Frank Booth is dead

Photo ©Ron Slenzak

So is Feck from River’s Edge; he’s gone, too. And the recovering alcoholic assistant coach from Hoosiers. And the crazed photojournalist whose sanity has been swallowed up by war in Apocalypse Now.

They’re all God’s problem now.

For a lot of people, Hopper will be most missed as the intense biker who rode to fame in Easy Rider. For others, he’ll be remembered as James Dean’s friend and co-star in Rebel Without A Cause.

For me, though, he’ll always be both Frank Booth, “one suave fuck” from Blue Velvet—and this guy, from The Johnny Cash Show, reciting Kipling in prime-time to a dumbstruck Grand Ol’ Opry (seriously) crowd of blue-hairs and rednecks. When you were Dennis Hopper and you were on Johnny Cash’s TV show, you did whatever the hell you pleased.



One wonders if Hopper knew at the time he was delivering his own eulogy.

“If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,
Or being hated, don’t give way to hating...”

—Rudyard Kipling

Frank Booth once memorably demanded, “Don’t toast to my health, toast to my fuck!” I’d like to think Dennis Hopper would have appreciated the sentiment.

Here’s mud in your fuck,  Mr. Hopper.