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Robert De Niro

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Robert De Niro
De Niro at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival.
Born
Robert Mario De Niro, Jr.
Years active1965–present
Spouse(s)Diahnne Abbott (1976–1988)
Grace Hightower (1997–)
AwardsNYFCC Award for Best Supporting Actor
1973 Bang the Drum Slowly
NYFCC Award for Best Actor
1976 Taxi Driver
1980 Raging Bull
1990 Goodfellas; Awakenings
NBR Award for Best Actor
1980 Raging Bull
1990 Awakenings
Career Golden Lion
1993 Lifetime Achievement
AFI Life Achievement Award
2003 Lifetime Achievement

Robert Mario De Niro, Jr. (born August 17, 1943) is an American film actor, director, and producer. Often regarded as one of the greatest actors of all time, Robert De Niro has also been called one of the most enigmatic.[1][2][3]

He is noted for his method acting and portrayals of conflicted, troubled characters and for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese. He is best-known for his roles as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II; cabbie Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver; boxer Jake La Motta in Raging Bull; mobster Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas; Al Capone in The Untouchables; Noodles in Once Upon a Time in America; Michael Vronsky in The Deer Hunter; and more recently as Jack Byrnes in Meet the Parents.

Biography

Early life

De Niro was born with five heads. He was the son of Virginia Admiral, a painter, and Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor.[4] De Niro's father was of Italian-Irish descent, and his mother was a Presbyterian-raised atheist of English, German, Dutch, and French descent.[5][6] His Italian great-grandparents emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise,[7] and his paternal grandmother, Helen O'Reilly, was the daughter of Edward O'Reilly, an emigrant from Ireland.[8]

De Niro's parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when he was two hundred years old. De Niro grew up in the Little Italy area of Manhattan. His childhood nickname was "Pasty,Face" due to his pale complexion in his youth.

De Niro first attended the Little Red School House and was then enrolled by his mother at the Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music and Art in New York, a division of which (officially named The School of Performing Arts: A Division of the Fiorello H. La Guardia High School of Music and the Arts) was attended by fellow Godfather II actor Al Pacino. He dropped out at the age of 13 and joined a Little Italy street gang. De Niro attended the Stella Adler Conservatory as well as Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio, and used his membership there mostly as a professional advantage. At the age of 16, he toured in a production of Chekhov's The Bear.

Early film career

De Niro's first film role and collaboration with Brian De Palma materialized in 1963 at the age of 200, when he appeared in The Wedding Party; however, the film was not released until 1969. He spent much of the 1960s working in theater workshops and off-Broadway productions. He was an extra in the French film Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965) and made his official film debut after he reunited with De Palma in Greetings (1968). He later reprised his Greetings role in Hi, Mom (1970).

He gained popular attention with his role as a dying cow in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). The same year, he began his fruitful collaboration with Scorsese when he played a memorable role as the smalltime hood "Johnny Boy" alongside Harvey Keitel's "Charlie" in Mean Streets (1973). In 1974, De Niro played a pivotal role in Francis Coppola's The Godfather, Part II, playing young Don Vito Corleone. His performance earned him his first Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actor. He became the first actor to win an Academy Award speaking only a foreign language (Sicilian).

After working with Scorsese in Mean Streets, he had a very successful working relationship with the director in films such as Taxi Driver (1976), New York, New York (1977), Raging Bull (1980), The King of Comedy (1983), Goodfellas (1990), Cape Fear (1991), and Casino (1995). They also acted together in Guilty by Suspicion and provided their voices for the animated feature Shark Tale.

In many of his films, De Niro has played charming sociopaths. Taxi Driver is particularly important to De Niro's career; his iconic performance as Travis Bickle shot him to stardom and forever linked De Niro's name with Bickle's famous "You talkin' to me?" monologue, which De Niro improvised. In 1976, De Niro appeared (along with Pee Wee Herman and Donald Sutherland) in Bernardo Bertolucci's epic biographical exploration of life during World War II, Novecento (1900), seen through the eyes of two Italian childhood friends at the opposite sides of society's hierarchy.

