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Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles
National Bestseller "A landmark and long-overdue cultural history." — Vogue The stylish, wild story of the marriage of Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—a tale of love, art, Hollywood, and heartbreak “Those years in the sixties when I was married to Dennis were the most wonderful and awful of my life.” — Brooke Hayward Los Angeles in the 1960 riots in Watts and on the Sunset Strip, wild weekends in Malibu, late nights at The Daisy discotheque, openings at the Ferus Gallery, and the convergence of pop art, rock and roll, and the New Hollywood. At the center of it all, one inspired, improbable, and highly combustible couple—Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward—lived out the emblematic love story of ’60s L.A. The home these two glamorous young actors created for themselves and their family at 1712 North Crescent Heights Boulevard in the Hollywood Hills became the era’s unofficial living room, a kaleidoscopic realm—“furnished like an amusement park,” Andy Warhol said—that made an impact on anyone who ever stepped into it. Hopper and Hayward, vanguard collectors of contemporary art, packed the place with pop masterpieces by the likes of Roy Lichtenstein, Ed Ruscha, and Warhol, and welcomed a who’s who of visitors, from Jane Fonda to Jasper Johns, Joan Didion to Tina Turner, Hells Angels to Black Panthers. In this house, everything that defined the 1960s went the fun, the decadence, the radical politics, and, ultimately, the danger and instability that Hopper explored in the project that made his career, became the cinematic symbol of the period, and blew their union apart— Easy Rider . Everybody Thought We Were Crazy is at once a fascinating account of the Hopper and Hayward union and a deeply researched, panoramic cultural history. It’s the intimate saga of one couple whose own rise and fall—from youthful creative flowering to disorder and chaos—mirrors the very shape of the decade.
464 pages, Hardcover
First published May 3, 2022
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November 10, 2022
Everybody Was Wrong, Everybody Was Right
Dennis Hopper projected the aura of a crazed madman and often played up on that reputation in his film roles. There was the frenzied photojournalist in “Apocalypse Now”, the deranged bomb builder in “Speed”, the totally bizarre psycho in “Blue Velvet”... just to name a few. That was really all I knew about him, other than he had bonded as a young actor with James Dean. "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy" concentrates on his life in the '60's and the relationship he had with his wife, Brooke Hayward.
The book shows that, yes, Dennis Hopper was out of control at times. It also reveals a surprisingly talented photographer and art aficionado. Often you will hear about a celebrity who paints or dabbles in some art and you wonder if this is exaggerating anything more than a hobby. Dennis created some remarkable photography and had a number of showings. He and Brooke were also early supporters of Andy Warhol and were instrumental in promoting the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene of the '60's. The private art collection presented at their house was considered an avant-garde revelation.
“Everybody Thought We Were Crazy” is about the two of them. Brooke is the daughter of Hollywood celebrity-- her mother was superstar actress Margaret Sullavan-- and we get an account of her growing up in privileged society, hanging out with the Fondas, and her acting career, a career cut short to accommodate Dennis. Writer and friend Jill Schary referred to the couple as "the bohemian version of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton." Brooke led an interesting life and has documented it herself in her autobiography "Haywire," but her story is necessarily overshadowed here by the wild and unpredictable nature of her husband.
Dennis shared a kindred spirit in Peter Fonda until the craziness hit a peak during the production of "Easy Rider." Dennis directed what would become a symbol of counter-culture spirit and while the success of the project was a major triumph, it also found a way to tear him apart as he fought Fonda and Hollywood writer Terry Southern over whose contributions should have been recognized. The marriage to Brooke had dissolved during the filming of "Easy Rider" and Dennis tumbled into a deep void of substance abuse and psychological trauma. It took years for him to reorder his life and revitalize his career.
Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward led fascinating fast lane Hollywood lives. There are some great TMZ style stories throughout the book. The major take-away from Mark Rozzo’s book is there is much more to these two than what we would expect. They were much more than merely art voyeurs splashing money around to earn some culture cred.
Thank you Ecco / Harper Collins and Edelweiss for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. – Hopper’s character in “Apocalypse Now”
Dennis Hopper projected the aura of a crazed madman and often played up on that reputation in his film roles. There was the frenzied photojournalist in “Apocalypse Now”, the deranged bomb builder in “Speed”, the totally bizarre psycho in “Blue Velvet”... just to name a few. That was really all I knew about him, other than he had bonded as a young actor with James Dean. "Everybody Thought We Were Crazy" concentrates on his life in the '60's and the relationship he had with his wife, Brooke Hayward.
The book shows that, yes, Dennis Hopper was out of control at times. It also reveals a surprisingly talented photographer and art aficionado. Often you will hear about a celebrity who paints or dabbles in some art and you wonder if this is exaggerating anything more than a hobby. Dennis created some remarkable photography and had a number of showings. He and Brooke were also early supporters of Andy Warhol and were instrumental in promoting the burgeoning Los Angeles art scene of the '60's. The private art collection presented at their house was considered an avant-garde revelation.
“Everybody Thought We Were Crazy” is about the two of them. Brooke is the daughter of Hollywood celebrity-- her mother was superstar actress Margaret Sullavan-- and we get an account of her growing up in privileged society, hanging out with the Fondas, and her acting career, a career cut short to accommodate Dennis. Writer and friend Jill Schary referred to the couple as "the bohemian version of Liz Taylor and Richard Burton." Brooke led an interesting life and has documented it herself in her autobiography "Haywire," but her story is necessarily overshadowed here by the wild and unpredictable nature of her husband.
Dennis shared a kindred spirit in Peter Fonda until the craziness hit a peak during the production of "Easy Rider." Dennis directed what would become a symbol of counter-culture spirit and while the success of the project was a major triumph, it also found a way to tear him apart as he fought Fonda and Hollywood writer Terry Southern over whose contributions should have been recognized. The marriage to Brooke had dissolved during the filming of "Easy Rider" and Dennis tumbled into a deep void of substance abuse and psychological trauma. It took years for him to reorder his life and revitalize his career.
Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward led fascinating fast lane Hollywood lives. There are some great TMZ style stories throughout the book. The major take-away from Mark Rozzo’s book is there is much more to these two than what we would expect. They were much more than merely art voyeurs splashing money around to earn some culture cred.
