Cliff Worley died (again) today

I have lost count the number of times I've watched True Romance and there is no doubt that the Sicilians speech Cliff Worley gives just before his untimely death is one of the most memorable in modern cinema.

And now the real speaker of those words, the late, great Dennis Hopper has passed away too. Luckily not at the hand of Christopher Walken or any other Sicilian mobsters, but unluckily by Cancer.

Hopper has had an amazing film career, yes for every Easy Rider or Apocalypse Now there might be a Super Mario Bros. movie, but surely no one can begrudge an actor who has to live and has families to support (Hopper had 5 marriages - 1 for just 9 days), their job is to act - not to write the script. Besides just imagine the meeting where the casting agents thought Frank Booth would be great in a kids film.

Being a child of the 70s, Hopper came into my life in my late teens with Cool Hand Luke, Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, The Trip, River's Edge and Blue Velvet all being watched on videos late into the night. Hopper isn't for daytime or evening consumption - he's a creature for the night. Hopper brought Feck and Frank Booth into our cinematic consciousness in 1985 how bonkers is that? For those who haven't seen River's Edge it has the also fantastic Crispin Glover out Dennis Hopper-ing Hopper and even Keanu Reeves pulls a half decent performance.

I sat and watched mesmerized by True Romance at the cinema it's almost perfect in every way, I went with a few mates and we probably snuck some bottles of beer into the cinema, which we always did around then - always a far more civilised way to watch a film. A friend went to see it on a first date. I've always been jealous of that, what a great first date movie.

Hopper was also a photographer and an artist with exhibitions around the world. His work graced Ike and Tina Turner and The Smiths Greatest Hits record covers.

The last Hopper film I saw at the cinema was Land of the Dead. Hopper meets Romero, yeh sure, it's not Dawn of the Dead but hey, a decent zombie movie none the less.  "Zombies, man. They creep me out." He said as Kaufman.

Whilst Hopper won't be around to make anymore movies, he'll always be around when we press that play button on that movie and you know it's a better movie for having him in it.

Goodnight Dennis Hopper, tonight I'll raise a cold one to you.