Dennis Hopper: The ride just gets easier (Onetime hell-raiser now plays golf and votes Bush)

Belfast TelegraphDigital ^ | 16 August 2005 | By James Mottram

[WestTexasWend]

As an unexpected shower cascades outside, Dennis Hopper walks into the hotel dining-room as if the sun has just burst through the clouds. Wearing jeans, a tie and a powder-blue jacket, he has a huge cigar wedged in his mouth - one of the few vices left to a man who, at his worst, consumed half a gallon of rum, 28 beers and three grams of cocaine a day. Looking more like a movie mogul than the counterculture icon of Easy Rider, he is in celebratory mood. "This is my 50th year in the film business," he announces, his grey moustache tickling his nostrils as his mouth breaks into a wolfish grin. If anything, he should be toasting survival. Four divorces, studio blacklists, court cases, a spell in a psychiatric ward: the 69- year-old Hopper has weathered more storms than a North Sea trawler.

Lucky to be alive, let alone working, Hopper has inevitably calmed down in his twilight years. Now, he's a grandfather, plays golf with Jack Nicholson, votes Republican and lives contentedly with wife number five (since 1996), the actress Victoria Duffy.

[Christian4Bush]

"We're gonna run the 'picket fence' at 'em..... Boys--don't get caught watchin' the paint dry!"

"That's charging all the way!...Get that...BUM a pair of glasses!"

"Pop quiz, hotshot! You've got a maniac with a hostage and gun...whaddaya do? WHADDAYA DO?" /Speed

[shekkian]

Proof that with age comes wisdom.

Not necessarily. Morons come in all ages, and so does decency.

[Range Rover]

Both of the Sci-Fi offerings were okay but Threshold on CBS looked a bit more visually interesting than NBC's Fathom.

Don't think the Jennifer Love Hewett "Look, I'm a Psychic just like that blonde Arquette girl" show is going to last too long but I kinda liked it.

My Name Is Earl will probably do well but I didn't think much of it.

ABC looks like it will have a high mortality rate.

As far as I know NCIS is on the schedule but it has never been a big draw.

[Xenophon450]

Well i think his performance in waterworld was a bit better than in Super Mario Brothers the Movie....

[Steve_Seattle]

"He was walkin' evil in Blue Velvet. I still have bad dreams about him!"

As I'm sure you've figured out from some of the posts, a lot of us loved the dialogue in that movie, crude as it was. In some ways, the movie was almost a black comedy. I read somewhere that, during the filming, David Lynch was in hysterics on the set as Hopper played the "F" word every which way. If they bleeped all the foul language and nudity in that movie, it would be five minutes long.

[cowtowney]

picture looks like Owen Wilson

[Alia]

Right on, Dennis Hopper!

[Mister Baredog]

As far as I know NCIS is on the schedule but it has never been a big draw.

I know but it's the spinoff from JAG which was the same way and lasted 10 seasons.

Thanks for the update.