Thank you Ecco / Harper Collins and Edelweiss for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
The man is clear in his mind, but his soul is mad. – Hopper’s character in “Apocalypse Now”
April 7, 2022
I chose to read this book because I was intrigued by Dennis Hopper. This actor seemed the "dangerous type" and a kind of renegade. Strangely enough, the only movie I ever saw him in was from 1986 called "River's Edge" co-starring Crispin Glover, Ione Skye and Keanu Reeves. It was the kind of obscure, off the beaten path film that always seems to attract me. Dennis Hopper was scary in the role and I got the feeling it wasn't all an act, but an integral part of him. I also knew he had been married for only 8 days to Mamas and the Pappas band member and tv actress Michelle Phillips. I never knew of the actress Brooke Hayward who he was married to in the sixties. She was the daughter of a famous actress and her dad was a Hollywood and Broadway theatrical agent and producer. Apparently, she wrote a very successful memoir decades ago about her famous but dysfunctional family called Haywire.
When these two married in the early sixties they were the vortex of that special thing that was happening out in LA involving art and music. They bought a house that famous musicians, artists and actors congregated at to experience this time of enlightenment. When Brooke gifted Dennis a Nikon camera it was a pivotal moment in Dennis's artistic development. From that point on, he passionately documented very important moments during this time such as concert festivals, protests, and other "happenings". Later on, these photos were published in books and shown in art galleries and museums. Dennis took an obsessive interest in abstract and pop art, a passion which Brooke shared. They were among the first to discover the talents of Andy Warhol in NYC, brought him to LA and purchased that iconic Campbell's Soup painting before anyone else took notice. Later, Dennis pitched the idea for what became the movie "Easy Rider", participating in the writing of the screenplay and directing the film.
The book dives very deep into Dennis Hopper's artistic spectrum and transformation, depicting a talented, intense and passionate soul. People like this can become difficult to live with, especially when violent outbursts and abuse of alcohol and substances occur. All this happened and the sizzling comet of this marriage eventually burned out- but glowing embers of love remained.
As I read this book I became overwhelmed by the sheer girth and breadth of research involving Dennis Hopper's cultural and artistic realm, and was a bit relieved when the advance reader copy surprisingly ended (in a beautiful way) at the 60% mark. You see, there was such an extensive bibliography and end notes that it took up the last 40% of the book! This was an excellent time capsule of a Hollywood marriage of soul mates during the sixties, covering a very interesting and important time in art, movies, culture and music.
Thank you to the publisher Ecco who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
When these two married in the early sixties they were the vortex of that special thing that was happening out in LA involving art and music. They bought a house that famous musicians, artists and actors congregated at to experience this time of enlightenment. When Brooke gifted Dennis a Nikon camera it was a pivotal moment in Dennis's artistic development. From that point on, he passionately documented very important moments during this time such as concert festivals, protests, and other "happenings". Later on, these photos were published in books and shown in art galleries and museums. Dennis took an obsessive interest in abstract and pop art, a passion which Brooke shared. They were among the first to discover the talents of Andy Warhol in NYC, brought him to LA and purchased that iconic Campbell's Soup painting before anyone else took notice. Later, Dennis pitched the idea for what became the movie "Easy Rider", participating in the writing of the screenplay and directing the film.
The book dives very deep into Dennis Hopper's artistic spectrum and transformation, depicting a talented, intense and passionate soul. People like this can become difficult to live with, especially when violent outbursts and abuse of alcohol and substances occur. All this happened and the sizzling comet of this marriage eventually burned out- but glowing embers of love remained.
As I read this book I became overwhelmed by the sheer girth and breadth of research involving Dennis Hopper's cultural and artistic realm, and was a bit relieved when the advance reader copy surprisingly ended (in a beautiful way) at the 60% mark. You see, there was such an extensive bibliography and end notes that it took up the last 40% of the book! This was an excellent time capsule of a Hollywood marriage of soul mates during the sixties, covering a very interesting and important time in art, movies, culture and music.
Thank you to the publisher Ecco who provided an advance reader copy via NetGalley.
June 11, 2022
Somewhat interesting and it’s a well written book but I began to lose interest about half way through and had to push myself to finish it. The idea of Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward’s time together was probably more intriguing to me than the reality of their lives and marriage. They had many famous and flamboyant friends. He struggled with success due to his difficult personality. She pretty much gave up her career for Dennis and her three kids. But it gets old hearing about yet another entitled, addicted and alcoholic male who beat his wife, cheated, came and went as he pleased, scared his children into running and hiding time after time, really was an overall shit, yet ultimately gets hailed as a Hollywood icon for a few good movies (and by the way, he was a good photographer). He married and divorced four more times after Brooke, and then on his deathbed told her she’s the only woman he ever loved. Meh.
June 12, 2024
When I initially picked this up, I didn't think that I really had any interest in Dennis Hopper or Brooke Hayward. I actually didn't know much about either one. So yes, they do have interesting families and backgrounds and the stories about their famous friends are sometimes eye opening. But as a whole this book became so boring so fast that I had no choice but to abandon it. And at this point I don't care about these two people at all, it was a waste of quality reading time.
June 4, 2022
LA cultural eccentricities with its pop-art 1960s psychedelic culture as seen through self-absorb unlikeable cast of characters who actualized their existence by muddling through life while calling what they did genuine art or in other words participating in society while being privileged and thinking they are special.
I always hate when a biography lapses into psycho-analytic mumbo jumbo to explain their character along the lines that ‘his mother was cold and reserved and he therefore was unable to get along acting normal’, or ‘just as Joseph Goebbels club-foot hindered his walking he felt the urge to kill 6 million jews’. I don’t think Goebbels was mentioned but the author did more than his fair share of psycho analytical explanations in this book even when describing the secondary characters such as Natalie Wood. The author should stick to the facts and not speculate on intentionality or psychological motivations of the individual.
The characters are the marriage, the house, the art scene, music, movies, the friends, LA of 1960, and so on. Each and every one was severely broken in some way and are really unlikeable and just really don’t make for a compelling story as told by the author. I never felt the urge to let the Hells Angels babysit my child as Dennis and Brooke would or have guns and pot around my children. I never find excessive drug use entertaining or reading about a bunch of white privileged entitled people acting out their every whim as meaningful.
There is a story that can be told about 1960s LA, but its focal point doesn’t need to be fixated on the self-absorbed.
I always hate when a biography lapses into psycho-analytic mumbo jumbo to explain their character along the lines that ‘his mother was cold and reserved and he therefore was unable to get along acting normal’, or ‘just as Joseph Goebbels club-foot hindered his walking he felt the urge to kill 6 million jews’. I don’t think Goebbels was mentioned but the author did more than his fair share of psycho analytical explanations in this book even when describing the secondary characters such as Natalie Wood. The author should stick to the facts and not speculate on intentionality or psychological motivations of the individual.
