Dennis Hopper passes: Blue Velvet his best performance

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The legendary actor Dennis Hopper passed away last Friday and from complications due to prostate cancer. Hopper was 74 years old.

Dennis Hopper and Isabella Rossellini in Blue Velet

While some point to Easy Rider as the movie that made Hopper famous, and contained his best role, this space has a different view. Dennis Hopper's role as the psychotic Frank Booth was just plain scary. It was this blogger's first real introduction to the force that is Dennis Hopper and it was unforgettable.

When Blue Velvet was released in 1986, it was the must-see film of my friend at Berkeley and since I liked her, it was mine too. Frankly, for reasons having nothing to do with Blue Velvet or Dennis Hopper or the movie's famed director David Lynch, I went to see it with her.

Wow.

If you've never seen Dennis Hopper as Frank Booth, we can now see a brief replay thanks to YouTube. BravoTV has Hopper's performance as one of the 100 most scary in movie history:



Here's another scene without the off-film commentary. It's simply shocking and contains strong language to say the least:



Here below, Dennis Hopper tells Bob Costas how he convinced David Lynch to use another gas as a "reference" drug that Frank Booth inhaled. (Meaning Hopper didn't actually use nitrous oxide in the movie.) Hopper explained that Lynch wanted to use Helium gas, but Dennis explained all that would do was make him "sound like Daffy Duck."



Of all of Dennis Hopper's movie roles, Frank Booth was the best.

Dennis Hopper: 1936 - 2010.

But never really gone.