Hopper was born in Dodge City, Kansas, the son of Marjorie Mae (née Davis) and Jay Millard Hopper. He grew up on a farm and later moved to San Diego with his family, where his mother worked as a lifeguard instructor and his father was a post office manager (Hopper has acknowledged, though, that his father was in the OSS, the precursor to the CIA). Hopper was educated at Wooster School, Danbury, Read more...

Hopper made his acting debut on an episode of the Richard Boone television show Medic in 1955 playing a young epileptic. Hopper was then cast in two roles with James Dean (whom he admired immensely) in Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Dean's death in a 1955 car accident affected the young Hopper deeply and it was shortly afterwards that he got into a confrontation with veteran director Read more...

Hopper has been married five times and has four children

In 1999, actor Rip Torn filed a defamation lawsuit against Hopper over a story Hopper told on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno. Hopper claimed that Torn pulled a knife on him during pre-production of the film Easy Rider. According to Hopper, Torn was originally cast in the film but was replaced with Jack Nicholson after the incident. According Read more...