The characters are the marriage, the house, the art scene, music, movies, the friends, LA of 1960, and so on. Each and every one was severely broken in some way and are really unlikeable and just really don’t make for a compelling story as told by the author. I never felt the urge to let the Hells Angels babysit my child as Dennis and Brooke would or have guns and pot around my children. I never find excessive drug use entertaining or reading about a bunch of white privileged entitled people acting out their every whim as meaningful.
There is a story that can be told about 1960s LA, but its focal point doesn’t need to be fixated on the self-absorbed.
July 19, 2022
I guess I really don’t care about what Dennis Hopper took pictures of and who came to what party with who. I did enjoy learning about the connections of the Fonda and the Hopoers, particularly Brooke and Jane, but not enough to want to finish the book. Onward.
July 27, 2022
Very engaging book for me as it chronicles the years of my youth in the early 60's in Los Angeles. Serves as a true reminder of those days of yore. I did enjoy reading about Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward's relationship and how it intertwined with those times.
September 30, 2022
I don’t know why I so enjoy reading biographies of pop culture icons, whether artists, musicians or actors. I’m very seldom interested in what they actually produced. I didn’t know who Brooke Hayward and Dennis Hopper were before I read this book. I probably would have guessed that they were movie stars, but I couldn’t have told you 1940’s or 1970’s. (It was the 1960’s.) I picked up this book because it was about California, and I love reading anything about my homeland. But it was fascinating not only because it WAS a true California story, but also because these people were just interesting. They lived and died by their art. And no one could say they didn’t live full lives. I think that’s why I like reading about famous people — because no matter what else you can say about them, you can’t ever say they were boring.
March 17, 2022
This book feels more like a window into the culture of LA (and America) in the 60's than it does a biography of Hopper and Hayward's relationship. It really highlights what a perfect storm LA was at that time in regards to art, old Hollywood mingling with the counterculture. I found this book a fascinating who's who of both modern art and the silver screen. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in pop art, old Hollywood, rock and roll, and American culture mid century.
Thank you to Ecco for the advanced copy.
Thank you to Ecco for the advanced copy.
June 28, 2022
Lots of detail. It didn't read like a story. But since I lived through that time period and recognized lots of names and characters, and events,
it made it interesting to me
it made it interesting to me
January 31, 2023
if i learned one thing from this book it’s that if i could time travel i’d the first place i’d go back to is andy warhol’s galley show at ferus to snatch up those goddamn soups
April 14, 2022
This is a quick read, it’s brevity belies its content. I knew very little about Dennis Hopper aside from Easy Rider. The book is about his marriage to Brooke Hayward, who I didn’t know at all. It’s also about the heyday of Hollywood chaos during the 1960s with a veritable who’s who among the celebrities. I read with most interest about the couple’s upbringing and their origins.
If you’re looking for a good book On the Southern California crazy drug scene and mismatched relationships, look no more.
Thanks to Ecco press and NetGalley for the early copy.
If you’re looking for a good book On the Southern California crazy drug scene and mismatched relationships, look no more.
Thanks to Ecco press and NetGalley for the early copy.
October 23, 2022
What a story - Hollywood in the 60s’ - If you want to read a (semi) well-articulated book on Los Angeles’s pop art drug scene and mismatched relationship, you will enjoy this book.
I knew very little about Dennis Hopper aside from Easy Rider. The book is well researched about his fascinating life and marriage to Brooke Hayward, who I didn’t know at all. It’s also about the heyday of a Hollywood chaos during the 1960s with a veritable who’s who among the celebrities.
However, it’s VERY slow in developing and the narrative is somewhat redundant in my taste. I would enjoy it more in audiobook format? I would enjoy it more if I knew more and care more about LA celebrities?
I knew very little about Dennis Hopper aside from Easy Rider. The book is well researched about his fascinating life and marriage to Brooke Hayward, who I didn’t know at all. It’s also about the heyday of a Hollywood chaos during the 1960s with a veritable who’s who among the celebrities.
However, it’s VERY slow in developing and the narrative is somewhat redundant in my taste. I would enjoy it more in audiobook format? I would enjoy it more if I knew more and care more about LA celebrities?
September 5, 2022
Long and rambling, appropriate for the subjects and the years portrayed, and chock full of names and places and events, and art. I was drooling over the art as I listened. The people weren’t just names dropped in; the events and time capsule surrounding Brooke and Dennis and the people in and out of their circle came to life, spanning to the current day.
January 20, 2024
It was interesting to have a window into 1960s Hollywood and pop art, but I felt like I was reading this book forever. While I expected it to be about Brooke and Dennis’ lives together, it read more as their lives in parallel. This approach made sense for their childhoods, but less so for their years married. The chapters on their years together seemed to be primarily focused on wild things Dennis would do and the drugs he was taking with offhand reference to Brooke.
July 2, 2025
If Dennis Hopper has 0 haters assume im dead.
December 13, 2022
Rather like Hopper himself this book started with interest and then faded. A story of wasted talent (his) and for her while with an apparent eye for art, and being lucky to be in at the start of the Pop Art movement she seemed to abandon any ambition and talent, despite coming from a golden Hollywood background.
Interesting background to the early years of pop art in LA. Illustrations were slightly odd and irritating as the text referred to particular or famous photographs which were not reproduced. In fact even photos of the subjects, particularly her were a bit random.
Interesting background to the early years of pop art in LA. Illustrations were slightly odd and irritating as the text referred to particular or famous photographs which were not reproduced. In fact even photos of the subjects, particularly her were a bit random.
April 22, 2022
This book exceeded my expectations - what started out as a biography of Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward evolved into so much more. I had read Brooke's memoir "Haywire" about her childhood (mother - famous actress, father - famous producer). This book not only gives us additional insight into the backgrounds of her life, but also of Dennis Hopper. We also learn a lot about the dynamics in their marriage - and to call it a roller coaster ride is not doing it justice. But the unanticipated part of the book for me was the way Mark Rozzo was able to really capture the zeitgeist of the 1960's art world in Los Angeles, the Bay Area and NYC. I felt I was there at the art openings and parties because of the vivid, detailed descriptions. Why this book exceeded my expectations is not only did we get a really good sense of the personalities of Dennis and Brooke (and their families) but also the context in which they were living and the creative forces surrounding their lives. This was a book I could not put down -- I could have read more. If you are a fan of art and film from the 1960's, of Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward and a fan of old Hollywood -- this book is for you.
Thank you to the publisher Ecco and Netgalley for the preview copy.
Thank you to the publisher Ecco and Netgalley for the preview copy.
