A throwback of Johnny Depp. (Image courtesy: AFP)
London:
Johnny Depp turned a worldwide megastar enjoying off-beat characters from Willy Wonka to Captain Jack Sparrow, till his harmful off-screen life-style threatened to completely derail his profession. Pouring his personal eccentricities into his roles, Depp earned a popularity as each heartthrob and indie darling by delicate performances in movies corresponding to Edward Scissorhands and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
He stepped into one other stage of fame fronting Disney’s billion-dollar Pirates of the Caribbean franchise because the rum-swilling sea canine Captain Jack Sparrow – partly impressed by one in all his many heroes, Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards.
But his bitter authorized battles with ex-wife Amber Heard laid naked a turbulent non-public life involving rows, drink and medicines that turned him right into a poisonous determine in Hollywood, from which his profession continues to be recovering.
From music to stardom
Born June 9, 1963 in Owensboro, Kentucky, Depp set out making an attempt to be a musician, and offered ballpoint pens earlier than dabbling in appearing. He made his big-screen debut within the cult Wes Craven thriller A Nightmare on Elm Street in 1984.
From there, he launched a profitable tv profession as a baby-faced undercover police officer within the fashionable sequence 21 Jump Street.
In 1990, he performed Edward Scissorhands, a shear-fingered creature with a coronary heart of gold who brings a little bit of magic and pleasure to a small city with fanciful topiaries and cutting-edge hairdos.
It was one in all a number of collaborations with director Tim Burton that additionally included Ed Wood, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Alice in Wonderland.
Depp portrayed one other renegade hero, journalist and drug aficionado Hunter S. Thompson, in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.
It was on set of one in all Thompson’s lesser-known works, The Rum Diary that he met and starred reverse Heard in 2011.
He has additionally taken on heavier roles, corresponding to an undercover detective who infiltrates the mob in 1997’s much-loved Donnie Brasco.
Depp has been nominated thrice for an Oscar, together with for his position as “Peter Pan” creator J.M. Barrie in 2004’s “Finding Neverland” and 2007’s Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street.
He has additionally incessantly returned to his old flame of music, collaborating with Oasis, Alice Cooper and Aerosmith’s Joe Perry.
Messy non-public life
Depp dated a string of celebrities together with actress Winona Ryder and supermodel Kate Moss, and was with the mom of his two kids, French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, for 14 years.
But his life-style and funds had been a large number.
He as soon as claimed he spent greater than $30,000 a month on wine alone, and spent lavishly on artwork and property.
He informed a London courtroom in 2020 that business managers stole the $650 million he constituted of “Pirates of the Caribbean”.
His marriage to Heard in 2015 was short-lived. They cut up the next 12 months and divorced in 2017.
In 2020, he tried to sue The Sun newspaper for libel after they referred to as him a “wife beater”, admitting he took medicine however denying any violence – however he misplaced the case.
Their marriage was raked over in much more lurid element throughout a defamation trial within the United States two years later, and this time Depp was profitable.
“The jury gave me my life back,” mentioned a jubilant Depp.
But the trial was a lightning rod for opposing sides of the #MeToo debate and Depp stays a poisonous determine for a lot of, significantly within the United States.
The tumult price him his prime position in Harry Potter spin-off franchise Fantastic Beasts.
But his trial victory seems to have allowed a return. He performs King Louis XV in Jeanne du Barry, which opens the 2023 Cannes Film Festival, and sees him converse French all through.
Just a couple of days earlier, it was reported he had been given a file $20 million to stay the face of Dior perfume.
He can be set to direct Al Pacino in a biopic of artist Amedeo Modigliani later this 12 months.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV workers and is revealed from a syndicated feed.)
Source: www.ndtv.com