Hopper by Tom Folsom Read Free Book Online

delinquent. Or was she?
    A randy Hopper took her up twisty Mulholland Drive through the Santa Monica Mountains, haunted by the ghosts of thrill-seeking teens who had turned the dangerous road into a makeshift drag strip, inspiring the harrowing “chickie run” scene in the Rebel screenplay. Hopper drank half a bottle of whiskey and handed it over. Natalie puked. It started to rain. Now they were really bad, living the nightmarish drama as they wheeled down a treacherously slick stretch of killer road. Turning a hairpin corner, Hopper plowed his red convertible head-on into an oncoming car, throwing Natalie onto the street. Neighbors ran out with blankets, and the ambulance roared toward her.
    â€œIt’s all my fault,” groaned Hopper. “I shouldn’t have brought that bottle.”
    At the emergency room, Nicholas Ray pushed his Goon up against the white wall and slapped him. “Shut up,” said Ray. “And straighten up.”
    Looking at Ray’s bad, bad Lolita scratched up in a hospital bed, the doctor called her a goddamn juvenile delinquent.
    â€œDo you hear what he called me, Nick?” screamed Natalie. “He called me a goddamn juvenile delinquent! Now do I get the part?”
    Hopper was amazed. Lying in the street in the rain, Natalie hadn’t been calling for her mother but instead rattled off the digits of the Chateau Marmont, repeating, “Nick Ray . . . the number is,” conscious enough to know she was in the throes of a breakout performance that needed to be seen at once.
    Stunned at this totally neurotic, completely savvy freak wunderkind on her way to megastardom—practically daring him to one-up her—Hopper prepared to shed any trace of the fresh-faced goody-goody voted most likely to succeed.
    On the first day of shooting, Ray sent a dozen roses to Natalie’s dressing room. Just like Goon, a real delinquent, Hopper freaked out and called Natalie all sorts of nasty names for whoring around with Nick.
    â€œAll the guys just wanna screw me,” said Natalie of her silver fox. “He just wants to make love to me.”
    Just as the director was about to shoot the planetarium scene at the Griffith Observatory, Hopper ran off to get a hot dog, holding up production and costing the studio plenty. Ray tried to fire him on the spot, but the brat was under contract, so he cut his lines. Hopper moped while Dean moved like a jungle cat in the fight scene, flashing about like a matador, the switchblade quick in his hand against Buzz, the bully gang leader. Dean insisted on using real blades, so real blood ran down his neck after Buzz accidentally stabbed him behind the ear.
    â€œCut!” yelled Ray, ready to call in the studio medics. Dean lost it and, by Hopper’s account, threatened to murder his director.
    â€œDon’t you ever say fucking ‘cut!’ man. I’m the only one who says ‘cut’ here! If I get that close , I want it on film. I don’t want you cutting it!”
    Frozen in the taillights of Dean’s raw talent, but refusing to be silenced into obscurity, the boy in the storm had no choice but to bump up his offscreen role as the passionate lover fighting to win back Natalie. Hopper got so into his role that he pulled aside one of his fellow Rebel delinquents, Steffi, who was the daughter of Hollywood columnist Sidney Skolsky. Hopper detailed how he’d gone out with a gun one night for a showdown with Nick at the Chateau Marmont. His attempt to end the twisted ménage à trois by blowing away the dirty rat only fed into an item the studio was sending out to Steffi’s father: “Hopper registers with the impact of a young Cagney.” But nobody seemed to pay much notice to Hopper now that his lines had been cut. He was practically an extra, forcing the studio to spread its bullshit thinner by the day.

DEAN
    W heeling a pea-green two-tone Custom Deluxe 20 Chevy pickup truck across a