June 16, 2022
I came to this book because of my longstanding and deep admiration for Brooke Hayward's book Haywire. It's as good a memoir as you'll ever read, and it wan't because of the celebrity parents and friends. It works because it is the story of a family that had trouble being a family and these are problems that no amount of money or fame can fix. I've wondered why there weren't more books from Hayward, and wished there were. Certainly, as this book demonstrates, there is more story to tell...
But. How one tells a story is at least as important as the story one has to tell. Rozzo seems like a good bet - he seems to get the people, and his research is deep and broad. And there is a lot that is interesting in this book, but sadly, there are also stretches of dullness, in which the narrative seems to consist of 'they went to this party, where this piece of art was first shown...' I was very interested in the art scene of 1950s-1960s Los Angeles, and the role that these two, separately and as a couple, played in it. I was fascinated to learn about Dennis Hopper's more than respectable career in the visual arts - all I had previously known was Hopper as crazy, difficult yet undeniably talented actor. And Brooke Hayward's enormous creativity - a talented actress as well as a writer, and one who created what sounds like an extraordinary home, filled with art that was continually evolving - was fascinating.
So, worth reading, though I think that Rozzo lost the thread of the story for a bit in the middle of the book. Creative nonfiction needs well developed characters and a narrative arc just as fiction does.
But. How one tells a story is at least as important as the story one has to tell. Rozzo seems like a good bet - he seems to get the people, and his research is deep and broad. And there is a lot that is interesting in this book, but sadly, there are also stretches of dullness, in which the narrative seems to consist of 'they went to this party, where this piece of art was first shown...' I was very interested in the art scene of 1950s-1960s Los Angeles, and the role that these two, separately and as a couple, played in it. I was fascinated to learn about Dennis Hopper's more than respectable career in the visual arts - all I had previously known was Hopper as crazy, difficult yet undeniably talented actor. And Brooke Hayward's enormous creativity - a talented actress as well as a writer, and one who created what sounds like an extraordinary home, filled with art that was continually evolving - was fascinating.
So, worth reading, though I think that Rozzo lost the thread of the story for a bit in the middle of the book. Creative nonfiction needs well developed characters and a narrative arc just as fiction does.
September 24, 2023
I really loved this book. I knew Dennis Hopper took photos and was an actor before I started reading this book. Through this book and I learned a lot about his art world ties, as well as about his wife at the time, Brooke Hayward.
It is an interesting, engaging, read. I am glad I picked it up.
It is an interesting, engaging, read. I am glad I picked it up.
February 19, 2025
I could not get through this book. It was so boring and the writing was tedious. I tried hard to keep going but the stringing together of dozens of sources felt like it was just a mishmash of various “facts” that were not telling a story. Drudgery. I finally thought to myself, “Who cares?” And with that, I was done.
August 13, 2022
Intermittently engaging
August 20, 2022
Read it cause I thought Dennis Hooper the actor always seemed like an interesting person. And while I did learn a lot about him that I never knew, in the end, I just didn't care.
December 24, 2025
When you're writing an article and you start to think, "Hmmm maybe this could be a book" really and truly try to resist that urge. I read a several hundred page book about Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward and I still don't really know anything about who they were as people and how they felt about one another. 90% of the book is just an exceedingly dry listing of guest lists at parties, pieces of art that were purchased, and worst of all, descriptions of the photos that Dennis took without the actual photos. It's hard to articulate, but the author describes a lot of facts about things that they did but doesn't really paint a picture of what they were like. If anything, you can infer that Dennis was a small-time no-talent actor who lived in the orbit of artists without truly being one of them. I did like the quote, and I'm paraphrasing, that actors thought of him as an artist and artists thought of him as an actor. When he finally hits it big with Easy Rider, we are told that he was "yet again blackballed by Hollywood" immediately afterward, instead of the more obvious theory that maybe Easy Rider was a happy accident by an otherwise very mid-range one-note character actor, man.
Whenever you're talking about a man with a family who lived some sort of crazy freewheeling hedonistic life, the assumption is that there was a long-suffering woman doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. And that's fine, I get it, if I'm reading about Picasso I give him a pass because I'm willingly focusing on the artistic genius and not the everyday facts of how he treated the women in his life. The difference with this book is that it was literally supposed to be about their marriage and partnership, and there is still very little attention paid to what a completely shitty husband and father he was, and how most of their famous art collection was really financed, procured and curated by Brooke, while he dicked around tagging along with his artist friends. The book is extremely Dennis-centric and I get the feeling that the author is whitewashing a lot of stuff. There are a few mentions here and there of how he was suspected to have had affairs and wasn't trying very hard to hide it, and that the one time she was seen with a man Dennis lost his shit and forbade her from acting anymore. But overall I don't think it points out enough of the injustice and one-sidedness of their supposedly modern and liberated marriage.
Throughout the entire book, Brooke is repeatedly referred to an enigmatic and inscrutable, like she's floating in the background above the fray. And I get that maybe she was a private person, but you can't write a book that is ostensibly half about her and not reveal anything about how she felt about him other than that she respected his work. I spent the entire book wondering why she didn't dump his sorry ass. Amid all of this you have the classic tales of children being thrown into the mix - someone from Jefferson Airplane passing a joint to her 10 year old son in the car ride to Monterey Pop (or some such festival) and then wandering around high as a kite and winding up crying and panicked at the lost and found tent only to have them saunter up calmly, with Dennis exclaiming, "It's cool, we just wanted to go see The Byrds play with Hugh Masekela, man!" Then when they divorce after a period of escalating violence in the house, and he subsequently spirals into psychosis and gun-play, somehow their young daughter is still sent to see him at his weird compound in Taos and has to be smuggled out by a friend.
I suppose the one thing I will say is that it gave me a small taste of the history and development of LA culture, but I would say overall the author simply didn't have enough insight into the couple to be able to tell a compelling story about their marriage.
Whenever you're talking about a man with a family who lived some sort of crazy freewheeling hedonistic life, the assumption is that there was a long-suffering woman doing the heavy lifting behind the scenes. And that's fine, I get it, if I'm reading about Picasso I give him a pass because I'm willingly focusing on the artistic genius and not the everyday facts of how he treated the women in his life. The difference with this book is that it was literally supposed to be about their marriage and partnership, and there is still very little attention paid to what a completely shitty husband and father he was, and how most of their famous art collection was really financed, procured and curated by Brooke, while he dicked around tagging along with his artist friends. The book is extremely Dennis-centric and I get the feeling that the author is whitewashing a lot of stuff. There are a few mentions here and there of how he was suspected to have had affairs and wasn't trying very hard to hide it, and that the one time she was seen with a man Dennis lost his shit and forbade her from acting anymore. But overall I don't think it points out enough of the injustice and one-sidedness of their supposedly modern and liberated marriage.
