Sad news. The rebel with a self-destructive streak, some-time actor and artist and director Dennis Hopper has died of cancer in his 70s. Notable for directing Easy Rider, the breakthrough Hollywood film of its time, as well as for co-starring with James Dean in Rebel Without A Cause, Hopper later put in bizarre and unforgettable performances as a character actor in several off-kilter movies, including Apocalypse Now and Blue Velvet. He had an unexpected return in the big-budget Speed, as the lunatic bomber. Hopper's role in Lynch's classic will remain his signature performance, perhaps the most vile, upsetting and original portrayal of sexual evil ever put onto US celluloid. He managed to both fail endlessly in his life and career and remain a freewheeling icon of a somewhat faded ideal of American hedonism and freedom.
THAT HANDSOME MAN A PERSONAL BRIEF REVIEW BY TODD SWIFT I could lie and claim Larkin, Yeats , or Dylan Thomas most excited me as a young poet, or even Pound or FT Prince - but the truth be told, it was Thom Gunn I first and most loved when I was young. Precisely, I fell in love with his first two collections, written under a formalist, Elizabethan ( Fulke Greville mainly), Yvor Winters triad of influences - uniquely fused with an interest in homerotica, pop culture ( Brando, Elvis , motorcycles). His best poem 'On The Move' is oddly presented here without the quote that began it usually - Man, you gotta go - which I loved. Gunn was - and remains - so thrilling, to me at least, because so odd. His elegance, poise, and intelligence is all about display, about surface - but the surface of a panther, who ripples with strength beneath the skin. With Gunn, you dressed to have sex. Or so I thought. Because I was queer (I maintain the right to lay claim to that
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