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This is the most intimate photo I have ever taken. Dennis had embarked on a promotional junket for his second directorial work in 1970- "The Last Movie."

 

He had just experienced, and now tail-spinned away from the gloried heights of his first film- "Easy Rider." That blockbuster was a seminal work which had literally altered the course of film making. Hopper and Peter Fonda had inadvertently taught the studios how a compelling, money making feature could be fashioned on a minuscule budget.

 

Unfortunately disaster struck and the Hollywood buzz over his very next work- "Last Movie" was that it was utterly incomprehensible; "fatally pretentious." What you see in this portrait is Dennis' realization that his Hollywood career might well be over. He shared his crushed heart with the camera. Fortunately new chapters began for Dennis and, like the proverbial Phoenix, he steadily rose from the ashes.

 

Next to him is his wife Daria Halprin who had just starred in Antonioni's Zabriskie Point.

 

This is the last photo I took of Dennis in 1997. We had just memorialized dear Alan Ginsberg.

 

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