Throughout the entire book, Brooke is repeatedly referred to an enigmatic and inscrutable, like she's floating in the background above the fray. And I get that maybe she was a private person, but you can't write a book that is ostensibly half about her and not reveal anything about how she felt about him other than that she respected his work. I spent the entire book wondering why she didn't dump his sorry ass. Amid all of this you have the classic tales of children being thrown into the mix - someone from Jefferson Airplane passing a joint to her 10 year old son in the car ride to Monterey Pop (or some such festival) and then wandering around high as a kite and winding up crying and panicked at the lost and found tent only to have them saunter up calmly, with Dennis exclaiming, "It's cool, we just wanted to go see The Byrds play with Hugh Masekela, man!" Then when they divorce after a period of escalating violence in the house, and he subsequently spirals into psychosis and gun-play, somehow their young daughter is still sent to see him at his weird compound in Taos and has to be smuggled out by a friend.
I suppose the one thing I will say is that it gave me a small taste of the history and development of LA culture, but I would say overall the author simply didn't have enough insight into the couple to be able to tell a compelling story about their marriage.
March 1, 2022
My thanks to both NetGalley and the publisher Ecco for an advanced copy of this combination biography and history of the Los Angeles art scene.
Reading many biographies I have come across many couples that seem to belong together, but always seem to come apart in many of the same ways. Jealousy, misunderstandings, drugs, drink, family. All of the above would be the answer to why the relationship between Brooke Hayward and Dennis Hopper failed as detailed in Mark Rozzo's Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles. More than just a biography , the book is a portrait of a time where the work that was involved in both making art of any form, and love and relationships took work, and that work was far more important than anything. If the work suffered, something would have to go. Unfortunately love always seemed to lose out to art.
Dennis Hopper had already burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood due to both his intensity which was deserved, and his reputation, which was undeserved. Brooke Hayward was a daughter of Hollywood royalty, starring in her first play when a young actor was pushed onto the production. Annoyance soon became love and the couple with her children, and soon with a child of their own settled in Los Angeles, in a house that soon became the locus of the art world and Hollywood. Brooke gave up acting, due to Dennis being jealous of the attention she was given, and she began collecting antiques and other collectibles, soon to be a collection that was the envy of many. Dennis did the same with contemporary art, buying and becoming friends with many of the players and artists on the scene, also collecting quite a variety of works. Drugs, drinking, and illness and pressures on Hopper soon drove the couple apart, another casualty of the sixties.
A fascinating book about two very different people who has a tremendous amount in common, and extraordinary eyes in finding beauty among, well things sometimes. The sourceing of the book is amazing, with copious footnotes and great stories and asides from various people who were there. The book is more of a biography on a couple that fell away from each other, but of the rise of art and collecting in America, a history of film, and how Los Angeles came to be what it is today. These two were Zelig-like in being among so much interesting changes in art and history, hanging out with Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, and Marcel Duchamp for example.
A very comprehensive biography of a couple in a very exciting and changing time. This is a very good overview focusing on art, the movies, music, and lifestyles in Los Angeles and in America. A perfect book for film fans, art students and people who want inspiration for crafting and creating their art. A compelling story of two people who were perfect for their age, and each other, until they were not.
Reading many biographies I have come across many couples that seem to belong together, but always seem to come apart in many of the same ways. Jealousy, misunderstandings, drugs, drink, family. All of the above would be the answer to why the relationship between Brooke Hayward and Dennis Hopper failed as detailed in Mark Rozzo's Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles. More than just a biography , the book is a portrait of a time where the work that was involved in both making art of any form, and love and relationships took work, and that work was far more important than anything. If the work suffered, something would have to go. Unfortunately love always seemed to lose out to art.
Dennis Hopper had already burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood due to both his intensity which was deserved, and his reputation, which was undeserved. Brooke Hayward was a daughter of Hollywood royalty, starring in her first play when a young actor was pushed onto the production. Annoyance soon became love and the couple with her children, and soon with a child of their own settled in Los Angeles, in a house that soon became the locus of the art world and Hollywood. Brooke gave up acting, due to Dennis being jealous of the attention she was given, and she began collecting antiques and other collectibles, soon to be a collection that was the envy of many. Dennis did the same with contemporary art, buying and becoming friends with many of the players and artists on the scene, also collecting quite a variety of works. Drugs, drinking, and illness and pressures on Hopper soon drove the couple apart, another casualty of the sixties.
A fascinating book about two very different people who has a tremendous amount in common, and extraordinary eyes in finding beauty among, well things sometimes. The sourceing of the book is amazing, with copious footnotes and great stories and asides from various people who were there. The book is more of a biography on a couple that fell away from each other, but of the rise of art and collecting in America, a history of film, and how Los Angeles came to be what it is today. These two were Zelig-like in being among so much interesting changes in art and history, hanging out with Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, and Marcel Duchamp for example.
A very comprehensive biography of a couple in a very exciting and changing time. This is a very good overview focusing on art, the movies, music, and lifestyles in Los Angeles and in America. A perfect book for film fans, art students and people who want inspiration for crafting and creating their art. A compelling story of two people who were perfect for their age, and each other, until they were not.
October 11, 2022
Limited mostly to the years when the Heyward-Hopper home at 1712 North Crescent Heights Boulevard was the epicenter of the 1960's Los Angeles counterculture, Rozzo's book is an engaging read, an important chronicle of an influential time and place.
Famous moments of the 1960's punctuate the book at such frequent intervals that it's reminiscent of Matthew Weiner's great TV masterpiece Mad Men. We visit the same decade, but from a coastal mindset focused on altering rather than promoting the prevailing culture. While the fictional ad men on the East Coast validated, exploited, and nudged forward the sensibilities of those times, the Hoppers' influential circle of rock stars, modern art creators, and motion picture revolutionaries were prime movers, front liners in the Generation Gap, a forerunner of today's Culture Wars.
Many Boomer Generation media types and their underinformed offspring tend to associate the 1960's with the Boomers themselves, but the fact is that most of us were of school (or draft) age when the decade ended. It was a slightly older generation, including Easy Rider director and co-star Dennis Hopper (born in 1936) who led the charge. So credit them! And blame them! As his co-star Peter Fonda (b. 1940) says famously through his character at the end of that film, "we blew it." Spoiler alert: so also did Hopper blow apart his marriage to Hayward (the author of Haywire, and an old hand from a young age at bad family outcomes.)
