The achievements of Robert De Niro as an actor, director and producer are so extensive that they would fill a book. (John Baxter wrote a biography in 2002 and Andy Dougan wrote a bio in 2003. Surely another biography is due!) Here are a few highlights. Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan and grew up in the nearby Little Italy area. His father, Robert De Niro Sr., was a successful artist whose parents were from Italy. Robert De Niro went to several high schools but dropped out to become an actor. He costarred with Jill Clayburgh in The Wedding Party (produced in 1963, released in 1969), played a dying baseball player in Bang The Drum Slowly (1973) and, in 1973, played Johnny Boy in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets. Among his 80+ films are The Godfather, Part II (1975, Academy Award), Taxi Driver (1977), The Deer Hunter (1979), Raging Bull (1981, Academy Award), The King of Comedy (1984), Goodfellas (1990), Awakenings (1991), Cape Fear (1992), A Bronx Tale (1993, he also directed it and dedicated it to his father), Analyze This (2000) and Silver Linings Playbook (2013). Upcoming are seven films (!), to be released in 2013 and 2014. Now onto other areas. DeNiro directed The Good Shepherd (2006, with Matt Damon and Angelina Jolie). His film studio, TriBeCa Productions, produced films and TV series. The Tribeca Film Festival, which he cofounded in 2002, has become one of the world’s major film projects. He also owns a hotel and restaurants in New York. From 1976 to 1988, he was married to actress/singer Diahnne Abbott. He has six children, including actress Drena De Niro (from his first wife’s former marriage) and twin sons (from his longtime relationship with model Tookie Smith). De Niro and his wife, actress singer Grace Hightower (married in 1997) live in Manhattan (of course) and on an estate in Marbletown (near NYC). Robert De Niro has appeared in all types of roles, including comedic. Not all his films have been superb. He received many millions of dollars for playing Ben Stiller’s father-in-law in the three Fockers films. Is there any film goer who can’t repeat some of his lines, as in Taxi Driver, or recall some of his tragic scenes, as in Raging Bull. In an interview by film critic A.O. Scott in The New York Times Magazine, on November 13, 2012, DeNiro said: When you get older, you start realizing you don’t have that much time. And you look back and say, “The last 15 years, it went by kind of quickly.” You don’t really know it until you get there and look back and say, “Geez, where did that time go?” I know I’ve gotta account for every day, every moment, every this, every that, but it still went, that time went. So now I have the next whatever, hopefully 15, 20 years if I’m lucky, and I think what to use that time for. imdb/name/nm0000134/
Posted on: Tue, 20 Aug 2013 18:27:34 +0000