The Hopper-Consani Connection

If you’re sitting in an American diner that happens to have any predilection for nostalgia—and it’s extremely rare that any diner does not—there’s a good chance you’re going to see a certain painting somewhere inside the establishment. It’s a series of paintings, actually, but they will have one thing in common, whether the setting is a casino, a gas station, a movie theater, or a pool hall: they will always portray four specific people: Elvis Presley, Marilyn Monroe, James Dean, and Humphrey Bogart.

In one painting, titled Classic Interlude, Monroe and Presley sit happily together at the cinema as James Dean slouches in the row in front of them, too cool to care that he’s not on a date with Marilyn, tossing a kernel of popcorn up into the air. But his gaze back toward the pair betrays his whatever-veneer. There’s no mistaking it: he wishes he was Elvis, cozied up next to the beautiful woman with the million-dollar smile. Meanwhile, here comes Humphrey Bogart, ambling down the theater aisle, a flashlight pointed toward the trio’s seats. Perhaps Dean, always the rebel, didn’t pay for a ticket.