One of Americas most intriguing show-business luminaries and true rebels, Dennis Hoppers amazing life was a roller-coaster series of triumphs and failures. Always intent on proving his genius and leaving a legacy, the Emmy and Oscar-nominated Hopper acted in more than 115 movies and four TV series, directed seven films, and passionately pursued an artists life as a photographer and creator and collector of modern art, embracing the work of artists like Warhol and Lichtenstein before the label ';pop art' was even coined. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel explores Hoppers life from his lonely childhood in Kansas, where he became determined to win the affection of others by becoming a great artist, to his often drug-fueled days and nights in Hollywood and his spiritual home in Taos, New Mexico.From Hoppers early days in Hollywood, where he had an affair with 16-year-old Natalie Wood and took acting lessons from James Dean while making Rebel Without a Cause and Giant, his 60s head trips and the making of Easy Rider, the crushing failure of The Last Movie and his lost years in Taos, to his recovery and political right turn in the 80s, Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel unsparingly documents his journey from a self-destructive bad boy to a reformed member of the Hollywood establishment and iconic survivor of the counterculture. The book also delves into Hoppers tumultuous personal life, including his dramatic attempt to divorce his last wife while he battled terminal cancer. This is the first book to cover the entire life and career of the man who hung out with James Dean, Elvis Presley, and Jack Nicholson, costarred in and directed Easy Rider, and came back big in Blue Velvet, overcoming years of alcoholism and drug addiction. Dennis Hopper: The Wild Ride of a Hollywood Rebel is a must-have for Hoppers fans, film buffs, and readers hooked on celebrity scandals.