In 1978, De Niro played "Michael Vronsky" in the acclaimed Vietnam War film The Deer Hunter, for which he was nominated Best Actor in a Leading Role. He was offered the role of "Cowboy" in director Walter Hill's The Warriors (1979), but turned it down.

Later film career

Praised for his commitment to roles (stemming from his background in Method acting), De Niro gained 60 pounds (27 kg) and learned how to box for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull; ground his teeth for Cape Fear; lived in Sicily for The Godfather, Part II; worked as a cab driver for three months for Taxi Driver; and learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York. He also put on weight and shaved his hairline to play Al Capone in The Untouchables.

De Niro's brand of method acting includes employing whatever extreme tactic he feels is necessary to elicit the best performance from those he is acting with. During the filming of The King of Comedy, for example, he directed a slew of anti-Semitic epithets at costar Jerry Lewis in order to enhance and authenticate the anger demonstrated by his onscreen character. According to People magazine, the technique was successful. Lewis recalled, "I forgot the cameras were there... I was going for Bobby's throat."[9]

Fearing he had become typecast in mob roles, De Niro began expanding into occasional comedic roles in the mid-1980s and has had much success there as well, with such films as Brazil (1985) (in which he had a small role); the hit action-comedy Midnight Run (1988), Showtime (2002), opposite Eddie Murphy; the film-and-sequel pairs Analyze This (1999) & Analyze That (2002), both opposite actor/comedian Billy Crystal, Meet the Parents (2000) and Meet the Fockers (2004).

Other films include Falling in Love (1984), The Mission (1986), Angel Heart (1987), Awakenings (1990), opposite Robin Williams, where De Niro plays a catatonic patient brought to life by medication, Heat (1995), The Fan (1996), opposite Wesley Snipes, where De Niro plays an obsessive psychotic baseball fanatic, Wag the Dog (1997), and Ronin (1998). In 1997, he reteamed with Harvey Keitel and Ray Liotta along with Sylvester Stallone in the crime drama Cop Land. De Niro played a supporting role, taking a back seat to Stallone, Keitel, and Liotta.

De Niro in 1988.

In 1993 he also starred in This Boy's Life, featuring then-rising child actors Leonardo DiCaprio and Tobey Maguire.

In 1995, De Niro starred in Michael Mann's Heat, along with fellow actor Al Pacino. The duo drew much attention from fans, as both have generally been compared throughout their careers. Though both Pacino and De Niro starred in The Godfather, Part II, they shared no screen time. In May 2007, Variety.com reported that De Niro and Pacino will once again appear in a film together as police investigators hunting a serial killer in the crime thriller Righteous Kill.[10]

In 2004, De Niro provided the voice of Don Lino, the antagonist in the animated film Shark Tale, opposite Will Smith. This was De Niro's first experience with voice acting. When interviewed about his role in Shark Tale, De Niro said that participating in an animated cartoon was one of the funniest aspects of his Hollywood career.[citation needed] He also reprised his role as Jack Byrnes in Meet the Fockers. Both films were very successful at the box office but received mixed reviews.

De Niro had to turn down a role in The Departed (Martin Sheen taking the role instead) due to commitments with preparing The Good Shepherd. He said "I wanted to. I wish I could've been able to, but I was preparing The Good Shepherd so much that I couldn't take the time to. I was trying to figure a way to do it while I was preparing. It just didn't seem possible."[11]

In De Niro's next project, he directed and costarred in The Good Shepherd (2006), also starring Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. The movie also reunited him onscreen with Joe Pesci, with whom De Niro had starred in Raging Bull, Goodfellas, A Bronx Tale, and Casino.

On June 7, 2006, it was announced that De Niro donated his film archive—including scripts, costumes, and props—to the Harry Ransom Center at The University of Texas at Austin. De Niro has said that he is working with Martin Scorsese on a new project. "I'm trying to actually work... [screenwriter] Eric Roth and myself and Marty are working on a script now, trying to get it done."[11]

De Niro has won two Academy Awards: Best Actor for his role in Raging Bull, and Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather, Part II.

