Updated 04-May-2020.
Mondo shtuff from around the internet, all about WILLIAM HOPPER!
My botty best at summarizing from Wikipedia: the only child of actor DeWolf Hopper and actress and Hollywood columnist Hedda Hopper, he appeared in predominantly minor roles in more than 80 feature films in the 1930s and ’40s . hopper made his film debut as a baby in his father’s 1916 silent movie Sunshine Dad . his mother divorced his father in 1922 and moved to Hollywood with their son . he made his first stage appearance at the early in his film career, Hopper appeared in numerous movies, uncredited and also under the name DeWolf Hopper . in 1936, he played a small role as a soldier in the Columbia Pictures film The hopper received a bronze star and several other medals during operations in the Pacific . he combined business and acting when opportunities came up during the advent of television . “i didn’t even think about acting much until a “i was so lousy, so nervous, I didn’t even know where the camera was,” he says . “but somehow Billy got me through,” says hopper . he thanks “wellman” for his Hopper subsequently appeared in two of Wellman’s films, Track of the Cat (1954) and Good-bye, My Lady (1956) he was cast to star opposite Claire Trevor in the live television drama, “No “something happened then. It was as if someone had surgically removed the nerves,” he says . in 1956 he guest-starred again on television during the first season of the western series Gunsmoke . some of Hopper’s other television guest appearances include The Joseph Cotten Show, Fury, Studio 57, and The Millionaire . he initially tested for the title role, while Raymond burr read for the role “Hopper was perfect as Drake, and we got him,” says executive producer Gail Patrick Jackson . “as Paul Drake, William Hopper was called on to be the most versatile of the principals in the Perry Mason cast,” despite being a rather late bloomer to the acting field, he played all the parts surprisingly well . the 1959 episode, “The Case of Paul Drake’s Dilemma”, had Hopper’s character on the couple divorced in 1959, and later that same year, Hopper married Jeanette Juanita Ward . he died of pneumonia three weeks later, on march 6, at age 55 . Hopper’s death came five days