Johnny Depp: Encyclopedia II - Johnny Depp - Life

Johnny Depp - Life

Depp was born in Owensboro, Kentucky to John Christopher Depp, Sr. and Betty Sue Palmer. He was raised primarily in Miramar, Florida, where his family moved in 1970. He has one brother and two sisters (Debbie, Christie, who is Depp's personal manager, and Danny). The Depp family is mostly of Irish and German descent, although the Depp name is French in origin. Depp's maternal great-grandmother, Minnie, was a full-blooded Cherokee and Depp also has Cherokee ancestry on his father's side. The family moved from place to place, over twenty times in total. Depp's mother bought him a guitar at around the age of 13, and Depp began playing in garage bands.

Depp's parents divorced in 1978, when he was 15, and a year later he decided to drop out of school to become a rock musician. He played with a band named "The Kids" , who had modest local success. The band set out for Los Angeles, California to try to get a record deal, changing their name to "Six Gun Method". During this period, Depp married Lori Anne Allison , the sister of the drummer of the band, on December 20, 1983. This caused friction between the band members and they split, the record deal never having materialized. In 1985, he and his close friend, Earl Stevenson, a former U.S. Marine sergeant, who also played his brother on A Nightmare on Elm Street, were both disappointed when both were turned down for a part in a music video being put together by the Wolf Brothers in Los Angeles.

Depp worked many odd jobs to support himself, such as a telemarketer who sold pens, and his wife became a make-up artist. Later, his wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Depp to turn to acting to support himself and his wife. His film career took off slowly, however, and in 1985 Depp divorced Allison. Since then he has dated and been engaged to Sherilyn Fenn, Jennifer Grey, Winona Ryder and Kate Moss. Depp is now in a long-term relationship with French singer and actress Vanessa Paradis, whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate in 1998. Together they have two children, daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp (b. May 27, 1999) and son Jack John Christopher Depp III (b. April 9, 2002). The family divides their time between Los Angeles and a villa in the South of France, but rumors have had him moving to Connecticut.

Depp has acknowledged that he hurt himself physically at a young age because of his insecurities and family problems. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 Details magazine interview he explained his self-injury by saying, "My body is a journal in a way. It's like what sailors used to do, where every tattoo meant something, a specific time in your life when you make a mark on yourself, whether you do it yourself with a knife or with a professional tattoo artist." In 1999, Depp admitted that to this day, his self-image "isn't that alright", although he maintains that he is happier than he's ever been [1].

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Life", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki