When Rocky Dennis passed away at the age of 16, he had lived more than twice as long as doctors had expected, and he had lived a full life, much better than anyone had believed possible.

He was born with an extremely rare bone dysplasia that caused his facial bone features to contort and grow at an abnormally fast rate. Doctors told his mother, Florence “Rusty” Dennis, that the boy would suffer multiple disabilities due to his illness and would probably die before reaching the age of seven.

Miraculously, Roy L. “Rocky” Dennis defied all negative predictions and lived an almost normal life until the age of 16. This is the incredible story of the boy who inspired the 1985 movie Mask.

Rocky Dennis’s Early Life

Roy L. Dennis, nicknamed Rocky, was born healthy on December 4, 1961, in California. He had an older half-brother named Joshua, Rusty Dennis’s son from a previous marriage, and by all accounts, Rocky Dennis had been perfectly healthy up until that point. It wasn’t until he was just over two years old that the first signs of an anomaly appeared in his medical exams.

His skull soon began to grow at an astonishing rate. Tests conducted at the UCLA Medical Center discovered that Rocky Dennis had an extremely rare condition called craniodiaphyseal dysplasia, also known as lionitis. The disease severely distorted his facial features due to the abnormal growth of his skull, causing his head to double its normal size.

The pressure caused by the abnormal calcium deposits in Dennis’s skull pushed his eyes to the edges of his head, and his nose also stretched, taking on an abnormal shape. Doctors told his mother that Rocky Dennis would progressively become deaf, blind, and suffer from severe mental disability before the weight of his skull destroyed his brain. Based on six other cases, they predicted that the boy would only live to be seven years old.

Rusty Dennis, a streetwise motorcyclist, disagreed. She enrolled him in public school at the age of six and raised him as if he were any other child. Despite his condition, he turned out to be an exemplary student who ranked among the top of his class, as well as being very popular.

A Relatively Normal Childhood

At the summer camp for disabled children in Southern California that he attended, Dennis won many trophies and was named “best friend,” “kindest,” and “most friendly camper.”

Against all odds, Rocky Dennis survived well into his teenage years, which is largely attributed to the courage and spirit his mother instilled in him. As a teenager, he also developed a sense of humor about his own condition, joking about his appearance with other kids and even with adults.

According to his mother, Halloween was a special time for him, leading the neighborhood kids to trick-or-treat. During his rounds, he would joke with unsuspecting neighbors, pretending to wear more than one mask, which always earned him a lot of candy.

In his adolescence, he had a strong sense of self, despite his severe physical deformity. When a plastic surgeon offered to operate on him to make him look more “normal,” Rocky Dennis refused.

Even so, children mocked his appearance, and doctors and teachers always tried to hold him back. In high school, his teachers tried to transfer him to a school for special needs students, but his mother would not allow it.

“They tried to say his intelligence was affected, but it wasn’t true. I think they wanted to keep him out of the classroom because they thought he would upset the parents of the other kids”.

But Rocky Dennis continued to excel and even graduated from high school with honors.

The Pains of His Illness

Despite leading an almost normal life, he had to make several visits to the doctor. By the age of seven, he had already been to the ophthalmologist 42 times and had undergone several tests to monitor his progress.

His mother gave him natural remedies such as vitamins and alfalfa sprouts and raised him with the philosophy of self-healing through the strength of faith. Whenever he had severe headaches, she would send him to his room to rest.

Even so, the deterioration of his health could not be denied. His headaches worsened, and his physical strength waned. The change in his usually optimistic behavior was so evident that his mother felt her son’s life was coming to an end. Thus, on October 4, 1978, Rocky Dennis died at the age of 16.

The great story of Rocky Dennis and the special bond with his mother caught the attention of Anna Hamilton Phelan, a young screenwriter who saw Dennis while visiting the UCLA Genetic Research Center.

The result of that encounter was the biographical film Mask, which premiered seven years after his death. The movie was directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starred Eric Stoltz and the famous Cher as his mother. The film was a great success.

Unfortunately, Rocky Dennis did not have a long life, but he lived it like few people, without complexes, happy, and enjoying the little things he was offered. A heart-wrenching story that makes us grateful for the little that we have.