(Honorary) Mayor Hopper To Be Memorialized in Ranchos de Taos

Funeral Services for Dennis Hopper, Easy Rider-Taos movie icon, will be held at the St. Francis de Asis Catholic Church in Ranchos de Taos on Wed. June 2 at noontime. Below Taos Friction posts a few memories about the Hopper years.

“Dennis may not be as famous as D.H.Lawrence but he had more fun.”—Saki Karavas

We members of the émigré generation of the sixties and seventies will miss the Hopper sightings and tales of Dennis’s latest deeds. Dennis was the most famous of artists—movies, visual arts, and collector extraordinaire–to hang out and participate in the street life of Taos. According to news reports his last movie closed on May 29, 2010, due not to alcohol or cocaine but because of cancer.

Below, I post some excerpts from Gringo Lessons that include various encounters with Dennis. Perhaps the moment that sticks most in my mind concerns the time when I saw a six-hour rough cut of “The Last Movie” and thought he might just turn it into a major cinematic work of art. But Dennis needed an outside editor with an objective eye for structure and form. The potentially brilliant film was left in shards on the cutting room floor of the editing room at the Mabel Dodge House in Taos.

One of my most poignant memories concerns the appearance of Dennis and his Taos girlfriend, a young smart Chicana, at the Plaza Threatre in the mid 80s. He was engaged in the last efforts to overcome his demons at the time—painting horrid green canvases, trying to repair his reputation and return to Hollywood. That evening he came by the box office, said he had been invited to screen “The Last Movie” at a film festival in South America. He was carrying a cardboard box with a jumble of 35 mm film in it. He asked, “Can Warren put it on reels?”

Warren Wood was the projectionist at the Plaza Theatre. I sent Dennis and his companion round back and upstairs. Warren rewound the film and put it on aluminum reels. That was the last time I saw him, I think, until last summer in Taos, where he was named the “Honorary Mayor of Taos” and the community celebrated his art career, the fortieth anniversary of “Easy Rider,” etc. Of course we all have Hopper stories from those crazy times.

Here’s a portion of what I wrote last year in Horse Fly, which piece seems even sadder today. Dennis did look a bit enervated, almost pale last year at the Harwood. We shall miss him as icon, actor, and a guy we used to see around town.

“By the spring of 1970, Hopper was a familiar sight in Taos and remained so for more than a decade.

“I had moved my theatre operations to the Ranchos site in Jan. of 1970, after arsonists torched the Plaza Theatre in Nov. of 1969. I had a lease and right of first refusal. Hopper bought the building out from under me in the spring of 1970 with the connivance of my attorney John Ramming, who danced to the tune of a better paying client. I learned about the sale from a friend, who called me from La Cocina. “Hey your landlord is down here drinking and says he just sold the place to Hopper.”

“When I met later with Ramming and Hopper, the actor said, “You could sue me but I need it to edit The Last Movie.” And Ramming said, “We know you’re broke.”

Hopper, as if to make amends, offered me free rent for the summer. Later he and his brother David hired me to manage the theatre. David was always a gentleman. They sort of played the “good cop, bad cop” roles. Dennis and I had a few shouting matches about the films I booked for the El Cortez, which, as always, were a mix of foreign, domestic, pop and exploitation. Who did I think I was to argue with the cultural icon?

“Dennis had moved to Taos, ostensibly to edit “The Last Movie,” which he began to do in earnest in 1970. We screened “The Last Movie” at the El Cortez Theatre in Ranchos off and on in 1970 and 1971. When I saw rough cuts anywhere from four to six hours long, I thought Dennis was going to be the next American Fellini. One Sunday, we watched El Topo’s American debut followed by four hours of “The Last Movie,” followed that evening by Fellini’s Satyricon. In those days, film was king of the arts in America. My eyeballs, stimulated by too many images, continued spinning long after I went to sleep that evening.

“Anyway, the art-imitating-life-imitating-art theme in “The Last Movie” got the better of Dennis. The ghosts at the Mabel Dodge House took over the editing and the film died. Structure and form were not his strong points. Once, I read where Pauline Kael said Dennis lived and died by “the method.” He was all Billy (Easy Rider) and Frank (Blue Velvet) with a dash of Jordan Benedict III (Giant). But neither you nor his ex-wives and girlfriends or those of us who lived in Taos knew who was going to show up for the party. Now, years later as I watched the icon at the Harwood, it seemed to me that he had merged his life with the actor’s art and paid the price back in the 70s and 80s. More than once, he has referred to his lost Taos years in the national media.

