Actors - Leonardo DiCaprio

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	Actors - Leonardo DiCaprio

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (born November 11, 1974) is an Academy Award-nominated American actor well known for roles in blockbuster movies like Titanic
(1997) and The Aviator
(2004), and was famed for his far reaching global celebrity influence dubbed as 'Leo-Mania' in the late 1990s.

Early career

DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the son of George DiCaprio, a half Italian-half German distributor of comic books, and Irmelin Indenbirken, a former legal secretary who was born in Germany. His name allegedly came about because his pregnant mother was standing in front of a Leonardo da Vinci painting at a museum in Italy when he kicked, which made her decide to name him after the famous artist. His parents divorced when he was a year old. He grew up in Echo Park.

At age five, he appeared on his favorite television series, Romper Room, and was almost fired for misbehaving. He attended John Marshall High School in Los Angeles. He was rejected by an agent early in his career for having a name that sounded too foreign, suggesting that it should be changed to Lenny Williams, but DiCaprio refused.

His acting career began in 1990 when he was cast in the role of Garry Buckman on the TV version of the hit film Parenthood
, where he met his best friend Tobey Maguire while working on an episode. In that same year, DiCaprio appeared on the soap opera Santa Barbara in the role of Mason Capwell (in flashbacks as a teenager). From 1991 to 1992 he had the role of Luke Brower, a homeless boy, on Growing Pains.

However, DiCaprio is most famous (and respected) for his roles in motion pictures. His debut role was as Josh in Critters 3 (1991), a film that was released straight to video.

Two years later, his break-through came with the role of Toby in This Boy's Life
(1993) co-starring with Robert De Niro and Ellen Barkin, which led the New York Film Critics and the National Society of Film Critics to name him runner-up for Best Supporting Actor. In the same year he also convincingly portrayed a mentally handicapped boy in What's Eating Gilbert Grape
(1993). The role earned him an Academy Award nomination.

The black-and-white movie Don's Plum
, a low-budget drama featuring the actor and some of his friends (including Tobey Maguire) was filmed between 1995 and 1996. Its release was later blocked in the United States and Canada by DiCaprio and Maguire, who argued they never intended to make it a theatrical feature. Nevertheless, it later premiered on February 10, 2001 in Berlin.

In 1996, DiCaprio also played the male lead in Romeo + Juliet, a slick and updated modern-day version of Shakespeare's play, directed by Australian director Baz Luhrmann.

Superstardom & 'Leo Mania'

The move from 'star' to 'superstar' came when DiCaprio played Jack Dawson in Titanic
(1997). The highest grossing movie ever, it tied with Ben-Hur
(1959) for receiving the most Academy Awards. Though DiCaprio himself was not nominated for an Oscar, over the course of the next few years he would become a household name worldwide, synonymous first with labels like 'teen heartthrob' or sex symbol with his dewy cheeked and saccharined faced looks. With a status that spawned fantasy crushes and hysteria worldwide, E Online described him as the most gorgeous celebrity on the planet, while his co-star Kate Winslet said she agreed with others in deeming him the "most beautiful man on earth". At the peak of his celebrity in 1998, DiCaprio fronted scores of magazine covers ranging anything from Vanity Fair to Rolling Stone, and was once the most searched for personality in the early years of the Internet. Indeed, thousands of fans would fill message boards and chat rooms, discussing his romances with scores of celebrity models like Gisele Bundchen, while sharing such minutiae as Leo's shoe size or his favorite comic book characters. Ironically, DiCaprio agreed to play the spoof role of his real life 'teen idol' persona during this period, in Woody Allen's satirical parody, Celebrity.

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Actors - Leonardo DiCaprio

Early career

Superstardom & 'Leo Mania'

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