy Rider, starring Peter Fonda and Jack Nicholson.
However, the follow-up - 1971's The Last Movie - was critically panned as a self-indulgent mess and Hopper's career was gain in freefall.
His marriage to actress Michelle Phllips lasted a matter of days and his only notable appearance in a period notable for massive drugs abuse was as an unhinged photojournalist in Apocalypse Now.
Slowly be began to repair his battered reputation with movies such as the teen drama Rumble Fish and the 1985 comedy My Science Project.
Salvation was at hand in the form of cult director David Lynch who cast him as the psychopathic Frank Booth - whose words "Don't you f*****g look at me" - opened the classic Blue Velvet.
Subsequent roles included an alcoholic assistant coach in the basketball drama Hoosiers for which he earned an Academy Award nomination.
He was a burnt-out hippy in Flashback and returned successfully to directing with the gang action drama Colors with Sean Penn.
He starred alongside Nicolas Cage in the excellent noirish Red Rock West, played King Koopa in Super Mario Bros and won critical acclaim for Paris Trout.
Relishing his position as villain-of-choice, he played psychopaths in Speed opposite Keanu Reeves in 1994 and Kevin Costner's Waterworld.
Other notable appearances included Ron Howard's EdTV before he settled on a series of minor, low-budget roles.
Recent work saw him providing the voiceover for the documentary Inside Deep Throat and he also appears in George Romero's zombie outing Land of the Dead.
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