Johnny Depp
John Christopher "Johnny" Depp II is an American actor and musician known for his portrayals of offbeat, eccentric characters such as Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series, Raoul Duke in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, and Sam in Benny & Joon.
Johnny was born in Owensboro , Kentucky , the son of Betty Sue Palmer, a waitress, and John Christopher Depp, Sr., a civil engineer. He has one brother, Daniel who is a novelist, and two sisters, Christie (now his personal manager) and Debbie. Johnny has German, Cherokee (mostly from a great-grandmother), and Irish ancestry. According to biographies, the Depp family originated with a French Huguenot, Pierre Deppe or Dieppe , who settled in Virginia around 1700.
The family moved frequently during Johnny's childhood, and he and his siblings lived in more than 20 different locations, settling in Miramar , Florida , in 1970. In 1978, Johnny's parents divorced. He engaged in self-harm as a child, due to the stress of dealing with family problems and his own insecurity. He has seven or eight scars from practicing self-harm. In a 1993 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".
Johnny’s mother bought him a guitar when he was 12, and Johnny began playing in various garage bands. His first band was in honor of his girlfriend, Meredith. A year after his parents' divorce, Johnny dropped out of high school to become a rock musician. As he once explained, he attempted to go back to school two weeks later, but the principal told him to follow his dream of being a musician.
Johnny rose to prominence in a lead role on the television series 21 Jump Street and quickly became regarded as a teen idol. Uncomfortable with that characterization, he turned his focus to film roles that he felt were right. He initially came to film prominence as the titular character of Edward Scissorhands, and later found box office success in roles such as Ichabod Crane in Sleepy Hollow, Jack Sparrow in the Pirates of the Caribbean film series and his role as the quirky Willy Wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
He has collaborated with director and close friend Tim Burton on seven films.
Films featuring Johnny have grossed over $2.3 billion at the United States box office and over $4.8 billion worldwide. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor three times, Screen Actors Guild Awards four times and Golden Globe Awards eight times, Depp won the Best Actor Awards from the Golden Globes for his role in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street and from the Screen Actors Guild for Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl.
On December 24, 1983, Johnny married Lori Anne Allison, a makeup artist and sister of his band's bass player and singer. During his marriage, his wife worked as a makeup artist while he worked a variety of odd jobs, including a telemarketer for ink pens. Later, his wife introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage, who advised Johnny to pursue an acting career. In 1985, Johnny and Allison divorced. After his marriage ended, Johnny dated and was engaged to Sherilyn Fenn (whom he met on the set of the 1985 short film Dummies).
In 1994, Johnny was arrested and questioned by police for allegedly causing serious damage to a New York City hotel suite. Since 1998, Johnny has had a relationship with Vanessa Paradis, a French actress and singer whom he met while filming The Ninth Gate. He was arrested again in 1999 for brawling with paparazzi outside a restaurant while dining in London with Paradis.
The couple has two children. Daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born May 27, 1999, and son John "Jack" Christopher Depp III was born April 9, 2002. In 2007, his daughter recovered from a serious illness, an E. coli infection that began to cause her kidneys to shut down and resulted in an extended hospital stay. To thank Great Ormond Street Hospital , Johnny visited the hospital in November 2007 dressed in his Captain Jack Sparrow outfit and spent 4 hours reading stories to the children. He later donated £1 million (about $2 million) to the hospital in early 2008.
Although Johnny has not remarried, he says that having children has given him "real foundation, a real strong place to stand in life, in work, in everything. . . You can't plan the kind of deep love that results in children. Fatherhood was not a conscious decision. It was part of the wonderful ride I was on. It was destiny; kismet. All the math finally worked."
The family divides its time between their home in Meudon, located in the suburbs of Paris , Los Angeles , and their villa in Le Plan-de-la-Tour, a small town an hour and a half from Saint-Tropez , in the south of France . Johnny also acquired a vineyard estate in the Plan-de-la-Tour area in 2007.
There doesn’t seem to be any information on where Johnny Depp stands with God – or if he even tries. We know that his life has been a painful one. Please pray, this month, that God will work a mighty work in Johnny’s life to draw him to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ.