I never left the house yesterday. I spent the day rummaging the Internet for details about Dennis’s life these past thirty years. I am so sad about his illness; I guess he’s either in the hospital or at home “on his deathbed.”

I found the deposition (is that the word?) … his wife’s response to his demand for an immediate divorce. He has five units, apparently, on his compound. Victoria Duffy Hopper, his wife, married him when she was twenty-four; she’s now forty-two and seven or eight years younger than Marin Brooke Hopper, his daughter by Brooke Hayward Duchin, his first wife and author of “Haywire.” (I thought Peter Duchin was married to Cheray Zauderer, with whom I went to school a thousand years ago.)

Yesterday I sent Dennis an email via his manager’s assistant: “Dear Dennis, Thank you for Providence Magazine. I’m praying for you. All my love, Barbara.” I wonder if he will actually get it. And what his reaction will be, though I really do think of him as a friend.

His wife has two credit cards with $5,000 limits on each, which she spends every month ($10,000 per month). She is petitioning for the right to take one of the units on his compound and the million dollars from one of the life insurance plans he has and a quarter, I think it was, of everything else when he dies. They have been married for fourteen years. But Marin, apparently, doesn’t much like Victoria and doesn’t hide the fact. She, too, is living on the compound (“without paying rent” all the tabloids will tell you) and one reason for the sudden divorce request is that she wants custody of Galen, Victoria and Dennis’s six-year old daughter – whom Victoria took with her to Boston for Christmas – which broke Dennis’s heart, because it was probably to be his last. I can understand his dismay, but I can understand her need, too, to be with her own family and away from his “team,” as it were.

She told the judge that he smokes marijuana, keeps guns in the house, and watches a great deal of television. I wouldn’t want to be in a house with guns either, even if the compound is on the edge of the Venice (California) ghetto, though it is being gentrified, apparently.

But I do understand his kindness, and what, for example, a huge gesture it was to allow me the use of his name on the advisory board of my effort (Providence magazine). And after reading “D.V.” by Diana Vreeland thirty years ago, I called him and asked if he would direct it with me in the role of Diana Vreeland and Sam Waterston in the role of Reed Vreeland. Dennis said yes. I even wrote to Diana Vreeland about it (she wrote back and told me to get in touch with her agent, Swifty Lazar), but I’m not any good at raising money so the project didn’t come to fruition. I’m sure he thought of me when “The Devil Wears Prada” came out.

I’ve never enjoyed Dennis in those evil roles (“Speed,” “Blue Velvet,” etc). Because I don’t find evil interesting. I find it neurotic. It is banal.

But he breaks your heart in that movie “Hoosiers.” He is so alive… the film becomes electric when he comes on screen. And “Easy Rider,” of course. He not only starred in that, and directed it – he virtually discovered Jack Nicholson, certainly turned him into a star – he co-wrote it with Terry Southern, whom he introduced me to.

We only spent three weeks together -- when Caterine Milinaire, my author upstairs neighbor, was promoting a book in France. She left him home alone, and there I was, just coming off a celibacy fast of seven months because a young French Adonis who had told me he’d be back six months earlier had gotten a girl pregnant in the meantime and then he married her. (Later, they divorced.)

So there I was, sitting pretty right downstairs.

It was friendship more than anything else. He liked me. He listened to me – to my ideas. He wasn’t threatened. He was a genius and could afford to be generous. Two nights of those three weeks together we stayed up all night talking. We forgot to go to sleep.

I love him. He changed my world. He made me feel like an authentic artist. When I went out to sing, subsequent to our time together,  I felt as if I were sort of his representative. I’ve often said that my time with him was better than a degree from Harvard. Dennis Hopper gave me authority. I wasn’t afraid: I “spoke” when I sang. I “bestowed.” I wasn’t needy for the applause.

I knew I was violating my friendship with Caterine, but something told me it would be that important. And it was. I am bold because of Dennis Hopper. I’m bold and never bored. I’ve celebrated his successes from afar… so proud of him when he overcame his dependence on alcohol.

He was in a film with Wesley Snipes – I don’t remember the name of it – where he dances with some girl at a place called “The Palace.” She’s just anybody else, but then in her scenes with Dennis, you suddenly can’t keep your eyes off her. Because he brings out the best in women. He did it with me and he did it with her. But you watch: he does it with all his stars. He listens! He listens with attention and respect. (That’s what Cotta, the French Adonis wrote to me: “Je t’écoute avec attention et respect.” He also said, “J’aime ta couleur comme chat noir qui hurl à mort.” (I love your color like a black cat who howls at death.)

I wish the same for my dear friend, Dennis Hopper. Howl at death! Refuse it. The world needs more of you.  •  Barbara Waterston, March 5, 2010

P.S. (Monday, March 8) I saw "Speed" over the weekend and I was mistaken; he was brilliant.