[2] Hopper started as an office assistant at Paramount Pictures before becoming a radio scriptwriter and an editor before moving to the directors' chair for several installments of their Musical Parade series (1946–48).
[3] Hopper went on to direct feature films, such as, The Atomic City (1952), Pony Express (1953), Secret of the Incas (1954), and The Private War of Major Benson (1955), the latter three with actor Charlton Heston.
He then moved primarily into episodic television, having appeared in Colt .45, Bachelor Father, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, The Addams Family, Burke's Law, Perry Mason, The Fugitive, Gilligan's Island, and Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea, among many others.
[2] During World War II he became a combat photographer for the Army and was injured during the Battle of Leyte and received a Purple Heart.
[3] He died of heart disease on December 17, 1988, in San Clemente, California, at age 81.