About Me
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It's been a bizarre and bumpy road for me. I tried to be a rock star, only to see my band split. I dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue a career as a musician. Then, I moved into serious acting, only to have my credibility destroyed by accidentally becoming a teen pin-up. Then, defying my idol-status, I threw myself into the cinematic underground and slowly, slowly proved myself to be one of the most adventurous and genuinely bohemian actors of my generation.
I was born John Christopher Depp II on June 9th, 1963, in Owensboro, Kentucky - the self-styled "barbecue capital of the world". As a child, I was allergic to chocolate. My father, John Senior, was a city engineer, and my mother, Betty Sue, a waitress. I was always very close with my mother, but perhaps even closer to my grandfather, who I knew as Pawpaw (I myself was known as Dipp or Deppity Dawg). I'd visit Pawpaw often, and I happily recall sunny days picking tobacco together. It was a terrible shock to me, a 7 year old boy, when Pawpaw died.
Also traumatic was when the family moved to Florida soon afterwards. My father did eventually find secure work as director of public works at Miramar, but our family spent a long time living in motels and we were constantly shifting from place to place - well over a dozen in total. It was bad for my brother and sisters - sisters Debbie and Christie (now my personal manager), and brother Danny (known as DP, now a screenwriter) - but I took it especially hard. Though an inquisitive child - at 8 I was hugely interested in Evel Knievel and World War 2 -I did not take to school and went off the rails, once being suspended for mooning the gym teacher. By 12, I was smoking, very soon I came to drinking, and drugs. There was petty theft and vandalism, I lost my virginity at 13. Small wonder I got into rock and roll.
I first discovered a love of music back in Owensboro, when attending the church of my uncle, a fundamentalist minister. My uncle would preach, the people would clutch his feet and be redeemed, but I was more taken by the gospel music. In Florida, as I, a troubled adolescent, became a surly teenager, I received a guitar from my mother and, I went to my room and taught myself to play.
