The music scoring their journey also had some influence on their appearance, with Wyatt-or “Captain America”, if you will-reportedly modeled after Roger McGuinn while Hopper’s mustachioed Billy bears an undeniable resemblance to David Crosby, a founding member of The Byrds.
Their illicit trade notwithstanding, our two protagonists are established as outlaws from the outset, their names borrowed from seminal “wild west” figures like Wyatt Earp and Billy the Kid, charging through the countryside not on horses but on Harleys. There’s plenty more drug use along the way, from a few LSD tabs scored from a fellow traveler to introducing the wild-eyed lawyer George Hanson (Jack Nicholson) to marijuana, but the substances are secondary as Easy Rider allegorizes the death-or, perhaps, the contemporary redefinition-of the American dream. The iconoclastic filmmaker had been acting on screen since the ’50s before he made his directorial debut with the groundbreaking Easy Rider.įilmed early in 1968 but not released until the tumultuous summer of ’69, Easy Rider had been conceptualized by Hopper with screenwriter Terry Southern and fellow actor Peter Fonda, who would join Hopper on screen as the pair of freedom-loving bikers we follow across the country following a lucrative cocaine sale. The late Dennis Hopper was born 86 years ago today on May 17, 1936. Dennis Hopper as Billy in Easy Rider (1969) Vitalsĭennis Hopper as Billy, cowboy-styled biker and cocaine smugglerĪcross the southern United States from Los Angeles through Louisiana, February 1968
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