Dennis Hopper

Dennis Lee Hopper studied at the Old Globe and the Actors Studio, landed early in two James Dean pictures - Rebel Without a Cause in 1955, Giant the next year - then spent a decade in westerns and supporting turns. In 1969 he co-wrote and directed Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Terry Southern, won best first film at Cannes, and earned an Oscar nomination for the script. The 1970s and 80s brought a string of disturbed outsiders: Mad Dog Morgan, The American Friend, Rumble Fish, and the gas-huffing Frank Booth in Blue Velvet. A second Oscar nod came in 1986 for the basketball drama Hoosiers. He kept directing - The Last Movie, Out of the Blue, Colors - and kept acting through Speed, Waterworld, and television runs on 24 and Crash. He died May 29, 2010, two weeks after his seventy-fourth birthday.