Two teenagers are standing in front of the Daley Plaza government building in Chicago, whimpering and waiting. On this murky, muggy Saturday morning, Trish and Rhonda – all of 15 years old – clutch ripped, jagged-edged magazine pages in vice grips. “But do you really think we’ll get close enough to touch him?” Trish whispers, knowing full well that the odds are hovering around slim-to-none. Rhonda is shaking her head in mock angst. “Maybe we’ll get an autograph,” she laments, “but face it. We’ll never get to touch Johnny Depp.”
It’s 10:30 a.m. “Who do you want?” shouts local Fox-TV anchor Robin Brantley to some 7,000 high school and college females who have gathered in an otherwise deserted part of down-town Chicago.
“Johnny!”
“Johnny!”
“Johnny!”
“Johnny!”
They chant in unison. Welcome to the Windy City’s yearly “Be Good. Go to School. Say No to Drugs!” youth pep festival which today seems like some weird religious event. “Johnny who?” taunts Brantley, buying some time while the cast of Fox’s 21 Jump Street – Depp, Holly Robinson, Dustin Nguyen, Peter DeLuise and Steven Williams – waltz out of the Daley Center high rise and onto a makeshift stage flanked by police and two-ton security guards.
“Hello, I’m Johnny Depp,” he says, approaching the mike to a roar of applause. “My basic message is simple: Protect your mind. Protect your heart. And take care of yourself.” He runs a hand through longish ink-black hair and smiles.
Time out, please. Let the record show that anchor Robin Brantley had a valid question when she asked, “Johnny who?” In a nutshell, Depp is a failed musician who once upon a time sold ballpoint pens over the phone to pay the rent on his meager Los Angles digs. That was only five years ago, and since then he has appeared in one critically acclaimed film, Platoon, and a gaggle of low-budget features, including A Nightmare on Elm Street. But now Depp stars on 21 Jump Street, which is one of the Fox Network’s two hits (Married With Children is the other), but was ranked just 140th on A.C. Nielsen’s list of the 163 highest-rated shows of last season. So, put all the pieces together: No movie career; no hit television show; no singing career. Yet Johnny Depp is a star. His face is plastered on teen magazines from coast to coast. Us magazine voted him one of Hollywood’s hottest bachelors. And more and more Jump Street episodes are featuring heavy doses of Depp and less of the other up-and-comers.
Johnny Depp has arrived. Sort of. If you spend the entire day in Chicago on his tail, it’s easy to conclude that “arriving” – in the most basic sense of the word – is not on his top ten list of accomplishments.
Flashback to sometime in June when the creative minds at the Fox Network decided that hauling the cast members of Jump Street to select cities would be an exciting,
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Title: Johnny Depp – Lookin’ Good
Publication: Wow Magazine
Issue: November 1988
- IS THERE ANYTHING JOHNNY WOULD CHANGE ABOUT HIMSELF?
I guess I shouldn’t change anything, ’cause we’re sort of supposed to be this way. 1 guess we were made this way. (Laughs) Unless maybe I’d like to be born with clown make-up, and just wear clown make-up forever.
- WHO IS JOHNNY’S FAVORITE ACTOR?
Jimmy Stewart makes me happy, just looking at him. He’d make a great president!
- WHAT PART DID JOHNNY HAVE IN NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET?
I got sucked into the bed and spewed back out as tomato juice!
- HOW DOES JOHNNY LIKE WORKING WITH HIS 21 JUMP STREET CO-STARS?
Peter DeLuise is very funny, we have a lot of fun together. Holly Robinson is very nice. She’s doing a’ good job. Dustin Nguyen is a very interesting guy. He’s from Vietnam, he fled Vietnam in 75 as a child. He’s on it. Steven Williams is sort of our backbone. He’s like a solid captain. Nick Fuller, he’s very good. Everybody does a real good job at what they’re doing with their characters and stuif. We play off of that and we have a lot of fun. The crew we have is just the greatest bunch of guys in the world. We go to work, and it’s just a gas. That’s the way it should be. You should look forward to going to work. I’ve had jobs where I didn’t.
