When Dennis Hopper told the most powerful person in Hollywood to fuck themselves: “I was kicked out of the studio”
Dennis Hopper was always a Hollywood bad boy, even when he barely had a credit to his name. The hot-tempered actor became well-known for his drug and sex-fueled antics and clashes with studio personnel throughout his career. However, from day one, he arrived in Tinseltown fully formed as someone who would voice his unvarnished opinion to the most powerful people in the business, regardless of the consequences.
Hopper’s first major incident came exceedingly early in his career. In 1955, the 18-year-old prodigy bagged a role in the popular TV drama Medic, playing a teenager suffering from epilepsy. At this point, Hopper was already building a reputation, having landed a scholarship to the National Shakespeare Festival at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego when he was just 17. However, Medic made him the hottest prospect in the business, and it was simply a matter of which major film studio would win his signature.
Two days after Medic aired on NBC, Hopper was inundated with offers from seven studios that wanted him to come work for them. He began to field his options, but when he arrived at Columbia Pictures to meet with co-founder and president Harry Cohn, things went sideways. And by “sideways”, we mean Hopper told Cohn, one of the most powerful men in Hollywood and an intimidating person few would cross, “Go fuck yourself!”
What prompted this outburst? Well, Cohn disrespected the work of The Bard, and Hopper wasn’t going to stand for that. “He told me I was the most naturalistic actor since Montgomery Clift,” Hopper told Vanity Fair in 1987. “He said, ‘What have you been doing?’ I said, ‘Playing Shakespeare.’ He said, ‘Oh my God.'”
Cohn then yelled to Max Arnow, his casting director, “Hey, Max, give him some numbers, put him in school, take all that Shakespeare out of him—I can’t stand Shakespeare.”
Telling a teenage firebrand like Hopper that you hated the work he’d been doing for the past year was a bad move on Cohn’s part. At that point in time, Hopper was so full of piss and vinegar and had such a passionate love of honing his craft in the likes of The Merchant of Venice, Othello, and Twelfth Night, that he probably saw Cohn’s dismissive attitude as a personal insult.
In fact, Hopper admitted he exclaimed, “What the fuck are you talking about? You’re telling me I have to go to fucking school to learn how to be a movie actor?” He quickly followed that up with “Go fuck yourself,” and before he knew it, he was being escorted out of the building. “I was kicked out of the studio right then,” Hopper laughed. “My whole agency was banned.”
Still, Hopper wasn’t one to worry about something as frivolous as making a powerful enemy in the movie business at only 18 years old. He had other offers on the table, after all, so he simply took a meeting with Warner Bros, who put him under contract for seven years. The chief draw in convincing Hopper that Warner was the place for him was director Nicholas Ray promising to cast him in Rebel Without A Cause, and also hinting that a role in 1956’s Giant could be his, too. Hopper wound up making both of these films while forming a bond with star James Dean, and his Hollywood career was set.
As for Cohn, he likely didn’t lose too much sleep over missing out on signing a wet-behind-the-ears Hopper. However, it could also be argued that Hopper dodged a bullet by upsetting the mogul, who had a ruthless reputation and Mob connections, and was long accused of forcing female stars to give him sexual favours in return for helping their careers.
Hopper likely didn’t know any of this at 18, but he did immediately realise that Cohn was a shady character who liked to play mind games with his stars. “Everything was psychological with Cohn,” he remembered. “He had this long, narrow office. You had to walk forever to get to this big desk at the end of the room.”
