The only actor Dennis Hopper banned from his funeral: “I was not allowed in”
As far as Hollywood daredevils go, Dennis Hopper was one of the most notorious.
He got himself into so many dangerous situations when he wasn’t preoccupied by the film he was starring in, although a movie didn’t usually stop his crazy exploits, such as in Easy Rider, where he was high as a kite when he filmed and directed it, yet somehow managed to make a masterpiece.
Just because the movie was a success, defining an era of dying American optimism, tainted by violence, doesn’t mean that production went smoothly. It couldn’t have been more chaotic during and after filming, with disputes over who deserved writing credits causing a huge rift between Hopper and his co-star, Peter Fonda.
While Hopper has tried to take sole credit for the film, Fonda once claimed that “It was just my vision and voice writing it at the Lake Shore Motel in 1967”. Terry Southern was also credited as a writer, and how much each of them contributed to the script appears to be a mystery we’ll never really know the answer to, it seems that they all pitched in ideas, though, because the three of them happily accepted the Academy Award for ‘Best Original Screenplay’.
It wasn’t long after that, however, that Hopper and Fonda began feuding, and in 1992, the former sued his ex-friend over writing credits, and while it was settled out of court, it would only be a few years before he would attempt to sue him again. The stories orated by each member of the supposed writing team constantly changed over the years, and it’s a shame that their relationship was tainted by something as ultimately meaningless as who deserves the most lauding.
Of course, it all boils down to money, too, but really, none of them were strapped for cash. This was a battle of ego that went on for so long that no one even won. In fact, the feud between Hopper and Fonda lasted so long that it was even going strong when Hopper passed away. You’ve got to give a man credit for being so stubborn that he bans his nemesis from his own funeral, although you can’t help but feel for Fonda, who just wanted to pay his respects to the man with whom he’d made one of America’s greatest films, even if they were no longer friends.
Hopper wasn’t going to let Fonda in, though, and he’d made clear of this when he was reaching the end of his life. “Well, I knew that Dennis was dying, and I made many attempts to see Dennis, as did Bert Schneider [Easy Rider financier]. But he refused to see us,” Fonda told the Independent.
It was unfortunate for him that Hopper refused to make amends, but he didn’t expect that this would still be an issue once the man died, with Fonda adding, “The funeral service was in a chapel in Taos, New Mexico. I rented a private jet and flew in, but I was not allowed in the chapel. So as much as I wanted to pay my respects to Dennis and his family, I was not allowed to be a part of it.”
Fonda would pass away in 2019, nine years after Hopper; perhaps they’ve resolved things above, but more likely, they’re probably still battling it out, refusing to see eye to eye even in the afterlife.