“Back then, from under the cowboy hat, which squashed down his scraggly brown locks, Dennis’s piercing hazel eyes blazed and his voice frequently cackled above the din at La Cocina as he downed a Pisco Sour or engaged in raucous conversation at the bar above the Plaza Theatre, which I had reclaimed in 1973. Dennis frequently turned up at the theatre or clubs with movie stars or rockers and musicians in tow. He casually introduced them to me as he passed by the boxoffice:

“Bill, this is Warren Oates.” He and his friends generously supported the efforts of the locals, applauding the efforts of actors in community theatre—West Side Story, say—or by providing the occasional opportunity for a spontaneous performance by the likes Kris Kristofferson at a local club.”

Yesterday, in the San Francisco Chronicle, film reviewer Mick LaSalle wrote the following kind words:

“Over a prolific career with many ups and downs, marred at times by drug use, Hopper, at his best, seemed a man in the grip of an ecstatic vision that ultimately had nothing to do with chemicals or substances. In his acting, he often reached beyond the pedestrian to find the truth right at the edge of madness. He called life “this miracle we all exist in” and his finest performances suggested an affectionate respect for the various and telling ways people receive reality

“But the best role of his career came in `Carried Away’ (1996), a film few people know, in which he played an aging country schoolteacher who falls in love with a 17-year-old girl (Amy Locane). Hopper could easily have been nominated for an Academy Award for his performance, but Fine Line dumped the movie, despite great reviews by Siskel & Ebert and by critics in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco.”

The excerpts below from Gringo Lessons concern Hopper though they aren’t by any means exhaustive. Like most relationships in Taos, mine with Dennis was transient and fraught with brief moments of drama. He was exceedingly gracious to the community and the community was gracious in return. Here’s to the Honorary Mayor of Taos.

The demise of Dennis reminds me of the loss of artist R.C. Gorman—figures bigger than life, who spent time on the national or international stage, during the last decades of the 20th Century. They were so very human as they struggled to overcome personal foibles in Taos, which may have fueled their art even as it sometimes stymied their careers. They were icons of the zeitgeist here in Taos when café society—such as it was—ruled, bending elbows with the best and following their passions up and down, back and forth from studio to saloon–a surprise always waiting in the wings.

Fall of ‘69

“Earlier that fall, in October, Steve White, Mark Daily, and I and our wives, Linda, Jan, and Susie, visited Santa Fe for Mark’s painterly New Mexico debut at Sandra Wilson’s Gallery on Canyon Road. We celebrated the event later at the Compound, where former Hotel St. Bernard Chef Claude Roth prepared dinner. We then adjourned to Hotel La Fonda. Whitey sat in and sang a few songs with guitarist-singer Antonio Mendoza, recently transferred from La Cocina de Taos to the hotel bar in Santa Fe. Since it was late, we decided to take a room there for the night.

“As we were checking in, a slight scruffy figure in Levis, jean-jacket and cowboy hat came up and introduced himself to Whitey–as Dennis Hopper. He reminded the popular Taos entertainer of his previous summer spent filming “Easy Rider” in Taos. “This is Michelle Phillips,” said Dennis about the attractive woman with scrubbed face and large eyes, who accompanied him. At least I knew she was a member of the “Mamas and Papas.”

“We adjourned to Dennis’s room. He glared at my wife, Susie, when she started laughing at his attempts to build a fire in the corner Kiva fireplace. Michelle played the guitar and sang “Me and Bobby Magee,” which song fit my mood, what with freedom being just another word for nothing left to lose. But, as we left, Whitey whispered, “Off-key. Terrible guitar player.”

“We had already heard how Bonnie Evans Bell, Mabel Dodge Lujan’s granddaughter, sold Dennis the famous for more than $250,000, two-hundred thousand above the asking price. At the Harwood, forty years later, during a May 2009 pop culture festival celebrating the anniversary of “Easy Rider,” Dennis corrected me, during my introductory remarks about the era, saying he paid “$140,000” for the Luhan house.”

March of ‘70

“When we showed “Easy Rider” in March, we sold out just every night for seven nights running. We held it over for three days—a veritable record at the time. At the beginning of the movie, Antonio Mendoza, a favorite La Cocina musician, plays the drug dealer, where Billy (Dennis Hopper) and Captain America (Peter Fonda) make the drug deal at La Contenta, a bar in El Prado, north of Taos. Some lucky La Contenta regulars were included in the opening scene and became movie stars for that brief run in Taos. Each evening they showed to watch or they stood out front, accepting kudos from their neighbors. They signed autographs and chuckled with their gap-toothed grins like school kids.

