Johnny Depp Biography

Musician, actor and director Johnny Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky as John Christopher Depp, Jr. on June 9, 1963. His parents were Betty Sue and John Depp. At the same time as his father was a civil engineer, his mother was a waitress and a housewife. He happened to be the youngest of four children and was often withdrawn and a self-admitted oddball. Due to his father’s profession, they often moved to different places and finally landed in Miramar, Florida.

Early Life

At the age of 7, Johnny lived with his family in a motel in Miramar for 12 months, until his father found another job. At the age of 12, he began smoking and started experimenting with drugs. He was frequently disturbed by the stress of family problems. He would often lock himself in a room and play guitar for hours. When he was 15, his parents got divorced in the year 1978. It is known that the split caused a huge rift between his father and himself.

Johnny dropped out of school when he was 16 and joined the garage band called ‘The Kids’. The group became pretty popular and started opening for ‘Talking Heads’ and the ‘B-52’s’, however the income wasn’t enough. Johnny lived for months in his friend’s Chevy Impala. At the age of 20, in 1983, he met and later married the 25 year old make-up girl Lori Allison. The couple moved to LA in the same year, looking forward to the success of the band. With a small budget, the band mates would sell pens for a telemarketing firm, in order to make some extra money.

Career

His wife introduced Johnny to her ex-boyfriend, Nicolas Cage a year later. It is known that Cage sported a lot of potential in the young musician and introduced him to a Hollywood agent. After a few small roles, Johnny got his first legitimate movie role in the popular horror film called ‘Nightmare on Elm Street’. The garage band was broken apart by 1985 and he got divorced in the same year. After his divorce, he met Sherilyn Fenn on the set of his upcoming film, ‘Dummies’. The couple dated for a few months and then got engaged, but the affair was fairly short lived. After this break-up, Johnny was associated to actress Jennifer Gray; however that romance didn’t last long enough as well.

He then focused solely on acting and attended classes at the Loft Studios in LA. His dedication towards acting paid off in 1987 where he replaced the actor Jeff Yagher for the role of an undercover cop in the Canadian TV series ’21 Jump Street’. This role took him to an instant stardom and he soon became a teen-idol. He started pursuing better roles after the series ended in 1989. Johnny starred in the John Waters musical in 1990 called ‘Cry Baby’, which became a major cult hit and led to changing his image completely.

The Stardom

Johnny got to exhibit his flexibility as an actor in the movie called ‘Edwards Scissorhands’ in the year 1990. This movie not only brought him to the list of best actors, but also grossed about $54 million at the box office. He gradually engraved a niche for himself as a dark, serious and a characteristic performer, selecting only those roles that would click with the audiences. He met another actress Winona Ryder while shooting for this film and they soon became the next power couple of Hollywood. The couple split in 1993 when Winona’s parents forbade her to marry at the age of 17.

Besides his personal life, he continued to flourish as an actor and gained critical acclaim for his work. Some of his notable movies include ‘Benny & Joon’ as well as ‘What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?’ Along with two other business partners, Johnny bought ‘The Viper Club’ in LA and it became one of the hottest spots in the Sunset Stripe. He used this club as a platform to introduce patrons to his newly formed musical band ‘P’. However actor River Phoenix experienced a drug overdose in this club and died on October 31.

The Depression

After the incident in the club, Johnny submerged himself into drugs and started losing control of his life. He then had a disparaging relationship with the model Kate Moss in the year 1994 and the couple started making headlines for their erratic behaviour. The happenings in his personal life didn’t seem to affect his professional life and he continued his critically acclaimed movies such as ‘Ed Wood’ and ‘Don Juan DeMarco’.

He split with Kate Moss in the year 1998 and was involved in a relationship with a French actress, Vanessa Paradis who later became the biological mother of his first daughter, ‘Lily-Rose Melody Depp’. He became popular with some of his movies thereafter such as ‘Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas’, ‘The Ninth Gate’, ‘The Astronaut’s Wife’ and ‘Sleepy Hollow’. A few of the big-budget films to follow include ‘Blow’, ‘From Hell’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico’. His relationship with Vanessa continued and she gave birth to his second child called ‘Jack’.

The Academy Award Nominations

Jonny received an Academy Award nomination for his role as Captain Jack Sparrow in the year 2004 for the movie ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. The film was a box office hit and he starred in another critically acclaimed movie called ‘Finding Neverland’. This movie received as many as 10 award nominations and he stared in both the sequels for the pirate series. He then emerged as a dark character in the movie called ‘Sweeney Todd – The Demon Barber of Fleet Street’. He received a Golden Globe Award for his work in this movie. Three of his films are slated to release this year which also include the adaptation of the classic ‘Alice in Wonderland’.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 30th, 2009 at 4:55 PM and is filed under Actors/Actress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.