The 1982 movie premiere Dennis Hopper missed because he was “in the insane asylum”
Dennis Hopper got into the strangest of scrapes throughout his life that you could read any story, no matter how far-fetched, and you’d believe it, because no other actor ever lived such a daredevilish, reckless life without a care in the world.
Starting out his career in the 1950s with small roles alongside James Dean in the likes of A Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, Hopper would soon become emblematic of the counterculture that defined the ‘60s, appearing in drug-soaked films like The Trip and Easy Rider (the latter of which he, of course, wrote and directed), while indulging in just as many substances offscreen. The actor abused his body with copious amounts of alcohol, cocaine, acid, marijuana, and even a bit of heroin, and somehow still managed to turn in some grand performances in the process.
Over the coming years, bizarre stories surrounded Hopper with a sense of Hollywood mystique that, decades on, has cemented his legacy as a true hellraiser of the kind you just don’t see anymore. Sure, all of the drug-taking, playing Russian roulette, and even snorting someone’s ashes surely wasn’t good for him, but hey, you can’t say that he didn’t live. Hopper really experienced it all, the highs and the lows, the moments of pure glory and the ones of absolute depravity.
The ‘70s saw a bit of a lull in Hopper’s career as he continued to battle with substance abuse issues while falling out of favour with Hollywood following the failure of his second feature, The Last Movie. Rather fittingly, it looked like the film really was going to be his last, but he managed to bounce back with a few movie roles made outside of the Hollywood system, like the Australian bushranger film Mad Dog Morgan and The American Friend by German filmmaker Wim Wenders.
Arguably, it was the ‘80s that marked a proper return to form for Hopper, spurred on by the success of 1979’s Apocalypse Now. Out of the Blue, which he also directed, Rumble Fish, Blue Velvet, and Hoosiers were all standouts, although we can’t forget his strange turn in Human Highway, one of the most peculiar entries into his acting career.
Released in 1982, the film was co-directed by Dean Stockwell and Neil Young, although the singer used the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. Besides the two directors, the movie featured Russ Tamblyn, Sally Kirkland, Devo and, of course, Hopper. It all seemed to make perfect sense, despite its strangeness.
It was hardly surprising when the movie failed, though, because this band of outsiders didn’t exactly have the means to make a fully fleshed-out comedy on a limited budget, and the finished product was one of pure cinematic madness.
It seems like Hopper wasn’t in the greatest frame of mind when he made the film, either, because when it came to the movie’s premiere, the actor was nowhere to be seen. It’s not that he didn’t want to go, he was just unable to. “I wanted to go, but I was in the insane asylum at the time,” he once revealed.
It’s no surprise that he locked himself away for a bit; he was taking three grams of cocaine by this point, as well as consuming other unhealthy substances. I don’t think his time in the “insane asylum” worked, though, because the following year he was back to rehab after staging a suicide attempt.