“At the El Cortez, the program included an eclectic mix of movies, just like the Plaza Theatre: Cantinflas Mexican films, Bunuel art films, popular movies like “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” or soft-core x-rated stuff like “Succubus.” The clientele varied accordingly but were usually far fewer in number. When the Drive-In opened in the late spring, the numbers dropped even more radically. Due to pungent body odor and poor ventilation, I was forced to restrict members of the counter culture Hog Farm from the Penasco Valley to nights when there was unlikely to be a crowd. I asked them to call first and check before coming to the theater.”

May of ’70: Betrayal

“The phone call from La Cocina wasn’t as dramatic as the one from La Cantina by Steve Williams, early on Thanksgiving morn when the Plaza Theatre flamed out that Friday evening in the late spring of 1970. But almost. A friend said that my landlord was buying drinks and celebrating the sale of the El Cortez Theatre to “Easy Rider” actor-director Dennis Hopper.

“After hanging up, I thought the call odd. I had the right of first refusal in my lease in the event of a sale–the opportunity to match a potential purchase. I could only think that Dennis was being aided and abetted by some crooked doings.

“That weekend, I had guard duty in Springer. Susie, despite her bad leg, was unafraid to call on her tongue. She phoned David Hopper, brother and business manager of Dennis and gave him hell for trying to screw us. David said he would try to do something to correct the situation. David was always the gentleman in the family. He and his wife Charlotte, and two daughters, were good customers.

In Springer I got some more insight into the local culture when I witnessed what happened to some Gringo Cowboys who got sideways with inebriated Taoseños outside a bar near the armory. Overwhelmed by superior numbers—about 15 to three–the cowboys crawled away, kicked and bruised, bloodied and beaten up. One of my fellow guardsmen, a New Mexico native and Chicano from Santa Fe said he was sickened by the sight. I stayed sober but depressed in Springer. Susie called a couple of times. The military and the movies, once again, haunted me.

“The next week I met with my attorney John Ramming and Hopper at the Brandenburg and Ramming law office. John was an up-and-coming young Republican in the late spring of 1970. Folks referred to his potential. He talked fast and dressed like a lawyer—tie, white shirts, dark suits, dress shoes. I appeared at his office in my army haircut, levis, a blue shirt, black converse tennis shoes. Dennis wore his post Easy Rider, post “The Last Movie” stuntman clothes: boots, long hair, funny-looking cowboy hat, leather purse hanging from his shoulder. I don’t know if he had started carrying his .45 in his bag yet. It turned out that Ramming was also Hopper’s lawyer. Course John had never sent me a bill for the work he’d done on the lease and purchase of the Plaza Theatre in the summer of 1969.

“Ramming and Hopper told me they knew I didn’t have the twenty-five grand to purchase the building. Dennis said if I tried to buy the building it would cause a lot of trouble for his current project, editing, “The Last Movie.” He said he guessed I could sue him. My lawyer’s eyes, glazed by the glamour and promise of Hollywood big bucks, leaned toward Dennis and nodded. And, I seemed to agree with the implication. After all, who was I to stand in the way of great art? Everybody in town was in on the action, taking Dennis Dollars—plumbers, realtors, and layabouts were kissing Dennis’s ring. (Later on, I saw them kiss Harvey Mudd’s, and much later, Tom Worrell’s. Lots of my peers were nothing, according to the vernacular, but but chicken shits and vendidos. Then (and even today) I felt the Calvinist guilt of a church mouse, whose financial condition was the result of Mr. Big’s punishment or at least the karma due someone for his hubris. So I accepted the deal Dennis offered—free rent for the summer.

“I’d have to think of something else to do, come September. Course I was still holding on to the dream of rebuilding the Plaza. I needed to get back to town.”

Summer, 1971: R.I.P. (Ken and now, Dennis)

“In the spring of 1971, a lanky shaggy-haired substitute English teacher, Ken Jenkins, began talking to me about leasing the El Cortez Tavern—Old Martinez Hall in Ranchos de Taos, right next to the El Cortez theatre and the U.S.P.O. Ken, who said he had retreated to Taos from LA to write a book about the Manson Family massacre, lived across the street from the nascent downtown business district under the watchful eye of St. Francis de Asis. I sometimes trundled across the street to visit, discuss Yeats’s poetry or George Stevens’ “Shane” while sharing a bottle of Scotch. Basically, like most Taosenos, we bullshitted each other.