Just as I wonder what else Don Draper would have done for the Coca-Cola account, I could have done with more follow-up on Hopper and Hayward after the 1960's. After their break-up and the stunning success of Easy Rider, the book goes into skim mode. We do learn that after a successful rehab, Dennis Hopper ditched the denim and enrolled as a Republican. He's quoted as saying the only "ism" he ever believed in was Abstract Expressionism, and his contributions as a photographer and arts patron reinforce that argument. I would have loved to read more about his political change of heart. He eventually faced up to the destructiveness of the 1960's legacy, but a passing reference to his tastes in art during his later years suggest that this was one very complex GOP voter.
Hayward cooperated with the author. For her it was both a great and awful time, and painful to revisit. The pain, of course, came largely from Hopper's volatile termperament and lifestyle choices as a drug-addled Hollywood rebel. His intense passions helped catalyze a cultural revolution, but the crazed recklessness took its toll. When those who said "don't trust anyone over 30" turned thirty, some weren't of a mind to compromise with stability. That would take Hopper years, but the final scene with Hayward shortly before his death is a touching place to end the book.
Famous moments of the 1960's punctuate the book at such frequent intervals that it's reminiscent of Matthew Weiner's great TV masterpiece Mad Men. We visit the same decade, but from a coastal mindset focused on altering rather than promoting the prevailing culture. While the fictional ad men on the East Coast validated, exploited, and nudged forward the sensibilities of those times, the Hoppers' influential circle of rock stars, modern art creators, and motion picture revolutionaries were prime movers, front liners in the Generation Gap, a forerunner of today's Culture Wars.
Many Boomer Generation media types and their underinformed offspring tend to associate the 1960's with the Boomers themselves, but the fact is that most of us were of school (or draft) age when the decade ended. It was a slightly older generation, including Easy Rider director and co-star Dennis Hopper (born in 1936) who led the charge. So credit them! And blame them! As his co-star Peter Fonda (b. 1940) says famously through his character at the end of that film, "we blew it." Spoiler alert: so also did Hopper blow apart his marriage to Hayward (the author of Haywire, and an old hand from a young age at bad family outcomes.)
Just as I wonder what else Don Draper would have done for the Coca-Cola account, I could have done with more follow-up on Hopper and Hayward after the 1960's. After their break-up and the stunning success of Easy Rider, the book goes into skim mode. We do learn that after a successful rehab, Dennis Hopper ditched the denim and enrolled as a Republican. He's quoted as saying the only "ism" he ever believed in was Abstract Expressionism, and his contributions as a photographer and arts patron reinforce that argument. I would have loved to read more about his political change of heart. He eventually faced up to the destructiveness of the 1960's legacy, but a passing reference to his tastes in art during his later years suggest that this was one very complex GOP voter.
Hayward cooperated with the author. For her it was both a great and awful time, and painful to revisit. The pain, of course, came largely from Hopper's volatile termperament and lifestyle choices as a drug-addled Hollywood rebel. His intense passions helped catalyze a cultural revolution, but the crazed recklessness took its toll. When those who said "don't trust anyone over 30" turned thirty, some weren't of a mind to compromise with stability. That would take Hopper years, but the final scene with Hayward shortly before his death is a touching place to end the book.
May 31, 2023
Oh boy this was right up my alley, I loved it! All about the meeting and mixing of Old Hollywood, New (1960s) Hollywood, the East coast modern art scene, the West coast modern art scene, 1960s British Invasion rock and 1960s California rock. And a little bit of fashion thrown into the mix as well. All subjects that I am interested in.
Who knew Dennis Hopper would be the connecting link to these different subjects? While he has always been on my radar thanks to James Dean and David Lynch, I didn't know much about him before reading this book. Hooooo boy, was he a grade A jerk! Let's all pause for a moment and give thanks for not ever being married to Dennis Hopper. Amyl nitrite huffing Frank Booth(Blue Velvet) was not far off the mark, it turned out.
I've had Brooke's memoir of her childhood on my to-read shelf for years and now I plan to read it ASAP because of this book. Man, she can't catch a break, can she? First she has amazingly selfish parents so she is basically raised by wolves and then at 20 she manages to marry a man who makes her parents look like Mother Theresa. Obviously she was trying to unconsciously work through her childhood issues when she married Dennis. "Mom & Dad ignored me but this time, this time it will be different!"
Hopefully her third marriage to Buck Henry was a balm to her soul after the tumultuous decade she spent with Dennis. It seemed her blink-and-you'll-miss-it first husband was ok? He seemed like a beacon of stability for her two sons she shared with him. I felt bad for little Marin, Brooke's daughter by Dennis, being left behind every summer while her big brothers escaped to their normal paternal side of the family. I was gobsmacked upon learning at the end of this book that Marin still had to go visit her dad every summer after the divorce. OMG seriously?! An alcoholic and drug addict with a penchant for leaving guns lying around the house, when he's not chasing people with them? That's who you are sending your small child off to live with? SMH. Mutiple times Marin had to be rescued by Dennis's more sober friends and ferreted out of his Taos compound. Multiple. Now waiting for Marin to publish her memoir, it'll be a doozy I'm sure.
I could spend hours writing about all the awful things Dennis did to his wife and children - chasing them with a gun while Brooke and the kids run through neighbors yards trying to hide, punching Brooke in the face and breaking her nose, the sad quote from Brooke's son Willy about all of his memories of hiding in closets to get away from a volatile Dennis.....on the upside Dennis had an amazing eye for art! He was quite the brilliant art collector. The story about him buying one of the original Warhol soup cans for $100 - wow. (Even though he then stupidly in hindsight let the gallery owner buy it back to keep the prints together as a set. Dennis bought other Warhol's for cheap) Dennis traded one of his photos for a Warhol Mona Lisa print! He supported a lot of now very famous artists when they were up & coming. He also bought (with Brooke's money) a lot of their art. Thank God Brooke got all the art and the house during the divorce. Dennis went ahead and kept collecting, discovering and buying from more new artists. Rozzo mentions Dennis buying some Basquiats in the 80s but sadly does not tell the reader how much Dennis paid for the art. All I could think about when I read that was the Basquiat that sold for 110 million dollars a few years ago.
This book whetted my appetite for reading memoirs/biographies of a lot of the people mentioned in the book. If you are interested in the culture of that era then I think you'd find the book fascinating.
Who knew Dennis Hopper would be the connecting link to these different subjects? While he has always been on my radar thanks to James Dean and David Lynch, I didn't know much about him before reading this book. Hooooo boy, was he a grade A jerk! Let's all pause for a moment and give thanks for not ever being married to Dennis Hopper. Amyl nitrite huffing Frank Booth(Blue Velvet) was not far off the mark, it turned out.
