Mickey Rourke Biography

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Schenectady, New York, although some sources cite 1950 and 1953 as possible years of his birth. He is a colorful American actor and former boxer. Rourke had a short stint as a professional boxer in the 1990s. He won a 2009 Golden Globe award and a BAFTA award, and was nominated for a Screen Actors Guild Award and an Academy Award for his work in the film The Wrestler.He appears as the main villain Whiplash in Iron Man 2 and is also well known for playing Marv in Sin City.

Rourke, born to an Irish Catholic family, grew up in the neighborhoods of heavily African-American Liberty City in Miami. He has a younger sister (Patty), a younger half-brother (Joey), and six step-siblings, the result of his parents’ divorce and his mother’s remarriage.

After attending Miami Beach Senior High School, he would go on to study at the Lee Strasberg Institute (where veteran method actors such as Robert De Niro and Christopher Walken studied).

Rourke’s film debut was a small role in Steven Spielberg’s unsuccessful film 1941, but his portayal of an arsonist in Body Heat garnered significant attention, despite his modest time onscreen.

During the early 1980s, Rourke’s career blossomed. In 1982, he starred in the cult classic Diner, which also starred Paul Reiser, Daniel Stern, Steve Guttenberg and Kevin Bacon. The film was directed by Barry Levinson (director of Rain Man), and most of the principal actors later became bigger stars.

Soon after, Rourke starred in Francis Ford Coppola’s follow-up to The Outsiders in the coming-of-age tale, Rumble Fish. Playing the older and enigmatic brother of Matt Dillon, he was praised as a standout in a film featuring such talents as Dennis Hopper, Diane Lane, Nicolas Cage, Chris Penn, Laurence Fishburne and Tom Waits.

Rising star: Rourke’s performance in the film The Pope of Greenwich Village alongside Darryl Hannah and Eric Roberts began to give him some critical attention. While a box office flop during its initial release, the film has become somewhat of a minor cult hit, with actor Johnny Depp calling it “perfect cinema”, and even getting a recent mention on HBO’s Entourage as being the lead character’s favorite movie. Rourke has always credited the film as being his own personal favorite, while both Hannah and Roberts often cite it as highlights of their careers.

In the mid-1980s, Rourke became one of the decade’s leading men, and arguably the major sex symbol of his acting generation, a title no doubt fueled by his role alongside Kim Basinger in the controversial box-office hit 9½ Weeks.

He attained mass critical acclaim for his work in Barfly as the alcoholic writer Charles Bukowski, and in the Oliver Stone-penned Year of the Dragon.

However, many consider his finest performance to be in the controversial 1987 movie Angel Heart, Alan Parker’s film, which became controversial for its explicit sex scene involving Cosby Show cast member Lisa Bonet.

Bill Cosby allegedly tried to have the film blocked from release so that it would not “taint” the image of his sitcom. Many critics maintain that it is Rourke’s best performance, although Rourke has admitted on numerous occasions that he doesn’t understand why they think so since, in his opinion, he just played it straight. He claims he took the role primarily because he needed the money at the time.

Around the same time, he also performed with musician David Bowie on the Never Let Me Down album, and wrote his first screenplay, Homeboy, a boxing tale in which he also starred. His other big role in 1991 was in the action film Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man as Harley Davidson, a biker in the near future whose best buddy is named Marlboro (played by Don Johnson). Regarded as a box office bomb at the time, today it is considered something of a “great bad movie” amongst home video fanatics.

Rourke’s acting career eventually became overshadowed by the demands of his personal life as well as his perceived eccentric career decisions. Among the roles he reportedly turned down included the roles of Elliot Ness in The Untouchables, Axel Foley in Beverly Hills Cop (although it should be noted that Sylvester Stallone also refused the role and the script was heavily re-written when Eddie Murphy came on board), Jack Crawford in The Silence of the Lambs, Tom Cruise’s role in Rain Man, Nick Nolte’s part in 48 Hours, Christopher Lambert’s part in Highlander and a part in Platoon. Instead, he spent time surrounded by an entourage that included the Hell’s Angels, Tupac Shakur and even John Gotti.

Becoming typecast as a soft-core pornographic actor in the early 1990s for taking on roles in so-called “smutty” films like Wild Orchid, Rourke left acting in 1991 to become a professional boxer.

Although he won the majority of his fights against minor opponents, he never achieved national prominence. In fact, on a recent E! television program, boxing promoters claimed Rourke was merely average. Many of them thought that the actor was simply too old to do well against top level fighters.

