Dennis Hopper Trivia Quiz

Answer: Dodge City, KS

Hopper's grandparents were wheat farmers. During an interview on NPR's "Fresh Air", Hopper jokingly said that he told people the first light he saw came from the bulb of a movie projector rather than from the sun, referring to the conditions of the Dust Bowl in the American Midwest at that time.

Answer: "Easy Rider" (1969)

Peter Fonda and Hopper came up with the idea of the iconic counter-culture movie of the time, and decided to put together the movie themselves. The budget for "Easy Rider" was less than $0.5m, and the film garnered two Oscar nominations: Best Supporting Actor for Jack Nicholson, and a nomination for Fonda, Hopper, and Terry Southern for original screenplay. Hopper won the award for "Best First Work" for "Easy Rider" at the 1969 Cannes Film Festival.

Answer: "The Last Movie" (1971)

Investors were eager to fund the next great Hopper picture. However, this movie failed to receive anywhere close to the popular acclaim of "Easy Rider", though it did win some critical praise. Hopper was struggling with addiction issues through the editing process of the film, and took over a year to produce a cut which the film's distributor, Universal Pictures, refused to give anything more than a limited release, due to Hopper's refusal to recut the film. "The Last Movie" was Kris Kristofferson's first film role.

The 1971 documentary "An American Dreamer" chronicled Hopper's editing work on "The Last Movie".

Answer: alcohol

Although Hopper had severe addiction issues, he never tried to use his celebrity status as an excuse for his drug abuse. After years of drug and alcohol abuse, he finally dried out in the 1980s. In 2001, he talked about the quantities of rum, beers, and cocaine he consumed in a day, during the worst periods of his addiction.

Answer: photojournalist

Hopper took up photography as a young man, having been encouraged by James Dean to do so. He took art classes from Thomas Hart Benton, who also taught Jackson Pollock. Hopper was a fashion photographer for the two magazines "Vogue" and "Harper's Baazar", and chronicled the events of the 60s, taking pictures of the Kennedys and the marches of the Civil Rights movement.

Answer: Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia

This show at the Hermitage was quite an achievement for Hopper. He noted that he had five rooms dedicated to his art in the Hermitage, while no one knew him for his artwork in the United States. Hopper did have the first retrospective of his body of work in Amsterdam in 2001 at the Stedelijk Museum.

In an interview with the BBC prior to this show, Hopper called it "the most important thing that ever happened to me." In 2008, the Cinémathèque Française in Paris put on an exhibit consisting of Hopper's art collection, his own work, and showed 50 films he directed and in which he starred. Also in 2008, Hopper was also named a Commandeur in France's Ordre des Artes et des Lettres (Order of Arts and Letters).

The Museum of Contemporary Art, in Los Angeles, California, has a show of Hopper's art set to open on 11 July 2010.

Answer: Venice Beach

Hopper's house was originally an artist's studio designed by Frank Gehry, the internationally-known architect who designed such buildings as the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, Dancing House in Prague, Czech Republic, and the Weisman Art Museum in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA. Over the years, Hopper expanded this studio into a larger house, incorporating another Gehry studio next door.

Answer: "Basquiat" (1996)

Bruno Bischofberger was a Swiss art dealer who was one of the first art dealers to exhibit the Pop Art works of Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and others in the 1960s, and the Neo-Expressionist works of Jean-Michel Basquiat, Julian Schnabel (who directed "Basquiat"), and other artists in the the 1980s. Hopper was one of the first to begin collecting Warhol's Pop Art, purchasing one of Warhol's soup can prints for $75.

Answer: Gorillaz

Hopper provided the spoken word portion of this track on the Gorillaz album "Demon Days". According to "The Telegraph" newspaper (UK), Hopper met the creators of Gorillaz, cartoonist Jaime Hewlett and Damon Albarn of Blur, in London.

Answer: Pabst Blue Ribbon

Hopper played the role of Frank Booth in this famous film directed by David Lynch. When Hopper was reading the script, he reportedly said "I've got to play Frank; I am Frank!" Many other actors considered the part to be too weird and intense. To me, this role typifies Hopper's ability to bring even the most strange characters to life. Even when the character is so unbelievable as Frank Booth, Dennis Hopper can somehow make integrate that character into some sort of reality.