Johnny Depp 50th birthday: Star is still looking for his true love

The actor, 50 today, enjoys mega riches and is hailed as the world’s sexiest man but still has not achieved the ­stable home life he longed for

HE has fabulous wealth and fame but as a little boy Johnny Depp wanted nothing more than to stop his parents fighting.

Today, his 50th birthday, he enjoys mega riches and is hailed as the world’s sexiest man. But still he has not achieved the ­stable home life he longed for.

Pals told The Sunday People part of it is that Johnny always acts like a teenager with women, rather than a middle-aged dad of two.

And his psyche must owe a lot to a childhood in which his volatile parents uprooted him 30 times in 15 years.

The Pirates of the Caribbean superstar has loved and lost some of the world’s most beautiful women, including British supermodel Kate Moss.

He was shattered when his 14-year relationship with sexy French singer Vanessa Paradis, 40, ended last June.

Yet Johnny soon fell into the arms of bombshell actress Amber Heard, 27. He is already calling the bisexual beauty his soulmate and talking of marriage.

But friends are saying it is a ­relationship that won’t last. Old schoolmate Yves Bouhadana said: “Johnny falls in love at first sight. When he falls for a girl he really falls for her.”

Yves, who was in a teenage band with Johnny and is still friends with him, added: “He wears his heart on his sleeve. He’s is a genuinely nice guy.

“He doesn’t act around his friends. What you see is what you get.”

The actor is worth more than ­£225million and his agents can command £15million for a film role.

But his childhood was far from idyllic. He was the youngest of four and ­witnessed constant rows between his dad John, an engineer, and waitress mum Betty Sue. When the family moved from Kentucky to Florida all of them lived at first in a single motel room.

They moved on average every six months and the future star constantly changed schools. The marriage ­unravelled slowly and painfully and by the time Depp was 13 he was smoking dope, drinking heavily and deliberately cutting his arms to hurt himself.

Talking later about his marks, he said: “My body is a journal, in a way. Every ­important event is marked there.” His parents’ marriage ended when he was 15.

Johnny’s first and most ­lasting love was music. His mother bought him a guitar for his 13th birthday and he spent hours learning to play.

He made friends with a group of like-minded boys, including Yves, and they formed heavy metal bands.

They discovered groupies and Johnny lost his virginity in the back of a van after a concert at a school.

He described it as ­“forgettable” and it even put him off casual sex.

While band mates picked up all the girls, Johnny concentrated on his music. Then he fell head over heels in love with make-up artist Lori Allison after a 1980 gig in Florida. He was 17 and she was 22. He proposed marriage ­almost immediately but they did not tie the knot until Christmas Eve 1983, in Miami. Johnny was 20.

Yves, now a 49-year-old sales ­executive living in Ohio, recalled: “She was absolutely beautiful. Still is.”

“Lori was his first serious ­relationship and he couldn’t wait to marry her. She is a very private person and doesn’t like to talk about the ­marriage. They are still friends.

“That’s the great thing with Johnny. He hasn’t changed since we were at school. We all still get together.”

Johnny wanted to make it as a rock guitarist and Lori supported him as a make-up artist when they moved to Hollywood with his band The Kids.

But musical success and happiness eluded him. The Kids opened for the Ramones, Iggy Pop, The Pretenders and Talking Heads but the band failed to get a record deal and his marriage fell apart within two years. Biographer Cristopher Heard said: “It ended just simply because of the stress of failure.”

The couple were evicted from several ­apartments and were divorced in 1985. But Lori had introduced him to actor Nicolas Cage and the two became mates. Cage persuaded him to get an agent.

Success came quickly with a memorable role in 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, which became an unexpected hit.

Soon Johnny was engaged to Twin Peaks beauty Sherilyn Fenn but they split after two years, blaming work commitments.

Never on his own for long, Johnny dated Dirty Dancing’s Jennifer Grey and – ­following a familiar pattern – proposed.

But that relationship also lasted only two years and Johnny quickly hooked up with ­fiancée No4 Winona Ryder, his ­co-star in 1990’s Edward Scissorhands.

Work got in the way again and after splitting from Winona he moved on to Kate Moss. She was 23, a supermodel, and he was a 33-year-old film star. The ­relationship was volatile. Johnny once caused £7,000 damage to his New York hotel room after a row with Kate.

And he was devastated when they broke up in 1998 after four years together.

Johnny said: “I cried for a week after we split. I didn’t give her the attention I should have done. I was a horrific pain in the butt to live with. I’m a total moron at times. I let my work get in the way.

“I will never let it happen again. I think you could say I have truly discovered the meaning of loneliness.”

But within weeks he was spotted out with Vanessa. And three months later she was pregnant. Their daughter Lily-Rose Melody Depp was born in 1999 and the couple’s son John Christopher “Jack” Depp III came along in 2002.

With homes in France and the Bahamas, they looked settled. But in the later years he started to spend more time working in Hollywood and the split from Vanessa was announced 12 months ago.

True to form he quickly sought solace with Amber. Pals said Johnny was once again acting like a teenager in love. The pair had two bust-ups in the early stages but have since calmed down.

One friend said: “Johnny always goes overboard with women. He has whisked Amber off to his island in the Bahamas and has already introduced her to his children. When they’re apart he sends her poetry. It is very sweet but everyone ­worries about him getting hurt again.”

This weekend there are several 50th birthday celebrations ­for the star.

Rolling Stone Keith Richards insisted on being there with Johnny and Amber to toast his pal’s landmark.

The friendship began after Johnny ­revealed he modelled his Pirates of the Caribbean character Jack Sparrow on the guitar great. Keith, 69, was so chuffed he has played Sparrow’s dad in two films.

The friend said: “When we raise a toast to him this weekend we’ll also be wishing him all the happiness he truly deserves.

“Despite his fame and ­incredible good looks, Johnny is very vulnerable.”
(Source:http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/life-loves-johnny-depp-50-1939824)

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