Celebrities
The Life of a Film Star

Johnny Depp
Adapted from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.

Johnny Depp (born John Christopher Depp II on June 9, 1963) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor.

Early Life

Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky to John Christopher Depp, Sr. and Betty Sue Palmer. He has one brother, Danny, and two sisters, Christie (who is now Depp's personal manager) and Debbie. The Depp family has Cherokee (Depp’s maternal grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee), Irish, French and German ancestry; The name Depp is French in origin. The family was constantly on the move during Depp's childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than twenty different locations, finally settling in Miramar, Florida in 1970. Depp has admitted to engaging in self-mutilation as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 interview, he explained his self-injury by saying that his "body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist".

Depp's parents divorced in 1978, and he dropped out of school a year later to become a rock musician. Depp's mother bought him a guitar at age thirteen, and he began playing in garage bands. He played with a band named "The Kids", who had modest local success and set out for Los Angeles, California in pursuit of a record deal. Depp married Lori Anne Allison, the sister of the drummer of the band, on December 20, 1983. The marriage caused friction between the band members and the group split before signing a record deal. During Depp's marriage, his wife worked as a makeup artist and he worked a variety of odd jobs, including as a pen salesman. Later, his wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to pursue an acting career. In 1985, Depp and Allison divorced.

Career

Depp's first major role was in the 1984 horror film A Nightmare on Elm Street. He was subsequently cast in a lead role on the FOX TV television series, 21 Jump Street. The series' success turned Depp into a popular teen idol during the late 1980s. Depp found the status an irritant, but the role was too lucrative to leave.

Depp left his teen idol image in 1990, after playing the quirky title role in the Tim Burton film, Edward Scissorhands. The film's success began a long association with Burton, as Depp starred in several of his films, including Ed Wood (1994), Sleepy Hollow (1999), Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (2005) and Corpse Bride (2005).

Depp's film characters have been described by the press as "iconic loners", and Depp has noted that this period of his career was full of "studio defined failures" and films that were "box office poison", stating that he believes film studios never "understood" the films he appeared in and did not know how to properly market them. Depp has also said that he specifically chose to appear in films that he found personally interesting, rather then those he thought would succeed at the box office.

Depp's status as a major star was solidified with the success of the 2003 Walt Disney Pictures film, Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl, where he was highly praised for his lead performance as the wacky pirate Captain Jack Sparrow. The performance was initially received negatively by the studio bosses who saw the film, but the character became popular with the movie-going public. The film's director, Gore Verbinski, has said that Depp's Jack Sparrow character closely resembles Depp's own personality. Depp, who has noted that he was "surprised" and "touched" at the positive reception given to the film, was nominated for an Academy Award for the role. In 2004, he was again nominated for a Best Actor Oscar, this time for playing author J. M. Barrie in the film Finding Neverland. Depp next starred as Willy Wonka in the 2005 remake Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which was a major success at the box office.

Depp's latest film, opening on July 7, 2006, is Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, the first of two sequels to the 2003 film. The next sequel will be released in May of 2007. Depp has mentioned his attachment to his Captain Jack Sparrow character, specifying that Sparrow is "definitely a big part of me", and expressing his desire to portray the character in further sequels.

In late June 2006, several reports indicated that Depp has joined the cast of the upocming science fiction-action film, I Am Legend, which also stars Will Smith and will begin filming in September of 2006. Depp has also been in talks to appear in a film version of the musical Sweeney Todd, which may be directed by Tim Burton. He has denied rumors that he has been offered to play either musician Michael Hutchence or writer Edgar Allan Poe in upcoming film biographies.

Personal life

Since his first marriage ended, Depp has dated and been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. Depp is now in a long-term relationship with French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate in 1998. The couple have two children, daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp (b. May 27, 1999) and son John Christopher "Jack" Depp III (b. April 9, 2002). The family divides their time between Los Angeles and a villa in the South of France. Depp also owns an island in the Caribbean, where he spends some of his time.

Depp, a musician, is a keen guitar player and a big fan of the Rolling Stones. He can be heard playing slide guitar on the Oasis song "Fade In-Out" (from Be Here Now, 1997), as well as playing an acoustic guitar in the movie Chocolat and playing on the soundtrack to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. He also performed on Shane MacGowan's first solo album and was a member of P, a group featuring Butthole Surfers singer Gibby Haynes.

Along with Sean Penn and Mick Hucknall, Depp part-owns the Parisian restaurant-bar Man Ray. He has thirteen tattoos, including the inscriptions "Lily-Rose" (the name of his first-born child), "Betty Sue" (his mother's name), and "Wino Forever" (originally "Winona Forever"); Depp had the tattoo altered after his break-up with Winona Ryder).