Johnny Depp

Season 8, Episode 812

Original Airdate: September 8, 2002

Johnny Depp was born John Christopher Depp III on June 9, 1963 in the Ohio River town of Owensboro, KY.

After spending their early years in Western Kentucky, his father, city engineer John Christopher, and mother, waitress Betty Sue Palmer, moved young Depp, and his older siblings Danny, Christy, and Debbie to Mirimar, FL. His surroundings soon became unstable with numerous changes of address, the death of his grandfather, the divorce of his parents at age 15, and finally his decision to drop out of high school the following year.

Around this time he began to foster a prowess for music, teaching himself the electric guitar, and ultimately playing in a band called Flame (later changed to the Kids). Depp, along with his band, relocated to Los Angeles a couple of years later. Eventually they disbanded (though not before touring with Iggy Pop as the opening act), and Depp married a makeup artist named Lori Allison. Although their marriage lasted only a couple of years, Allison completely changed the course of her husband's life by introducing him to actor Nicholas Cage. Cage soon arranged a meeting between his agent and Depp, which led to his first role in the classic horror film, Wes Craven's Nightmare on Elm Street.

After playing a small part in Oliver Stone's Platoon, Depp's hunky image permeated the daydreams and notebooks of young ladies after accepting the role of Officer Tom Hanson in the Television series “21 Jump Street”. His career began the 1990s with the role of juvenile delinquent Wade “Cry-Baby” Walker in cult director John Water's campy musical, Cry-Baby.

His next project featured possibly his most memorable character, that of the synthetic scissor-handed boy in Tim Burton's enchanting tale Edward Scissorhands. Other credits included Benny and Joon, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Ed Wood (for which he received the London Critic's Circle's Actor of the Year Award), Dead Man, Donnie Brasco, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and the role of Ichabod Crane in another Burton creation, Sleepy Hollow.

Recent years have yielded an Irish rogue in Chocolat, a drug dealer in Blow, and a psychic police detective investigating the scourge of Jack the Ripper in From Hell. Depp's personal life is as colorful as his resume.