Easy Rider
Hopper had a supporting role as the bet-taker, "Babalugats", in "Cool Hand Luke" (1967). In 1968, Hopper teamed with Peter Fonda, Terry Southern and Jack Nicholson to make "Easy Rider", which premiered in July 1969. With the release of "True Grit" a month earlier, Hopper had starring roles in two major box office films that summer. Hopper won wide acclaim as the director for his improvisational methods and innovative editing for "Easy Rider". The production was plagued by creative differences and personal acrimony between Fonda and Hopper, the dissolution of Hopper's marriage to Hayward, his unwillingness to leave the editor's desk and his accelerating abuse of drugs and alcohol. Hopper said of "Easy Rider": "The cocaine problem in the United States is really because of me. There was no cocaine before "Easy Rider" on the street. After "Easy Rider", it was everywhere".