JOHNNY-DEPP.org

Title: Johnny Depp

Author: Leslie Van Buskirk

Publication: US

Issue: February 1994

JOHNNY DEPP APPEARS TO BE IN A TRANCE. HIS EYES ARE GLAZED, registering something halfway between panic and pure bliss; his arms twitch in a kind of slow motion; his famously bowed lips are frozen in a secretive semi-smile.

This is how Depp behaves when he’s really happy. He is standing in his favorite store, the Heritage Book Shop, on Melrose Avenue, in Hollywood, staring at a stack of letters — unpublished correspon­dence between two well-known writers (whose names Depp has requested be kept off the record in case he buys them) — on a desk. Moments before, Depp’s arrival caused a cheery flutter of greetings from the staff, all of whom the actor knows by name. “This is where he gets into trouble,” says owner Lou Weinstein with a wink.

The 30-ycar-old actor has been coming here since he arrived in L.A. from Miramar, Fla., some 10 years ago as a high school dropout who thought playing guitar in a rock and roll band was his destiny. “I didn’t have any money, but they were always nice to me,” he says. Though Depp probably looks the same as he did back then — today he’s wear­ing chinos and a black jacket so frayed it gives new meaning to the word threads — now he can afford the pricey first editions and rare manuscripts that put him over the moon: He’s a movie star.

read full article