Everybody Thought We Were Crazy: Dennis Hopper, Brooke Hayward, and 1960s Los Angeles

Dennis Hopper and Brooke Hayward met in 1961 while getting ready to perform on Broadway. The play was called Mandingo and lasted a week in the theater. The couple began a relationship that would not make it through the 1960s. Hayward was a daughter of show business who wanted to distinguish herself in her career. Hopper was a Kansas boy who relocated to California and saw himself as an actor.

By the time of their working together, Hopper’s reputation as a bad boy preceded him and he was virtually unemployable. Hayward’s decision to try acting led to a divorce. Initially, their relationship grounded them. The pair found work in television and occasional movies. They mingled and hobnobbed with artists and auteurs alike. Yet, as the 1960s turned revolutionary, Hopper’s erratic behavior threatened his marriage, career, and sanity.

Everybody Thought We Were Crazy by Mark Rozzo is as much a biography of a marriage as it is a microcosm of the chaotic decade of the 1960s. Hayward and Hopper are fascinating individuals on their own, but together, they were intriguing and explosive. Author Mark Rozzo has penned a remarkable dual biography that was hard to put down, as the subject matter never ceased to be illuminating.