Dennis Hopper -

A MADNESS TO HIS METHOD
(written by Elena Rodriguez).

 Transcribed by Jill Jackson

[Regarding Universal studio executives financing "The Last Movie"]

 'Nor did they worry unduly when he hired a cast that included some of the most conspicuous individualists in Hollywood, among them, Peter Fonda, Dean Stockwell, Jim Mitchum, Russ Tamblyn, John Phillip Law, and beautiful Michelle Phillips.....Hollywood insiders were chuckling: Get
all those cats together down there with Dennis Hopper and you'll have the wildest scene in the history of moviemaking.'

[Regarding the film "Tracks"]

'Dennis starred as Army Sergeant Jack Falen.....Also in the cast was Hopper's old friend Dean Stockwell, a burnt-out child actor who had dropped out of the Hollywood scene and was
now resurfacing in the offerings of counterculture directors like Hopper and Jaglom. Stockwell played an aging hippie also traveling on the train.'

[From Chapter Eleven]

 'The release of "Apocalypse Now" in 1979 did not herald a new age of constant work as Dennis would have liked; the scripts did not rain down on him. He settled back down in Taos to play
with friends like Dean Stockwell, Russ Tamblyn, and musician Neil Young for a while. They even made a movie together......The playtime in Taos was spent filming a movie called "Human Highway," produced by Neil Young and credited to a whole raft of writers, including its director
Bernard Shakey, co-producer Jeanne Fields, James Beshears, and actors Russ Tamblyn and Dean Stockwell. The stars were Young, Tamblyn, Stockwell, Hopper, Charlotte Stewart, Sally Kirkland, and Geraldine Baron. The New Wave musical group Devo also made an appearance......There were months of hanging out together, while Young and others involved in the film scouted locations around Taos. Nights were spent trying to drink each other under the table in local bars. They would spend the evenings trading off performances: Dennis would recite a Shakespearean soliloquy if Neil would perform a few songs for the folks at the Sagebrush Inn. The filming of the movie ended up in a shambles. Most of the cast and crew were stoned much of the time and their behavior was out of control.'

[Regarding the film "Blue Velvet"]

 'Dennis shared one memorable scene in the movie with his buddy, Dean Stockwell. Stockwell played Ben, the effeminate proprietor of a brothel staffed by overweight prostitutes who
sit staring indifferently at the scene unfolding before them, as their boss serenades Frank, lip-synching to the treacly sweet song "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison. His face plastered with pale white makeup so he looks like a perverted version of Pierrot, he moves his lips to the lyrics about "the candy-colored clown they call the sandman." Hopper, as Frank, seems mesmerized at first, then more and more agitated as Ben mouths the words to his favorite song.'

(And my favorite quote of all -----) [1984....Dennis was in rehab, then transferred to a psychiatric hospital....this is before his comeback in "Hoosiers" and "Blue Velvet"]

'Producer-screenwriter Randy Pike recalled, "I saw Dennis when he was drying out. Dean Stockwell was with him; he had a big input in his drying out. Stockwell was giving him moral support. When I saw him, he still looked a mess. He was burned out. He'd talk and he'd laugh at himself. He was overemotional and overreacted to situations."

THE END