Monday, May 31, 2010

Dennis Hopper. actor and art collector

"I started acting at the Old Globe Theater in San Diego, from the time I was thirteen years old to when I was seventeen. I was doing Shakespeare and plays at the Old Globe in Balboa Park." Dennis Hopper

Dennis Hopper (1946-2010) and some of his beloved paintings.

If you read the celebrity columns and blogs, Dennis Hopper is often treated as an oddball, an eccentric actor. Much of it is true. Once spurned by Hollywood and nearly destroyed by drugs, he bounced back as so many of us do. And over a long career he worked hard to redeem his reputation.

In later years, his feet were solidly planted on the ground. For one thing he collected art. Not as an investment (though he seems to have quite an eye for emerging artists) but as a tool, perhaps even an obsession that enriched his acting. For another, he voted Republican, something most people are surprised to learn. He was a wonderfully complex person, a living contradiction.
"My whole written history is one big lie! [laughs] I mean, I can't even believe my history. But I did have the first Campbell's Soup painting. It was in the office at Virginia Dwan's, and I bought it for $75. This is '62 or '63. "Dennis Hopper

We will miss him, Perhaps the best memory we could take away of him is that of someone who was as curious about the visual arts as about life.

No comments: