Actors - Robert De Niro

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	Actors - Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro, Jr. (born August 17, 1943 in New York City) is an American film actor, director and producer.

He is regarded as one of the finest actors of his generation, noted for his enduring collaboration with the director Martin Scorsese and his apprenticeship under Stella Adler. He regards himself as an Italian American, although only his paternal grandfather was of Italian descent.

Early career

De Niro was born in New York City, the son of Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter, sculptor, and poet of Irish and Italian descent (De Niro's great-grandparents were Italian immigrants from the village of Ferrazzano, Molise), and Virginia Admiral, also a painter. They had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts. His parents divorced when he was two years old. A biographer, John Baxter, claims that his father was homosexual, and had relationships with poet Robert Duncan, playwright Tennessee Williams, and artist Jackson Pollock.

De Niro first attended the Little Red School House School and was then enrolled by his mother at the High School of Music and Art in New York. He dropped out at the age of 13 and joined a Little Italy street gang, where he earned the nickname Bobby Milk due to his white complexion. He then had a falling-out with his father, although they were eventually reconciled when, aged 18, he flew out to Paris to bring his father home when he had been suffering from depression. De Niro attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio (although De Niro conflicted with Strasberg's methods, and used his membership there mostly as a professional advantage). At the age of 16 he toured in Chekhov's The Bear.

Film career

At the age of 20 came his first important collaboration with Brian De Palma in 1963 when he appeared in The Wedding Party; it was not released until 1969, however. He spent much of the 1960s working in theatre workshops and off-Broadway productions. He was an extra in the French film Three Rooms in Manhattan, (1965) and was reunited with De Palma in Greetings, 1968 and Hi, Mom, 1970. He gained popular attention with his role as a sick Baseball catcher in Bang the Drum Slowly
(1973). The same year he began his fruitful collaboration with Scorsese when he played his memorable role as the small time Mafia hood "Johnny Boy" alongside Harvey Keitel's "Charlie" in Mean Streets
. This led to an incredibly successful relationship between the actor and 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). In these films, De Niro has primarily 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 himself improvised.

In 1978, De Niro played "Michael Vronsky" in the acclaimed Vietnam War film Deer Hunter. Another notable role was in Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in America
as the Jewish gangster "David 'Noodles' Aaronson" (1984). Beginning in the mid-1980s, De Niro began expanding into occasional comedic roles, and has had much success in that area as well with such films as Brazil (1985), Midnight Run
(1988), Wag the Dog
(1997), Analyze This
(1999), Analyze That
(2002), Meet the Parents
(2000) and Meet the Fockers
(2004).

[ Visit the complete Wikipedia entry for Robert De Niro ]

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