Johnny Depp.org

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,”

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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.

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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.

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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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