Jerry Hopkins

**Elisha Gerald "Jerry" Hopkins** (November 9, 1935 – June 3, 2018) was an American journalist and author. He was best known for writing the first biographies of both Elvis Presley and Jim Morrison of The Doors, as well as serving for 20 years as a writer for _Rolling Stone_ magazine.  He also wrote several other biographies, wrote history and humor, and was a writer-producer for Mike Wallace, Steve Allen and Mort Sahl.  He has published 36 books and an estimated one thousand magazine articles. The books have been translated into 16 languages and total sales exceed 6 million.

## Early life

Hopkins was born on November 9, 1935 in Camden, New Jersey. He was raised in nearby Haddonfield, a town founded by Quakers.  His parents operated a dry cleaning store.

## Education

He attended a Quaker school through 6th grade and public schools through 12th. He earned a BA in journalism from Washington & Lee University in Lexington, Virginia (1957). For a short time, he worked as a reporter for the _Twin City Sentinel_ in Winston-Salem, North Carolina. He was in the US Army for a short time. After that, he earned an MS in journalism from Columbia University in New York (1959).

## Early career

After freelancing articles to the then-young _Village Voice_ while at Columbia, he worked as a reporter for the _Times-Picayune_ and as news editor of WWL Radio in New Orleans (1959-1961).  He joined Mike Wallace as a writer-producer in New York for one year (1961-62) then moved to Los Angeles where he was a talent coordinator and writer-producer for Steve Allen (1962-1964).  He also wrote and produced television programs for Mort Sahl, ABC-TV and Universal Studios (1964-1966; 1971).  He wrote his first books during this period, an as-told-to autobiography of a health faddist, _Bare Feet and Good Things to Eat_ (1965), and an astrological spoof, _You Were Born on a Rotten Day_ (1969).

## Career

In the mid-1960s, he left television to open the first “headshop” in Los Angeles. He then became the Los Angeles correspondent for _Rolling Stone_ (1967-1969). He wrote features and columns for alternative newspapers, MC’ed the first love-ins in Los Angeles, edited a collection of material from the underground press, _The Hippie Papers_ (1968) and wrote a history of rock and roll, _The Rock Story_ (1970).

Leaving _Rolling Stone_ temporarily in 1969 to write _Elvis: A Biography_ (1971), it was while then serving as the magazine’s London correspondent (1972) he began researching his Morrison biography, _No One Here Gets Out Alive_.  It was rejected by more than 30 publishers before publication in 1980, when it topped the _New York Times_ bestseller chart and was credited by many with helping kick-start the Doors’ revival as well as inspiring a new publishing genre, the rock biography.  A sequel to the Elvis biography, _Elvis: The Final Years_ (1981) followed, along with biographies of Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, Yoko Ono, and Raquel Welch, the latter of which was authorized but not published.

He moved to Honolulu, where he edited a monthly newsletter about Hawaiian music and dance and published several books taking Hawaiian culture as their subject, including _The Hula_ (1981), a history; _How to Make Your Own Hawaiian Musical Instruments_ (1988); _Elvis in Hawaii_ (2002); and _Don Ho: My Life, My Music_ (2007). He also was an editor at Pacific Business News in Honolulu and a speechwriter for Mayor Frank Fasi.

Moving to Thailand in 1993, he wrote for many travel, food and airline magazines. He worked with photographer Michael Freeman on _Strange Foods: An Epicurean Adventure Around the World_ (1999), which was expanded and reissued as _Extreme Cuisine_ with a foreword by Anthony Bourdain (2004). A collection of expatriate profiles, _Bangkok Babylon_ (2005); a book of stories and essays, _Thailand Confidential_ (2005); and _Asian Aphrodisiacs_ (2006) followed.  His 37th book, profiling Western novelists who helped forge the Asian myth, _Romancing the East_, will be published in 2013.

## Personal life

Hopkins has been married four times, to Sara Cordell (1959-1963), Jane Hollingsworth (1968-1976), Rebecca Erickson Crockett (1980-1988) and has two grown children by his second wife, Erin Hendershot (b.1970) and Nick Hopkins (b. 1972), and six grandchildren.  He and his wife, Lamyai (m. 2003), a citizen of Thailand, divide their time between a flat in Bangkok and a house and farm six hours away in rice country near the Cambodian border.

Hopkins died on June 3, 2018 in Bangkok of heart failure at the age of 82.

## Bibliography

1. Bare Feet & Good Things to Eat (1965) with Gypsy Boots
1. The Hippie Papers (1968) Editor
1. You Were Born on a Rotten Day (1969) with Jim Critchfield
1. The Rock Story (1970)
1. Groupies & Other Girls (1970) with John Burks
1. Festival: An American Celebration (1970) with Jim Marshall & Baron Wolman (photographers)
1. Elvis: A Biography (1971)
1. The Last Sex Manual (1978) with Ron Pion, MD
1. No One Here Gets Out Alive (1980) with Danny Sugerman
1. The Hula (1981)
1. Elvis: The Final Years (1981)
1. Hit & Run: The Jimi Hendrix Story (1983)
1. Bowie (1985)
1. Fax to Da Max (1985) with Peppo (illustrator)
1. Yoko Ono (1986)
1. The L.A. Book of Lists (1987)
1. Vinny: Part II, The Habilitat Story (1987) with Vincent Marino
1. Fax 2 Da Max (1988)
1. How to Make Your Own Hawaiian Musical Instruments (1988) with Martin Charlot (illustrator)
1. The Westin Maui (1989) with William Waterfall (photographer)
1. Kauai Lagoons (1990) with William Waterfall (photographer)
1. 50 Simple Things You Can Do to Save Hawaii (1990) with Susan Manual
1. Frank DeLima’s Joke Book (1991) with Frank DeLima
1. The Lizard King: The Essential Jim Morrison (1992)
1. The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1996) Updated reprint
1. Strange Foods (1999) with Michael Freeman (photographer)
1. Elvis in Hawaii (2002)
1. Extreme Cuisine (2004) with Michael Freeman (photographer)
1. In the Name of the Boss Upstairs: The Father Ray Brennan Story (2004)
1. Thailand Confidential (2005)
1. Bangkok Babylon (2005)
1. The Pacific Showman (2005) with Tom Moffatt
1. Asian Aphrodisiacs (2006)
1. Aloha Elvis (2007)
1. Don Ho: My Life, My Music (2007) with Don Ho
1. Elvis: The Biography (2007)
1. Memberships
1. The Writers Guild of America (1961-Emeritus)
1. The Foreign Correspondents Club of Thailand (1993-Present)
1. The Explorers Club (2000-Present)

## Other websites

- Official website
- Interview
- Interview from 2009
- Interview from 2012 (PDF)