Episode #224 | 3.04.25

Dennis Hopper: Dynamite, Cocaine, Cheating Death, Subverting Hollywood, and Life on the Fringe

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In this episode

Dennis Hopper revolutionized American cinema by bringing the counterculture to the mainstream with his 1969 film Easy Rider. But he also lived his life in tandem with his art, on the fringes of society and sanity. His stubborn attitude and crazy ideas quickly transformed him from a hippie prophet into a longhaired loser. Hopper's journey from success to failure and back again took him through jungles, deserts, and mountains, and involved varying degrees of drugs, guns, hallucinations, and ex-wives - all part of a lifelong search to save his career, and his life.

This episode contains content that may me disturbing to some listeners, including domestic violence.

Sources

Hopper: A Savage American Journey, by Tom Folsom

Dennis Hopper, an ‘Easy Rider’ misfit, Dies at 74 (NY Times)

A Penetrating Interview with Dennis Hopper (Rolling Stone)

When Piers Morgan met Dennis Hopper (GQ)

Destiny in Taos (NY Times)

The true story of when Dennis Hopper came to Houston and nearly killed himself (Houston Chronicle)

Richard Linklater’s Dennis Hopper Stories

The time Willie Nelson bailed Dennis Hopper out of jail (Saving Country Music)

For an actor, an unconventional house (NY Times)

Outrageous Dennis Hopper Stories That Prove This Man Had No Chill (Ranker)

Why does Dennis Hopper hate his wife so much he’s divorcing her on his deathbed? (Daily Mail)

Waiting for Dennis (LA Times)

Anyone for Dennis (World Cinema Paradise)

The Untold Story of Brooke Hayward and Dennis Hopper’s Hollywood Home (Vanity Fair)

Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper Nearly Came to Blows on ‘Apocalypse Now’ (Hollywood Reporter)

No Picket Fence (Chicago Tribune)

Dennis Hopper: A friend, a maverick and a truly great artist (The Guardian)

The Merchant Prince of Poverty Row: Harry Cohn of Columbia Pictures, by Bernard F. Dick

The Last Movie: Dennis Hopper’s Curiously Frustrating Experiment (Walker Art)

The Monkees’ Head: Our fans couldn’t even see it (The Guardian)

Kid Blue (New Beverly Theater)

I was Dennis Hopper’s henchman (The Guardian)

Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.