• WHAT WAS JOHNNY’S MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT?
I’ve had a lot of embarrassing moments. 1 can remember one time I was hanging out with a friend of mine; the guy was my best friend. Tommy. We were best friends for years when we were growing up. 1 was hanging out over at his house and there was this girl who lived across the street. Her name was Gerry Lynn, and I liked her a lot; I had a big crush on her. She liked me. Things were going great; everything was just beautiful. And one day Tommy and I said. “Alright, look. Gerry (we were hanging out on the street, talking to her) we’re gonna go eat and we’re going to come back out in a half an hour; see ya in a bit.’ Okay, fine. So we go in to eat, we come back out, there’s Gerry Lynn, she looks beautiful. I’m happy. Tommy’s happy (he’s fixed us up) and we’re sitting there talking and like every once in a while, Gerry Lynn would start laughing. Just laughing and I didn’t know what it was. Tommy sort of scooted himself behind Gerry Lynn and he kept pointing at his teeth. He’s going, “Teeth, teeth, teeth…” without her catching on. And it ended up I had like a whole forest in my teeth.
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He’s Cool! He’s Cute! He’s Available! The sexy star of 21 Jump Street gets personal in an exclusive SPLICE interview
Ask any member of the cast or crew of 21 Jump Street and they’ll tell you: The only word to describe Johnny Depp is “cool.” It seems, in fact, that he is the coolest creature to hit the small screen since “the Fonz ” strutted his stuff on Happy Days. Johnny Depp is the King of Cool, the valedictorian of the Cool School, and everybody knows it. Everybody, that is, except Johnny Depp.
The handsome 25-year-old actor – who’s blessed with high chiseled cheekbones, courtesy of his Cherokee heritage – is so unimpressed with his own celebrity status that he denies he is the star of 21 Jump Street. He says his character is the “strong center” of the show. On a recent trip to New York City, Johnny was surprised when he was asked to sit backstage in the Green Room to watch a taping of Late Night with David Letterman, because David doesn’t allow celebrities in the TV audience. And what celebrity worth his weight in dark shades would actually convince his mother and stepfather to move to Vancouver, Canada, so they could be closer to him?
Johnny was born in Owensboro, KY on June 9, 1963. The youngest of four children, he and his family moved to Miramar, FL, where Johnny did most of his growing up. After experimenting with drugs and petty crime for a short while, Johnny dropped out of high school at the age of 16 – a move he now admits was not one of his wisest. He’s now openly opposed to all drugs, and tells his fans so in public service announcements.
While still a teenager, Johnny formed a rock and roll band called The Kids, which had a small but loyal following in Florida. They were impressive enough to open in concert for such heavy hitters as the Talking Heads and The Pretenders. Armed with an electric guitar, Johnny and The Kids headed for Los Angeles, seeking fame, fortune, and a recording contract. Unfortunately, the going was a little tough. The Kids were not reaching musical maturity, and Johnny was forced to accept a job selling ball-point pens over the telephone to make enough money to live and play in L.A.
It was during this period that Johnny got married and divorced. Life was looking grim until a friend of Johnny’s (actor Nicolas Cage, of Moonstruck fame) suggested that he try his hand at acting. Johnny met with Nicolas’ agent, who convinced him to audition for A Nightmare on Elm Street. The rest, as they say, is cinematic history. Johnny landed the lead male role, and decided to focus his ambitions on acting for a while.
Johnny’s screen presence caught the attention of Oliver Stone,
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Once a troublemaker, Johnny Depp of 21 Jump Street is now admired for his cool and his part in a series about teen problems.