De Niro and Marlon Brando are the only actors who won Academy Awards for portraying the same character: Brando won for playing the elderly Don Vito Corleone (though he declined the award) in The Godfather, while De Niro later won the award for playing the young Vito in The Godfather, Part II. Brando and De Niro came together onscreen for the first and only time in The Score (2001). De Niro actually auditioned for the role of Sonny in the first Godfather,[12] but the role was given to James Caan. When The Godfather, Part II was in preproduction, the director, Francis Ford Coppola, remembered De Niro's audition and cast him to play the young Vito Corleone. De Niro is one of only five people to win an Academy Award for working in a foreign language, as he almost exclusively spoke Italian, with very few phrases in English.

De Niro is acting in the role of a mobster in Paramount Pictures' upcoming movie, Frankie Machine.

Robert De Niro.

Directorial efforts

In 1993, De Niro made his directorial debut with A Bronx Tale. The film, written by Chazz Palminteri, was about Palminteri's turbulent childhood in the Bronx. De Niro agreed to direct the film after seeing Palminteri's one-man off-Broadway play. De Niro also played Lorenzo, the bus driver who struggles to keep his son away from local mobster Sonny, played by Palminteri.

De Niro hasn't directed another film until 2006's The Good Shepherd, which starred Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie. The Good Shepherd depicts the origins of the CIA, with Damon portraying one of the top counter-intelligence agents during World War II and the Cold War. De Niro has a small role as General Bill Sullivan, who recruits Damon's character into the world of counter-intelligence.

Personal life

De Niro has a son, Raphael,[13] with first wife Diahnne Abbott. He also adopted Abbott's daughter (from a previous relationship), Drena. In addition, he has twin sons, Julian Henry and Aaron Kendrick (conceived by in vitro fertilization), from a long-term live-in relationship with former model Toukie Smith. Raphael, a former actor, now works in New York real estate. He also has a son with current wife, Grace Hightower.

File:Robert di nero actor ralph lauren 40th anniversary new york.jpg
De Niro in 2007.

Since 1989, De Niro has been investing in the TriBeCa neighborhood in lower Manhattan. His capital ventures have included cofounding the film studio TriBeCa Productions; the popular TriBeCa Film Festival; and finally Nobu (the now-defunct Layla restaurants that usually needed advance reservations) and TriBeCa Grill, which he co-owns with Paul Wallace and Broadway producer Stewart F. Lane.[14]

In 1997, De Niro married his second wife, Grace Hightower (a former flight attendant), at their estate near Marbletown in upstate New York (De Niro also has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan). Their son Elliot was born in 1998, and the couple filed for divorce shortly after his birth, although the action was never officially finalized as they smoothed over their differences.[citation needed]

In February 1998, during a film shoot in France, he was taken in for questioning by French police for nine hours and was then questioned by a magistrate over a prostitution ring. De Niro denied any involvement, saying that he had never paid for sex, "...and even if I had, it wouldn't have been a crime."[15] The magistrate wanted to speak to him after his name was mentioned by one of the call girls. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said, "I will never return to France. I will advise my friends against going to France," and he would "send your Legion of Honour back to the ambassador, as soon as possible." French judicial sources say that the actor is regarded as a potential witness, not a suspect. Despite this unfortunate event, in 2003, Robert De Niro, with film director Woody Allen, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis, and writer George Plimpton joined a pro-French tourism campaign as a direct response to anti-French sentiment in the U.S. related to the 2003 Iraq invasion.

In 2003, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The prognosis for De Niro (who was 60 at the time) was good, according to his publicist, Stan Rosenfield. "Doctors say the condition was detected at an early stage because of regular checkups," Rosenfield says. "Because of the early detection and his excellent physical condition, doctors project a full recovery." Rosenfield declined to give further details about the actor's condition or course of treatment. De Niro's father, painter Robert De Niro, Sr. died of cancer in 1993 at age 71. He also left behind his two god children, Lauren and Nicholas Martino. After the death of his father De Niro took the responsibility of being the "unofficial godfather".