“By that spring I had tired of Dennis Hopper’s insults. Students at UNM in Albuquerque embarrassed Hopper by mentioning that his movie theatre had shown “Paint Your Wagon,” the horrid western musical with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin. Dennis blamed me for showing the film. Hollywood produced a limited number of films for general release in those days and I shared the distributors with the Drive-In. Plus there was a kind of quid pro quo—do me a favor and show this so I can tell my bosses and we’ll let you show that. Programming commercial, exploitation, and foreign films was a crapshoot. You always hoped the winners would pay for the losers at the box-office.

“Given the ups and down of his career and confusion underscored about art and life in “The Last Movies,” it’s safe to say Dennis never understood the art of film exhibition and the lack of effect of movies on a local or national audience. He told me, “You shouldn’t show Buñuel’s “Viridiana” on a Sunday, either or “Soldier Blue” (which always attracted a large crowd from Taos Pueblo) The locals liked the silly musical with Clint Eastwood and Lee Marvin well enough but preferred Mexican movies starring the likes of Antonio Aguilar or Cantinflas in “Por Mis Pistolas.”. Hardly anyone, much less native Taoseno–attended Buñuel’s anti-Catholic art film, which were aimed at the Anglo bourgeoisie–as I told him. Still, Dennis knew better and wanted to censor the masses—paternalist that he was. “This is a good church-going community,” he said.

“The Taos Pueblo Indians used to fill up; the theatre for Soldier Blue, the movie about the Sand Creek massacre. As they told me about “Soldier Blue” or even “Flap,” (aka “Nobody Loves a Drunken Indian” with Anthony Quinn), “we liked to see images of ourselves on the screen, regardless.” Dennis, like most outsiders, who attended movies or church or county commission meetings infrequently if at all, wanted to save Taoseños from themselves—as if the natives know little about sin and error in this violence-plagued community.

“Go to hell, Dennis,” I said and hung up the phone. What an asshole, I thought. I quit.

“Part of the founding myth spun by Ken and believed by me, concerned how we were going to get rich at this venture: book rock bands, make big bucks. We hired Ricky Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band for three nights.They had a hit at the time, “Garden Party,” and somebody said Fats Domino in the mid sixties and scored a full house at the Catholic School Gym in Taos. We thought the fifties atmosphere with a sixties spin might work. Both Ken and I thought the other possessed prescient knowledge about Taos. We spent $1,000 on advertising and promotion.

“Up until this point, business had been profitable. But the locals weren’t interested in Rickie Nelson and and the hippies hadn’t left the communes. I paid Ricky $3500 in advance. We averaged ticket sales of about 75 people per night at $5 a head. We could seat 600 people. Saturday night we were supposed to pay Nelson and the band the balance of $3500. After the Friday night opening, we only had about $1,000 in cash. So I called the pool guys from Albuquerque, who drove up the next day and gave me a bag with $2500 in it. We paid off the band. We lost $8,000 on the gig and all our pool reveneue for the rest of the summer.

Dennis came to the concert and thoroughly enjoyed himself. “Smile Bill, don’t worry about it,” he said, acknowledging my frown and anxiety. Ricky said he wanted to meet Dennis. So we called the actor and arranged a meeting at The Taos Inn. They gave each other the Hollywood hug, retired to a table, and talked—like brothers under the skin.

Closing Night: West Side Story

“Closing night, Saturday, April 22, 1978, was sold out—like all the other nights. By then TAA director Jane Burke had received word that the New Mexico Arts Division had awarded the TAA a mini-grant of $1,000 for the show. That, plus box receipts in excess of $5,000, meant we would break even or better. We had money left over for utilities, the phone bill, and few new stage lights. At about 8:15 p.m., I was at my post in the box-office, waiting for everyone to find their seats before turning down the lights so the show could start. We had filled the back row of the auditorium with folding chairs. The only space left for standing was at the rear of the auditorium near the northwest exit.

“Some late comers appeared. “Bill, do you have any tickets?” a voice asked. Dennis Hopper, followed by an entourage, appeared out of the dark. Dennis leaned up against the window and whispered, “I’ve got Neil Young and Russ Tamblyn with me.” (Russ Tamblyn played Tony in the movie version of “West Side Story.”)

“Dennis,” I said, “we’re sold out but you can come in. You have to pay and you have to stand in the back.” The eight or ten folks with Dennis took up a collection, paid five dollars each, and entered the theatre. Though I didn’t want to make the cast anxious, I wanted a good show. I went back stage and told them who was out front. “Don’t get nervous,” I said.

“Dennis and his friends spontaneously laughed, clapped, and thoroughly enjoyed the production. Afterwards, they went backstage, congratulated the cast. They stayed for the closing night party.”

Tags: By Bill Whaley