I've had Brooke's memoir of her childhood on my to-read shelf for years and now I plan to read it ASAP because of this book. Man, she can't catch a break, can she? First she has amazingly selfish parents so she is basically raised by wolves and then at 20 she manages to marry a man who makes her parents look like Mother Theresa. Obviously she was trying to unconsciously work through her childhood issues when she married Dennis. "Mom & Dad ignored me but this time, this time it will be different!"
Hopefully her third marriage to Buck Henry was a balm to her soul after the tumultuous decade she spent with Dennis. It seemed her blink-and-you'll-miss-it first husband was ok? He seemed like a beacon of stability for her two sons she shared with him. I felt bad for little Marin, Brooke's daughter by Dennis, being left behind every summer while her big brothers escaped to their normal paternal side of the family. I was gobsmacked upon learning at the end of this book that Marin still had to go visit her dad every summer after the divorce. OMG seriously?! An alcoholic and drug addict with a penchant for leaving guns lying around the house, when he's not chasing people with them? That's who you are sending your small child off to live with? SMH. Mutiple times Marin had to be rescued by Dennis's more sober friends and ferreted out of his Taos compound. Multiple. Now waiting for Marin to publish her memoir, it'll be a doozy I'm sure.
I could spend hours writing about all the awful things Dennis did to his wife and children - chasing them with a gun while Brooke and the kids run through neighbors yards trying to hide, punching Brooke in the face and breaking her nose, the sad quote from Brooke's son Willy about all of his memories of hiding in closets to get away from a volatile Dennis.....on the upside Dennis had an amazing eye for art! He was quite the brilliant art collector. The story about him buying one of the original Warhol soup cans for $100 - wow. (Even though he then stupidly in hindsight let the gallery owner buy it back to keep the prints together as a set. Dennis bought other Warhol's for cheap) Dennis traded one of his photos for a Warhol Mona Lisa print! He supported a lot of now very famous artists when they were up & coming. He also bought (with Brooke's money) a lot of their art. Thank God Brooke got all the art and the house during the divorce. Dennis went ahead and kept collecting, discovering and buying from more new artists. Rozzo mentions Dennis buying some Basquiats in the 80s but sadly does not tell the reader how much Dennis paid for the art. All I could think about when I read that was the Basquiat that sold for 110 million dollars a few years ago.
This book whetted my appetite for reading memoirs/biographies of a lot of the people mentioned in the book. If you are interested in the culture of that era then I think you'd find the book fascinating.
July 14, 2023
Mark Rozzo “Everybody Thought We Were Crazy”
Rozzo’s fascinating history of LA in the 60s (a seismic decade for American art, TV, film) is anchored by “highly combustible couple” — actor/artist Dennis Hopper and actor/model/galvanizer Brooke Hayward.
So many cultural births in the book — including the American teenager. Hopper gets his start in Rebel Without a Cause, befriending James Dean and Natalie Wood and falling into the young Wood actor scene at its hottest — without any of today’s awareness of fame and its corrosive effects. Natalie takes a champagne bath with deleterious effects, James whips it out and pees in front of people on the set of Giant.
It get a little smoldering as you read yet another example of how people could effortlessly buy houses in LA and make enough money to give them ample time to paint, write poetry & get stoned after working one job: like appearing in an episode of The Medic or The Twilight Zone which netted $2250, “half the average annual American salary in 1963”.
Dennis and Brooke were on the pulse. The couple’s houses (one burned down) were everything you or the set designer of Daisy Jones and the Six fantasize when imagining LA in the 60s, filled with street finds and oddities all before everything acquired nosebleed value.
Brooke’s eclectic style preceded camp as a thing. (Susan Sontag wrote Notes on Camp the following year). “Brooke may have had no idea she was channeling. Her findings ran from…Coca Cola advertising thermometers…a two foot tall bronze bust from 1890…a trove of Louis Comfort Tiffany Lamps that Warner Brothers discarded”. Back then they were a couple hundred apiece “in 2018, a rare Tiffany lamp sold for $3,372,500 at Christie’s.”
The couple bought a lot of pop art — Lichtenstein, Ruscha, Warhol — right when it was about to shake the art world. The unknown Warhol shows his soup cans, and Hopper buys the first. Later it is shown (along with 31 others) at Irving Blum’s Ferus Gallery gallery. They sold for 100 each.
My favorite moment is an account of a wacky dance collective that frequented the LA hotspot Ciro’s: “As a wee-hour explorer of Los Angeles, he [Dennis] would have been familiar with her free-spirited protohippie troupe known as the Freaks, who went by such names as Karen Yum Yum, Beatle Bob, and Johny F**k F**k and had the habit of turning dance floors into zones of free-form frenzy….the Freaks favored an ebullient style of dance that was nearly as convulsive as the seizures Dennis had performed in The Medic.”
I realized the Freaks may have introduced the world to that jerky, jiggy, thrashing go-go dance style I love (I always search for examples of this on YouTube at 3AM).
In all this is such a wonderfully written, detailed history. I learned so much about contemporary art. It is CONTEXTUALIZING.
Rozzo’s fascinating history of LA in the 60s (a seismic decade for American art, TV, film) is anchored by “highly combustible couple” — actor/artist Dennis Hopper and actor/model/galvanizer Brooke Hayward.
So many cultural births in the book — including the American teenager. Hopper gets his start in Rebel Without a Cause, befriending James Dean and Natalie Wood and falling into the young Wood actor scene at its hottest — without any of today’s awareness of fame and its corrosive effects. Natalie takes a champagne bath with deleterious effects, James whips it out and pees in front of people on the set of Giant.
It get a little smoldering as you read yet another example of how people could effortlessly buy houses in LA and make enough money to give them ample time to paint, write poetry & get stoned after working one job: like appearing in an episode of The Medic or The Twilight Zone which netted $2250, “half the average annual American salary in 1963”.
Dennis and Brooke were on the pulse. The couple’s houses (one burned down) were everything you or the set designer of Daisy Jones and the Six fantasize when imagining LA in the 60s, filled with street finds and oddities all before everything acquired nosebleed value.
Brooke’s eclectic style preceded camp as a thing. (Susan Sontag wrote Notes on Camp the following year). “Brooke may have had no idea she was channeling. Her findings ran from…Coca Cola advertising thermometers…a two foot tall bronze bust from 1890…a trove of Louis Comfort Tiffany Lamps that Warner Brothers discarded”. Back then they were a couple hundred apiece “in 2018, a rare Tiffany lamp sold for $3,372,500 at Christie’s.”
