By SEAN DALY Special to the Daily Press
WEST HOLLYWOOD — Dennis Hopper is in a surprisingly happy mood for someone who has been up since 5:30 a.m. His day began with a pre-dawn outing to Venice Beach, where 12-year-old son Henry likes to ride a few waves before heading off to school. Eleven hours later, the silver-haired and famously reclusive 66-year-old star of “Easy Rider,” “Speed” and “Apocalypse Now” is relaxing in a private dining room at Maggiano’s Italian Restaurant and joking about what would happen if he directed a remake of his 1995 box office bomb “Water World.”
“I’d do it all on land,” he laughs, fanning away the smoke from a freshly lit cigar.
Credit Hopper’s high spirits to a double shot of good news from the home-front: “I am having my first grandchild in the next few days,” he beams. “And my wife is due (with Hopper’s fourth child, their first together) in April.”
Victoria Duffy is Hopper’s fifth bride. The couple married at Boston’s Old South Church in December 1995.
“The new baby is certainly going to fulfill my wife,” he says. “She is much younger than I am (35, to be exact) and she has been an incredible stepmother to my son since he was one year old.”
Henry’s mother is ballet dancer Katherine La Nasa, Hopper’s fourth wife. The actor also was married to author Brooke Hayward, therapist and former actress Daria Halpern and singer Michelle Phillips of The Mamas & The Papas.
Hopper admits that his free-spirited, counter-culture lifestyle in the 60s and 70s cost him a close relationship with his older children: Marin, 41, and Ruthanna, 28.
“My daughters were taken away from me, so I didn’t really get to see them for a great deal of time while they were growing up,” he remembers. “My oldest daughter was eight when I was divorced from her mother. And my younger daughter was three when I was divorced from her mother. This will be a wonderful experience because I will be with my wife.”
But will the new additions to Hopper’s family take a toll on his somewhat frantic movie making schedule?
“I sure hope not... I’ve got to feed them some way,” he quips.
Since making his big screen debut in “Rebel Without A Cause,” Hopper has appeared in more than 150 feature films and television shows. The latest to arrive in theaters is “Knockaround Guys,” a mob comedy about a group of New York City gangsters (Barry Pepper, Andrew Davoli, Vin Diesel) who flex their muscles in small town America in hopes of recovering a missing bag of cash.
“In a weird way this is as much a western as it is a gangster film,” says writer-director Brian Koppelman. “I mean, these guys end up in the American West. And there is a long tall sheriff in this small town in Montana with whom they wind up in a showdown. So it’s really a cross pollination of genres.”
The film was completed more than two years ago and temporarily shelved by U.S. distributor New Line Cinema.
“I guess they were waiting for Vin Diesel to become a star,” Hopper says.
Hopper plays Mob boss Benny Chains, a character he assures “certainly wasn’t influenced by ‘The Sopranos.’” He is, however, a big fan of the cable TV series and its star James Gandolfini. The two actors starred together in the 1993 action flick “True Romance.” “He’s the one that cuts my hand and pours whiskey in it,” Hopper recalls. “He’s the one that beats up Christian Slater.”
“True Romance” was one of only a handful of major studio movies for Hopper, who was once blacklisted in Hollywood after a falling out with Louis B. Mayer, head of MGM studios.
“I’ve had a tough time keeping (my career) alive,” he admits. “I’ve had to work outside the industry and mainly do independent movies. If I hadn’t directed ‘Easy Rider’ and gotten that kind of notoriety, I’d be in really big trouble.”
The way Hopper explains it: “Stars are as good as a bank note. You go to the bank with a star and you get your money. (Studios) are not gonna get their money going to the bank with me.”
But advertisers are. In fact, Hopper is cleaning up on Madison Avenue thanks to high-profile commercial spots for Broadwing, Diners Club and The Gap. But his recent “Easy Rider” theme spots for Lincoln Mercury have some of Hopper’s fans calling him a “sell out.”
His reaction? “I drive a very nice car, my family lives well... otherwise I would-n’t be doing it.”
An only child, Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kan., in May, 1937. As a child, he was told that his father, Jay, was killed in a munitions accident while training for World War II. Years later he learned that that was only a cover for his father’s intelligence work in China during the war. Reunited, his family moved to San Diego in 1950, where Hopper got his show business start playing an urchin in a stage production of “A Christmas Carol.”
“My life is really about creating,” he says. “If I can’t act or direct a movie, I’ll take a photograph or I’ll paint a painting. That’s what I do.”
And there is one other thing he is passionate about: Golf.
“It gets me out of the house a couple of times each week,” he admits. “I started playing when I got sober 20 years ago. I never took any lessons. I’m really a hack. I shoot between 87 and 92 on a regular basis, which is OK... But I was with Jack Nicholson one day when he shot a 64.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on October 11, 2002. Read the original PDF.