The great Dennis Hopper died today in Venice, California after battling cancer. Hopper was incredibly prolific and starred in numerous scifi films. Even if a film was flawed, Hopper’s mere presence made it memorable. Here are Hopper’s forays into scifi.
http://gawker.com/5550872/actor-dennis-hopper-dead-at-74
As neo-Nazi Peter Vollmer in The Twilight Zone (1963, “He’s Alive”).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iZ6-ZcVzzIQ
As sailor Johnny Drake in the mermaid murder flick Night Tide (1961).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xezwa2COcE0
My Science Project (1986).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCB1ZgPVUhI
As Lefty in The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986).
As the awesome Frank Booth in David Lynch’s surrealist noir flick Blue Velvet (1986). While not scifi per se, Blue Velvet was so out there you could argue it qualifies as urban fantasy.
As King Koopa in Super Mario Bros. (1993).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLUpbbYdjf0
As The Deacon in Waterworld (1995).
Space Truckers (1997)
As Paul Kaufman, leader of Fiddler’s Green in Land of The Dead (2005).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Nf9IkoxwMs
Hopper performs Gorillaz’s ” Fire Coming Out of a Monkey’s Head” at the Apollo Theater in Harlem (2006). Incidentally, he was actually sitting three rows in front of me at that this show. It blew my mind when he suddenly got on stage.