The couple bought a lot of pop art — Lichtenstein, Ruscha, Warhol — right when it was about to shake the art world. The unknown Warhol shows his soup cans, and Hopper buys the first. Later it is shown (along with 31 others) at Irving Blum’s Ferus Gallery gallery. They sold for 100 each.
My favorite moment is an account of a wacky dance collective that frequented the LA hotspot Ciro’s: “As a wee-hour explorer of Los Angeles, he [Dennis] would have been familiar with her free-spirited protohippie troupe known as the Freaks, who went by such names as Karen Yum Yum, Beatle Bob, and Johny F**k F**k and had the habit of turning dance floors into zones of free-form frenzy….the Freaks favored an ebullient style of dance that was nearly as convulsive as the seizures Dennis had performed in The Medic.”
I realized the Freaks may have introduced the world to that jerky, jiggy, thrashing go-go dance style I love (I always search for examples of this on YouTube at 3AM).
In all this is such a wonderfully written, detailed history. I learned so much about contemporary art. It is CONTEXTUALIZING.
September 12, 2022
Reading many biographies I have come across many couples that seem to belong together, but always seem to come apart in many of the same ways. Jealousy, misunderstandings, drugs, drink, family. All of the above would be the answer to why the relationship between Brooke Hayward and Dennis Hopper failed as detailed in Mark Rozzo's Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles. More than just a biography , the book is a portrait of a time where the work that was involved in both making art of any form, and love and relationships took work, and that work was far more important than anything. If the work suffered, something would have to go. Unfortunately love always seemed to lose out to art.
Dennis Hopper had already burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood due to both his intensity which was deserved, and his reputation, which was undeserved. Brooke Hayward was a daughter of Hollywood royalty, starring in her first play when a young actor was pushed onto the production. Annoyance soon became love and the couple with her children, and soon with a child of their own settled in Los Angeles, in a house that soon became the locus of the art world and Hollywood. Brooke gave up acting, due to Dennis being jealous of the attention she was given, and she began collecting antiques and other collectibles, soon to be a collection that was the envy of many. Dennis did the same with contemporary art, buying and becoming friends with many of the players and artists on the scene, also collecting quite a variety of works. Drugs, drinking, and illness and pressures on Hopper soon drove the couple apart, another casualty of the sixties.
A fascinating book about two very different people who has a tremendous amount in common, and extraordinary eyes in finding beauty among, well things sometimes. The sourceing of the book is amazing, with copious footnotes and great stories and asides from various people who were there. The book is more of a biography on a couple that fell away from each other, but of the rise of art and collecting in America, a history of film, and how Los Angeles came to be what it is today. These two were Zelig-like in being among so much interesting changes in art and history, hanging out with Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, and Marcel Duchamp for example.
A very comprehensive biography of a couple in a very exciting and changing time. This is a very good overview focusing on art, the movies, music, and lifestyles in Los Angeles and in America. A perfect book for film fans, art students and people who want inspiration for crafting and creating their art. A compelling story of two people who were perfect for their age, and each other, until they were not.
Dennis Hopper had already burned a lot of bridges in Hollywood due to both his intensity which was deserved, and his reputation, which was undeserved. Brooke Hayward was a daughter of Hollywood royalty, starring in her first play when a young actor was pushed onto the production. Annoyance soon became love and the couple with her children, and soon with a child of their own settled in Los Angeles, in a house that soon became the locus of the art world and Hollywood. Brooke gave up acting, due to Dennis being jealous of the attention she was given, and she began collecting antiques and other collectibles, soon to be a collection that was the envy of many. Dennis did the same with contemporary art, buying and becoming friends with many of the players and artists on the scene, also collecting quite a variety of works. Drugs, drinking, and illness and pressures on Hopper soon drove the couple apart, another casualty of the sixties.
A fascinating book about two very different people who has a tremendous amount in common, and extraordinary eyes in finding beauty among, well things sometimes. The sourceing of the book is amazing, with copious footnotes and great stories and asides from various people who were there. The book is more of a biography on a couple that fell away from each other, but of the rise of art and collecting in America, a history of film, and how Los Angeles came to be what it is today. These two were Zelig-like in being among so much interesting changes in art and history, hanging out with Miles Davis, Andy Warhol, and Marcel Duchamp for example.
A very comprehensive biography of a couple in a very exciting and changing time. This is a very good overview focusing on art, the movies, music, and lifestyles in Los Angeles and in America. A perfect book for film fans, art students and people who want inspiration for crafting and creating their art. A compelling story of two people who were perfect for their age, and each other, until they were not.
February 22, 2023
Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles by Mark Rozzo (Ecco 2022) (791.43028) (3727).
I love to read about the political and countercultural outliers and icons of the sixties, and actor Dennis Hopper was that in spades. I knew that he had a reputation as a madman and was considered an outcast by the Hollywood establishment. I did NOT know that he was also a talented photographer and a pop art collecting savant.
Likewise, I had never heard of the actor Brooke Hayward, who was for a time Hopper’s wife and partner in stirring the pot of general craziness that was Los Angeles in those days.
I’ll mention first what I liked about this book, and then I’ll take up what I found to be banal and tedious.
I liked that this volume contains some cool stories about the LA underground in the days when LSD was still legal. Early in the book author Mark Rozzo shares a few stories about Hopper’s early films with James Dean (Rebel With A Cause, Giant), and the very end of the book tells a bit about Hopper’s roles as actor and director of the legendary film Easy Rider. There is a sentence or two which mentions that Hopper appeared in the David Lynch film Blue Velvet as well as a small nod to acknowledge that Hopper appeared in Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now.
Those were the things I liked about this book.
Here are the things about the book with which I was less than enamored.
The book was in large part a recitation of the names and selected works of the “important” painters/sculptors/photographers who were considered to be cutting-edge visual artists of the day. I realize that Andy Warhol and his crowd were considered leaders of the New York avant-garde, but this reader has no interest in the author’s preferences as to the visual arts.
This book is also in large part a paean to the “Old Hollywood” system when the studios, the producers, and the directors were moguls who controlled their fiefdom with fists of iron. While Dennis Hopper was constantly at loggerheads with the Hollywood powers that be, his wife Brooke Hayward was a product of that very system and the scion of a leading “Old Hollywood” power couple.
This reader has no interest in Hollywood gossip and no interest in LA’s visual art or artists of that time.
If a reader is particularly interested in Hollywood “dish” from the fifties and sixties or finds “pop art” particularly intriguing, this book is for that person. Otherwise, Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles is a better choice for sampling rather than for close and careful study.
My rating: 7/10, finished 2/22/23 (3727).
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