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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTravers: Peter Fonda, The Easiest Rider of Them All
https://www.rollingstone.com/movies/movie-features/peter-fonda-tribute-873038/...
The Easy Rider himself, Peter Fonda, was pushing 80 when he passed away early Friday morning it was respiratory failure due to lung cancer that took him out. But that gamechanging 1969 movie made him immortal, freezing him in time as Wyatt, the stoned biker chasing an elusive freedom. Wearing a leather jacket (a large U.S. flag sewn across the back) on a Harley and going by the handle Captain America, Fonda rode into screen history by roaring through the American south in celebration of hippies, communes, drugs, free love and anything that raised a finger to the Establishment. Easy Rider was a western played as an acid-fueled road trip. Along with his costar and co-writer Dennis Hopper, who played Billy (as in Billy the Kid) to Fondas Wyatt (as in Earp), Fonda blasted a hole in Hollywoods lazy mainstream culture. It made $60 million on a $400,000 investment. It turned indie filmmaking into the coolest game in town.
Fonda and Hopper, who died in 2010, fought like badgers for the rest of their lives about who deserved credit for the film the former produced and the latter directed (they both were Oscar nominated for the screenplay they wrote with Terry Southern). For Fonda, one of the unintended consequences of the wildfire success of Easy Rider, also noted for a bright, shiny breakthrough performance from Jack Nicholson as a boozing ACLU lawyer befriended by the bikers, was to reduce this member of a showbiz dynasty to a one-trick pony. In fact, he created quality work before and well after he went searching for America and couldnt find it anywhere. And he did it against daunting odds.
...
The Easy Rider himself, Peter Fonda, was pushing 80 when he passed away early Friday morning it was respiratory failure due to lung cancer that took him out. But that gamechanging 1969 movie made him immortal, freezing him in time as Wyatt, the stoned biker chasing an elusive freedom. Wearing a leather jacket (a large U.S. flag sewn across the back) on a Harley and going by the handle Captain America, Fonda rode into screen history by roaring through the American south in celebration of hippies, communes, drugs, free love and anything that raised a finger to the Establishment. Easy Rider was a western played as an acid-fueled road trip. Along with his costar and co-writer Dennis Hopper, who played Billy (as in Billy the Kid) to Fondas Wyatt (as in Earp), Fonda blasted a hole in Hollywoods lazy mainstream culture. It made $60 million on a $400,000 investment. It turned indie filmmaking into the coolest game in town.
Fonda and Hopper, who died in 2010, fought like badgers for the rest of their lives about who deserved credit for the film the former produced and the latter directed (they both were Oscar nominated for the screenplay they wrote with Terry Southern). For Fonda, one of the unintended consequences of the wildfire success of Easy Rider, also noted for a bright, shiny breakthrough performance from Jack Nicholson as a boozing ACLU lawyer befriended by the bikers, was to reduce this member of a showbiz dynasty to a one-trick pony. In fact, he created quality work before and well after he went searching for America and couldnt find it anywhere. And he did it against daunting odds.
...
******
RIP, Peter!
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Travers: Peter Fonda, The Easiest Rider of Them All (Original Post)
BlueMTexpat
Aug 2019
OP
BeyondGeography
(39,371 posts)1. Great read
Ulees Gold was a film that did my heart good. RIP Peter.
malaise
(268,980 posts)2. Beautiful
Rec
calimary
(81,238 posts)3. I envision him on a big bike, rolling down the highway through Heaven with Dennis Hopper.
And bygones being bygones. Just like in the movies.
RIP, Peter.
pangaia
(24,324 posts)4. I saw it in Memphis when it came out...
I was born at the right time.....
Mendocino
(7,488 posts)5. It has allegedly been said
that Wyatt (Fonda) and Billy (Hopper) were based on Roger McGuinn and David Crosby of The Byrds.
BlueMTexpat
(15,369 posts)6. That is interesting.
I have never heard that, but then there is a LOT I've never heard!