On a lonely, rainy, anonymous street, Johnny Depp, running through a scene from Fox’s 21 Jump Street, roars up in his blue Mustang, screeches to a halt, leaps out and starts talking tough. His Jump Street character, Tom Hanson, is a rookie cop who’s gone undercover to infiltrate circles of teen-age criminals, but Depp’s stance as a hoodlum would fool anyone. With his angelic punk face and his hair cascading James Dean-style into his eyes, he looks the perfect teen-age rebel.
It comes from years of real-life experience. Depp, 24, grew up in Miramar, Fla., where he wasn’t exactly on the road to becoming a National Merit scholar. “I hung around with bad crowds,” he admits. “We used to break and enter places. We’d break into the school and destroy a room or something. I used to steal things from stores.” And, like some of the kids Officer Tom Hanson has busted on 21 Jump Street, Depp was into drugs. “Pretty much any drug you can name,” he says, “I’ve done it.” At 13 he lost his virginity, and at 16 he dropped out of high school.
Fast-forward eight years to Vancouver, where Jump Street is shot. Depp has acquired a taste for $80-a-shot cognac and is a fan-magazine star, routinely mobbed by adoring teen-age girls. He is also one of the stranger sights in Vancouver, consistently wearing the same eccentric outfit: tattered blue jeans with a hole in the knee, combat boots, a beat-up leather jacket, a weird white rag (actually a first-aid sling) wrapped around his forehead, and several tarnished earrings. It’s a look he perfected in 1986 in the Philippines while working on the film Platoon, in which he had a part as Lerner, small-town boy who serves as the unit interpreter.
It’s easy at first glance to think that Depp is trying hard to stand out, but the people who know him best insist it’s something altogether different: Johnny Depp is simply the embodiment of the ineffable, universally coveted quality called “cool”.
“The coolest person I know,” says Holly Robinson, who plays Officer Judy Hoffs on Jump Street. “He’s naturally cool. Everybody else tries to be cool, but Johnny just is.”
“If this were the ’50s, he’d move to Paris or hang out with Jack Kerouac,” suggests Patrick Hasburgh, creator and executive producer of Jump Street.
“What struck me about him when he auditioned was that he wasn’t nervous,” says Steve Beers, supervising producer of the show. “He was laid-back. He had this presence. He’s an unusual personality. He’s also one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with.”
How cool is Johnny Depp? He’s so cool that he orders a $75 bottle of wine without blinking as he sits down in his favorite Italian restaurant (weird white rag still around his head) to explain how he got that way.
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Title: Who does Johnny Depp Really Love?
Publication: Big Bopper
Issue: 1988
When Johnny Depp loves someone, he lets them know just how much! He’s not so quick, though, to share those feelings with others. The actor you know and love as “Officer Tommy Hanson” on 21 Jump Street likes to keep his personal life as private as possible!
Well, you can relax about the three women whom Johnny is closest to—they’re his mom, Betty Sue, and his two older sisters, Chrissy and Debbie! That’s right’ He’s closest to his family, and the reason you probably know so little about them is that Johnny does a super job of protecting them from too much publicity!
The truth of the matter is that Johnny is protective of his mom and sisters because he loves them so much! He knows that, while he chose a life in the public eye, his family {which also includes his dad, John, and older brother. Danny) didn’t, and he respects their need for privacy.
Sometimes this brown-eyed actor might appear to be a loner who really doesn’t need anyone. But this couldn’t be further from the truth!
He missed her so much…
The fact is this June 9, 1963 birthday boy is just-this-close to his mom. He even invited her to live with him in Vancouver. Canada where he films 21 Jump Street! You see, she lived in Florida with his step-dad. (Johnny’s parents are divorced and have both remarried other people) and Johnny missed her so much, he asked her to move on in!
Have Johnny and his mom always been close? You bet! Before Johnny came to California and became a TV star, he was in a rock ‘n’ roll band, and his mom was super supportive of his musical pursuits even when he didn’t earn a lot of money!
His sisters are also a source of love for him, and he hasn’t forgotten them! His sister Chrissy worked as a bartender in the club where his band, The Kids, played!
