Dennis Hopper dies of cancer

US actor and director Dennis Hopper, who had been suffering from terminal prostate cancer, has died at his home in Venice, California,

Dennis Hopper poses for a portrait while promoting the film "Hell Ride" during the 2008 Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah in 2008.

US actor and director Dennis Hopper, a counterculture icon who worked with Hollywood legends including James Dean and director Francis Ford Coppola, has died at age 74, US media has reported. The actor had been suffering from terminal prostate cancer and died at his home in Venice, California, US media said, citing Hopper's family. Hopper was perhaps best known for his turn as both actor and director in the 1969 road movie classic "Easy Rider," which also starred Peter Fonda and a young Jack Nicholson. The film was wildly successful, going on to become a cult classic. Its anti-establishment credo and attractive low budget meant it went far toward prodding often risk-averse Hollywood toward producing a raft of low-budget copycat flicks. Hopper won an Oscar for the movie's original screenplay in 1970, and went on to be nominated for a best supporting actor award for his role in "Hoosiers". In recent years, Hopper was more likely to be making headlines with news of his health and his troubled marriage than with his work. In October 2009, his manager revealed the actor was undergoing treatment for prostate cancer and just three months later, court records showed Hopper had filed for divorce from his wife of nearly 14 years. The divorce became a public and bitter battle that ended with Hopper agreeing to pay his wife and daughter $12,000 in monthly spousal and child support. Hopper did not attend the April court session where the support amount was announced, with his lawyer saying the actor weighed less than 100 pounds (45 kilograms). In late March, he did attend the ceremony unveiling his own star on the Hollywood Boulevard, flanked by some of the many screen legends he worked with over a career spanning nearly half a century. "Everyone here today that I've invited and obviously some that I haven't invited have enriched my life tremendously," Hopper said. "They've shown me a world that I would never have seen being a farm boy from Dodge City, Kansas, and learning things I would never have learned." *AFP