Dennis Hopper’s drug-induced attempt to exit a plane in mid-air: “I crawled out on the wing”
Dennis Hopper was a true Hollywood daredevil, acting more like a hedonistic rock star than a refined actor, yet somehow, among the drugs and the orgies, he managed to deliver some terrific films, including his directorial debut, Easy Rider.
Like his character in the film, Hopper rode across America with a vision of pure freedom, but in his quest for pleasure, he soon found himself taking things too far, getting so dependent on drugs and alcohol that, really, it’s a miracle he even survived the 1960s. He played Russian Roulette, shot a tree in the woods while high on acid (thinking it was a bear, of course), and he even snorted ashes when he needed a fix.
Yet, one of the craziest things he ever did saw him clamber onto the wing of a plane in a paranoia-fuelled episode, convinced that he was the subject of a film. The story might be laughable, but it’s actually terrifying just how far gone Hopper seemed to be at this point, desperately in need of getting sober and getting some help.
“I was shooting a film in Mexico and got into a lot of trouble. Paranoia was really setting in. The police arrested me. A film crew came and rescued me, and they put me on a plane they had chartered to Los Angeles. On the plane, I was hallucinating, and I crawled out on the wing in mid-air,” he told David Dodd in a 1995 interview.
The hallucinations got pretty intense, with Hopper explaining, “I decided that Francis Ford Coppola was on the plane filming me. I had seen him, I had seen the cameras, so I knew that they were there. The crew started the wing on fire, so I crawled out on it knowing that they were filming me.”
One thing he definitely didn’t hallucinate was actually crawling onto the wing of the plane, which he somehow managed to do without injuring himself. “All this was a total hallucination, except climbing out on the wing, of course, which didn’t last very long. I was out there and a bunch of stunt men grabbed me and pulled me in,” he added.
This is just one of many crazy stories that Hopper shared over the years, and it makes you wonder how one man was able to rack up so many anecdotes in his time.
Clearly, you just need a penchant for lots and lots of cocaine, acid, or even just alcohol, and an indestructible mindset – then you might just find yourself wandering around the Mexican jungle naked or scaling a plane wing, convinced that a legendary director is filming you for a new project.
By the mid-1980s, Hopper finally decided to get clean, and he checked into rehab and got back on track with his acting career, as Blue Velvet was a turning point for the star, who delivered an incredible performance as the villainous gas-huffing Frank Booth. Finally, Hopper had freed himself from the shackles of substance abuse, subsequently taking on further successful roles and putting his days of shooting Andy Warhol paintings and flirting with death behind him.