His other sister, Debbie, worked during the day and couldn’t spend as much time with him, yet they still stayed really tight!
Johnny’s best friends say that he’s definitely the baby of his family. Chrissy and Debbie often took care of him when he was little while their mom had to go to work.
Is he spoiled? Maybe a little, but since the Depps didn’t have lots and lots of money, the spoiling came from tons of love instead! He always gives them plenty of love back, so it didn’t hurt him a bit!
The people closest to Johnny say is he’s definitely a family man—the kind of guy who’ll marry the girl of his dreams and have children of his own someday. And you can bet he’ll be a great dad!
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Johnny Depp
In 1987, Johnny Depp was already a teen idol through his starring role on the television series 21 Jump Street. He was living in a modest one-bedroom apartment in an art-deco building on Whitley Avenue in Hollywood. I would run into him several times late at night when he’d be hanging out with Nicolas Cage and other friends at Canter’s, a popular after-club eatery.I recently photographed Johnny again. His hair had grown but his angelic face remained much the same. Stardom had not inherently changed him; he was still soft-spoken and sweet. I did notice, though, a newfound inner strength and self-assurance.Johnny wanted to go beyond doing traditional leading-man roles and he has.
I grew up in many different houses. One in Miramar, Florida, sticks out in particular. We lived at 68th Avenue and Court, on the corner of a busy street. The house was a three-bedroom built in the sixties. It constantly smelled of my mom’s cooking: soup, beans and ham. I remember my brother and sister fighting. I had a poodle named Pepi. I shared a bedroom with my brother, who is 10 years older than me. He listened to a lot of Van Morrison and Bob Dylan.
We moved constantly. My mom just liked to move for some reason. By the time I was 15, we had lived in about 20 houses. It was hard. Depending on how far we’d move, you’d have to make new friends. Fortunately, I didn’t have to change schools often. But we never stayed in one neighborhood for long. At the drop of a hat, we’d go.
My mom was a waitress; she’d been a waitress since she was 14. My father was the Director of Public Works in Miramar. They divorced when I was about 16.
To this day, I hate it when I have to move from location to location. I get very angry, as a result of having to move so much as a kid. I live in Hollywood now, but I’m in Vancouver shooting 21 Jump Street about nine months of the year.
I was very mischievous as a boy. I loved tape recording people when they didn’t know. One time a friend and I dug a really deep tunnel in my backyard. We covered it with boards and leaves. I was attempting to dig a tunnel into my room. I liked to push it and see how far I could go. If you knew me during high school, I think you’d describe me as “the kid with long hair who was always playing guitar.” I wasn’t big on participating in school activities. I used to bring my guitar to school and I’d skip most classes to sneak into guitar class.The teacher would give me a practice room to play in. That’s pretty much what I spent my high school years doing.
You know,
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Title: Johnny Depp and Sal Jenco
Publication: YM
Issue: October 1987
If you ask Sal Jenco and Johnny Depp where they met, chances are they’ll snow you with a story about a “nostril flaring festival in Rio de Janeiro.” Actually, they met under slightly less exotic circumstances: at grammar school in Florida. Sixteen years later, they’re still inseparable. When Johnny played guitar in a rock band, Sal was the band’s road manager; now that Johnny’s starring on the Fox Broadcasting series 21 Jump Street, Sal’s got a part, too. Perfect foils, Johnny is soft-spoken and baby-face handsome; Sal’s a roly-poly loud mouth. “The only time we argue is over the girls I date,” admits Sal, 24. “He spends too much money on them,” explains Johnny, 23. An aspiring stand-up comic, deadpan Sal will tell you he also raises pygmy Palestinian llamas in Malibu, while straight-man Johnny swallows a laugh. “We’re like brothers, and we’re both major slobs,” says Johnny. Adds an uncharacteristically serious Sal: “Johnny’s very warm, very generous—the best guy I know. What can I tell you, I love the creep.”
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