Bo Hopkins has a hundred productions to his credit. On American television, but also in the cinema, where we could see him in The Getaway (1972), American Graffiti (1973) and Midnight Express (1978). The 84-year-old actor succumbed to the consequences of a heart attack which occurred on May 9 in California. Two years ago, he was still in front of Ron Howard’s camera in An American Ode (2020).
Born on February 2, 1938 in Greenville, South Carolina, in a modest environment, William Hopkins had a childhood tossed between the death of his father, the remarriage of his mother and the discovery that he was an adopted child. His adolescence is punctuated by small offenses which will bring him to a reformatory for a time.
At 17, William Hopkins enlisted in the Army and spent nine months in Korea. Upon his return to the United States, he landed a role in the play The Teahouse of the August Moon, at a local theater in Greenville. With this experience, he won a scholarship to the Pioneer Playhouse in Kentucky and a tocket for a first play on Broadway, Bus Stop. He then takes the stage name of Bo Hopkins, in reference to the character he played.
After these first experiences on the boards, Bo Hopkins took his first steps on the small screen at the age of 28, in 1966, in the American series The Pruitts of Southampton, which marked the beginning of a long series of filming. In total, the actor appeared in 44 television series and films, including Hawaii State Police in 1973, Charlie’s Angels in 1976 and 1979, as well as Dynasty from 1981 to 1987 and A-Team in 1984.
At the same time, he built a serious career in supporting roles in the cinema, where he made his debut in Wild Bunch (La Horde Sauvage) in 1969. The Getaway, in 1972, alongside Steve McQueen, Richard Bright and Ali MacGraw.
A year later, it’s American Graffiti by George Lucas with Francis Ford Coppola producing. He will play the role of Joe Young in this film devoted to a group of teenagers who are about to leave their small Californian town to enter the University. A film where the actor will play alongside Richard Dreyfuss, Ron Howard and Harrison Ford.
We then find Bo Hopkins in the credits of The Texas Brigade produced in 1975 by Kirk Douglas and the same year in Elite Killer by Sam Peckinpah, where he plays a weapons expert responsible for stopping an assassin. Three years later, the actor plays in Midnight Express directed by the British Alan Parker, with Brad Davis and John Hurt. It was in 2020 that Bo Hopkins appeared in his last film alongside Amy Adams and Glenn Close, An American Ode, directed by Ron Howard. “It was quite a thrill for him,” his wife said.
