We were soul mates, says Nicholson of Hopper

Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda, co-stars in his cult film Easy Rider, were among the mourners at the funeral yesterday of the actor-director Dennis Hopper, who died on Saturday at 74 after a battle with prostate cancer.

"It was a very singular relationship I had with him, like nobody else," said Nicholson (pictured above with Hopper three months ago). "We were soul mates in a way. I really miss him."

Fonda said: "We rode the highways of America and changed the way movies were made in Hollywood. I was blessed by his passion and friendship." Fonda also thanked Hopper for having introduced him to the world of Pop Art - Hopper was an avid collector - and 'lost' films.

The funeral was held in the adobe chapel at the historic San Francisco de Asis church in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico. Hopper had fallen in love with the area when he was scouting for locations for Easy Rider nearly half a century ago and lived there for a while in the 1980s.

Nicholson and Fonda were among many relatives and friends who flew in from Los Angeles for the servcie. Among more recent acquaintances was Val Kilmer, who acted with Hopper in Quentin Tarantino's 1993 film True Romance.

The two-hour service included a reading by Hopper's son Henry Lee from Walt Whitman's collection of poems, Leaves of Grass.

The wooden coffin was taken at the end of the service for private burial. According to an Associated Press reporter, the rumble of half a dozen motorbikes could be heard as the procession disappeared into the distance.

As The First Post reported earlier this week, the stage is now set for a legal battle over Hopper's estimated $60m estate. He had tried to divorce his fifth wife, Victoria Duffy, in order to disinherit her. But the divorce had not been finalised by the time he passed away at his home in Venice, California.

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