A biography of JOHNNY DEPP

Born in Kentucky in 1963, Johnny Depp landed his first

legitimate movie role in the film Nightmare on Elm
Street (1984) after having taken on several smaller
parts. Afterwards, he began studying acting. The
lessons paid off in 1987, when he landed a role on
television. He has since starred in several popular films
and gained notoriety for his work on the silver screen.
Depp has also become known for taking on darker roles,
in films such as Edward Scissorhands (1990), Sleepy
Hollow (1999) and Alice in Wonderland (2010).

Early Life
Actor Johnny Depp was born John Christopher
Depp II, in Owensboro, Kentucky, on June 9, 1963, to
parents John and Betty Sue Depp. Depp's father worked
as a civil engineer, and his mother worked as a waitress
and homemaker. The youngest of four children, Depp
was withdrawn and a self-admitted oddball. "I made odd
noises as a child," he later revealed in an interview. "Just
did weird things, like turn off light switches twice."
Johnny and his family moved frequently to
accommodate his father's job, finally landing in Miramar,
Florida, when Johnny was 7 years old. The family lived in
a motel for nearly a year, until his father found a job.
Depp hated his new home and, by the age of 12 began
smoking. "Puberty was very vague," he has said. "I
literally locked myself in a room and played guitar."
In 1978, when Depp was 15, his parents got
divorced. As the youngest of four, it became Johnny's job
to go to his father's office and pick up the weekly childsupport money. The split caused a rift between Johnny
and his father.
At 16, Depp dropped out of high school and
joined a garage band called The Kids. The group became
successful enough, but they barely made ends meet.
Depp lived for months in a friend's car.

Introduction to Acting
In 1983, at the age of 20, Johnny met and
married 25-year-old makeup artist Lori Allison. That

same year, the couple moved to L.A. with Depp's band in

the hopes of striking it big. Still living on a shoestring
budget, Depp and his band mates supported themselves
by selling pens.
A year later, Depp fell into acting when his wife
introduced him to her ex-boyfriend, actor Nicolas Cage.
Cage saw potential in Depp, and introduced the hopeful
musician to a Hollywood agent. After several small roles
as a film extra, Depp landed his first legitimate movie role
in the horror film Nightmare on Elm Street (1984). By
1985 Depp's marriage had broken up.
Depp started to study acting in earnest, and the
lessons paid off in 1987, when he played the role of an
undercover cop in a popular television series. The role
thrust Depp into almost immediate stardom. He became
a teen idol overnight; a title that he greatly resented.
When his contract on the TV series expired in 1989, he
leapt at the opportunity to pursue weightier roles.

Mainstream Success
In 1990, Depp starred in the musical Cry-Baby
(1990), which became a cult hit and succeeded in
changing his image. That same year, he received an
opportunity to exhibit his versatility as an actor in the
titular role of Tim Burton's fantasy film, Edward
Scissorhands. The movie not only established Depp as an
A-list actor, but it also grossed more than $54 million at
the box office. Following the film's success, Depp carved
a niche for himself as a serious, somewhat dark,
1

idiosyncratic performer, consistently selecting roles that

surprise critics and audiences alike.

Troubled Image and Relationship

Depp's life began losing control as the star
dabbled with drugs and spiralled into a deep depression.
Around this time he also started a very public,
destructive relationship with the waifish supermodel
Kate Moss. Depp and Moss constantly made headlines
for their unpredictable behaviour; in 1994, Depp
famously trashed a New York hotel room after one of the
couple's many fights. They split in 1998.

Box Office Star

For Depp's next film project, he tried his hand at
sci-fi horror with The Astronaut's Wife in 1999. The same
year, he teamed up with Burton once again on Sleepy
Hollow, starring as the prim, driven Ichabod Crane. He
appeared the following year in the small but popular
romantic drama Chocolat.
Around the beginning of the turn of the century,
Depp met another person who would become an
important figure in his life; while filming the sci-fi drama
The Ninth Gate (1999) in France, Johnny met French
actress, singer and model Vanessa Paradis. Paradis
became pregnant with the couple's first child later that
year. In May of 1999, the couple welcomed daughter LilyRose Melody Depp. Depp and Paradis had their second
child, son Jack John Christopher Depp III, three years
later.
In 2004,
Depp earned an
Academy Award
nomination for
his starring role
as Captain Jack
Sparrow in the
family
adventure
Pirates of the
Caribbean. The
film was a box
office
smash,
and led to the
creation of the Pirates franchise. At the end of that year,

Depp also turned in a critically acclaimed performance in

Finding Neverland, in which he starred as Peter Pan
creator J.M. Barrie. The film earned him more than 10
award nominations, including both Academy and Golden
Globe nods.
Saying goodbye to Captain Jack, Depp took on
the role of the main character in Sweeney Todd: The
Demon Barber of Fleet Street, also in 2007. The dark and
gory musical tells the tale of a barber who kills some of
his customers, who are in turn baked into pies by his
downstairs neighbour. Depp netted a Golden Globe
Award for his work on the film.
In 2009, two Depp films The Imaginarium of
Doctor Parnassus and Public Enemiespremiered with
mixed results. He returned to box office success with the
2010 film adaptation of the Lewis Carroll classic, Alice in
Wonderland. The film, starring Mia Wasikowska as Alice,
brought in more than $116 million in its opening
weekend.
Unfortunately, Depp's next big budget
endeavour didn't fare nearly as well as his earlier films.
In 2013, the A-list actor starred in the Disney film The
Lone Ranger. The filmcosting more than $215 million
to produceperformed horribly at the box office and
received lacklustre reviews. The film debuted in second
place at the box office during its opening weekend, but
only grossed $48.9 million. Disney executives expected a
potential $190 million loss because of the film.

Personal Life
In 2012, stories began to circulate that Depp and
Paradis had split up. In a statement given to
Entertainment Tonight, Depp's representative said that
the pair "have amicably separated." Depp and Paradis
had been together for nearly 14 years when they split.
Depp met another future love interest on the set
of a film while still publicly involved with Paradis. While
filming The Rum Diary, he met co-star Amber Heard. The
couple was seen publicly together for the first time in
2012, not long after Depp's split with Paradis. The couple
got engaged on Christmas Eve in 2013 and tied the knot
in February 2015.