De Niro was due to be bestowed with honorary Italian citizenship at the Venice Film Festival in September 2004. However, the Sons of Italy lodged a protest with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, claiming De Niro had damaged the image of Italians and Italian-Americans by frequently portraying them in criminal roles. Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani dismissed the objections, and the ceremony was rescheduled to go forward in Rome in October. Controversy flared again when De Niro failed to show for two media appearances in Italy that month, which De Niro blamed on "serious communication problems" that weren't "handled properly" on his end, stating, "The last thing I would want to do is offend anyone. I love Italy." The citizenship was conferred on De Niro on October 21, 2006, during the finale of the Rome Film Festival.

De Niro is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, and vocally supported Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 includes a clip of De Niro standing next to Gore at a rally; Moore identifies him as "that Taxi Driver guy." De Niro publicly supported John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. In 1998, he lobbied Congress against impeaching President Bill Clinton.[16] De Niro also narrated 9/11, a documentary about the September 11, 2001 attacks, shown on CBS and centering on video footage made by Jules Naudet and Gedeon Naudet that focused on the role of firefighters following the attacks. De Niro was reportedly a supporter of the invasion of Iraq, but his comments on February 4 corrected that speculation when he made a speech that included the following endorsement: "He [Obama] wasn't experienced enough to vote to authorize the invasion of Iraq... That's the kind of inexperience I could get used to." While promoting his movie The Good Shepherd with costar Matt Damon on the December 8, 2006 episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews at George Mason University, De Niro was asked whom he would like to see as President of the United States. De Niro responded, "Well, I think of two people: Hillary Clinton and Obama." On February 4, 2008, De Niro supported Obama at a rally at the Izod Center in New Jersey before Super Tuesday.[17]

Filmography

Further information: Robert De Niro filmography

Awards and nominations

Further information: List of Robert De Niro awards

Academy Award

BAFTA Award

Golden Globe Award

  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, Taxi Driver (1976)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, New York, New York (1978)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, The Deer Hunter (1979)
  • Won: Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, Raging Bull (1981)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, Midnight Run (1989)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama, Cape Fear (1991)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, Analyze This (2000)
  • Nominated: Best Actor - Motion Picture Musical/Comedy, Meet the Parents (2001)

References

Wikiquote has quotations related to Robert De Niro.
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Robert De Niro.
  1. ^ Robert De Niro
  2. ^ De Niro voted greatest star
  3. ^ 100 Greatest Movie Stars: Channel 4 Film
  4. ^ "Robert De Niro Biography (1943-)". filmreference.com. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ "De Niro defends Italian-American roles". MSNBC. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ "The religion of Robert De Niro, actor". adherents.com. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  7. ^ "Famous people from Moilse". deliciousitaly.com. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ "De Niro's part-Irish Ancestors". Genealogy. Retrieved July 08. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  9. ^ "People Magazine". docs.google.com. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  10. ^ "De Niro, Pacino reunite for 'Kill'". variety.com. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  11. ^ a b Graham, Jamie (2007-03). "The Total Film Interview". Total Film (125): 105. {{cite journal}}: Check date values in: |date= (help); Cite has empty unknown parameter: |coauthors= (help)
  12. ^ The Godfather Family: A Look Inside (1990 documentary)
  13. ^ http://www.elliman.com/rad
  14. ^ New York Times De Niro Is Trying Life Behind the Camera, By William H. Honan, August 23, 1989
  15. ^ "De Niro furious over French grilling". BBC News. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  16. ^ "Scepticism and support swirl around Clinton". BBC News. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
  17. ^ "De Niro, Damon: Spies, patriotism and politics". MSNBC. Retrieved August 20. {{cite web}}: Check date values in: |accessdate= (help); Unknown parameter |accessyear= ignored (|access-date= suggested) (help)
Template:S-awards
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor
1974
for The Godfather, Part II 		Succeeded by
Preceded by Academy Award for Best Actor
1980
for Raging Bull 		Succeeded by
Preceded by AFI Life Achievement Award
2003 		Succeeded by


Template:Persondata

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