Skip to content
Culture & Religion —

Dennis Hopper’s Photo Archive

When the actor and director Dennis Hopper died last year, it sparked renewed interest in his ‘other’ career—a chronicler of Sixties America with a stunning collection of photographs.
Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.

The film critic Matthew Hays wrote of him: “No other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the Sixties than that of Dennis Hopper”. Note the word “persona”—as if the real Hopper lay forever hidden behind the image he projected, of the scary, wild-eyed, chemically enhanced, crazily enthusiastic combination of hippy visionary and serious artist. He was born in Kansas but his parents relocated to San Diego in 1949 when he was 13. California clearly suited him. In his high-school graduate class of 1954, he was voted the Boy Most Likely To Succeed. He didn’t waste much time.

Sign up for Big Think on Substack
The most surprising and impactful new stories delivered to your inbox every week, for free.
Related
A bearded man wearing glasses and a plaid shirt speaks with a microphone clipped to his collar in front of a purple background with white dots.
The Well
How Rainn Wilson discovered sacredness
The hospital where Rainn Wilson’s wife and son nearly died became his own personal holy site. There, he discovered that the sacred can exist in places we least expect it. During his talk at A Night of Awe and Wonder, he explained how the awe we feel in moments of courage and love is moral beauty — and following it might be the start of our spiritual revolution.
▸
13 min
—
with
Rainn Wilson
Up Next
Personal Growth
Distraction Is a Virtue
In recent years, scientists have begun to outline the surprising benefits of not paying attention. Sometimes, too much focus can backfire; all that caffeine gets in the way.