Return to the screen: It was during that time that Quentin Tarantino offered Rourke the part of Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction, planning on resurrecting his career alongside John Travolta. Rourke refused, and the role eventually was offered to Matt Dillon and Sylvester Stallone, before Bruce Willis invested in the film and was given the part.

In 1995, Rourke retired from boxing, and returned to the silver screen with brief but memorable turns in John Grisham’s The Rainmaker, Vincent Gallo’s Buffalo ’66, Steve Buscemi’s Animal Factory and Sylvester Stallone’s remake of Get Carter.

His comeback film was touted as being Terrence Malick’s The Thin Red Line, having spent two days filming a significant role – however, Malick was forced to cut back from his original 6-hour version of the film and Rourke’s part ended up on the cutting room floor. However, even if the part had not been cut, the film was not widely distributed and it is doubtful that the role would have had much of an effect on Rourke’s career.

Beginning in 2000, Rourke proved memorable with the role of The Cook in Jonas Åkerlund’s Spun, a cult hit amongst Gen X audiences, reteaming with his Pope of Greenwich Village co-star Eric Roberts. His first collaborations with directors Robert Rodriguez and Tony Scott occurred in Once Upon a Time in Mexico and Man on Fire, respectively, with Rourke’s smaller parts eventually earning him lead roles in their next films.

Stardom reclaimed: In 2005, Rourke made his comeback as a Hollywood star with a performance as lead character Marv in Robert Rodriguez’s adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City. Rourke received awards from the Chicago Film Critics Association, the IFTA and the Online Film Critics Society, as well as “Man of the Year” from Total Film magazine that year.

Rourke followed Sin City with a dynamic supporting role in Tony Scott’s Domino alongside Keira Knightley. Rourke’s reputation as a boxer and street wise man gave his role in the film considerable credibility.

Previous collaborations: Directors that Rourke has worked with during his career include Steven Spielberg, Lawrence Kasdan, Francis Ford Coppola, Barry Levinson, Stuart Rosenberg, Nicholas Roeg, Michael Cimino, Adrian Lyne, Alan Parker, Mike Hodges, Barbet Schroeder, Walter Hill, Tsui Hark, Terrence Malick, Jonas Åkerlund, Wong Kar Wai, Tony Scott, Robert Rodriguez and John Madden, as well as actors-turned-directors Sean Penn, Vincent Gallo and Steve Buscemi.

Rourke also recently appeared in a 40-page story by photographer Bryan Adams for Berlin’s Zoo Magazine. Infamy and notoriety: Rourke has developed a reputation for his outspokenness. For example, he criticized actress Paris Hilton for having a lack of talent and claimed that she was an insult to the profession. Rourke has also held a grudge against director Barbet Schroeder, since the filming of Barfly more than fifteen years. 

Unlike most other actors, Rourke does not employ a press agent to do damage control and preserve his image. While this attitude has offended some, it has also managed to give Rourke a certain amount of box office appeal as anti-hero among Hollywood actors.

Rourke signed up to act in the movie version of the The Informers in the role of Peter, an amoral former studio security guard who plots to kidnap a small child.

In 2008, Rourke played the lead in The Wrestler, winner of the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival, about washed-up professional wrestler Randy “The Ram” Robinson. In regards to first reading the screenplay, he stated that he originally “didn’t care for it.”

He trained under former WWE wrestler Afa the Wild Samoan for the part, and has received a British Academy (BAFTA) award, a Golden Globe award, an Independent Spirit Award, and an Oscar nomination as Best Actor. Rourke was pessimistic about his chances to win the Oscar as he had been, in the past, very vocal against Hollywood’s establishment. Rourke lost the Oscar to Sean Penn, while Penn did acknowledge Rourke in his acceptance speech.

Rourke has written or co-written six scripts: Homeboy, The Last Ride, Bullet, Killer Moon, Penance and the latest, Pain. Of these, the first three were produced as movies between 1988 and 1996.

In early 2009, Rourke developed a small feud with WWE Superstar Chris Jericho, as part of a storyline. The storyline climaxed at WrestleMania XXV, when Rourke knocked out Jericho with a left hook after Jericho won his match against Jimmy Snuka, Ricky Steamboat, and Roddy Piper, with Ric Flair in their corner. In 2009, Rourke starred in John Rich’s music video for Shuttin’ Detroit Down along side of Kris Kristofferson.

In 2009, Rourke voiced protganist, US Navy SEAL Dick Marcinko in video game Rogue Warrior. The game received very poor reviews from critics, such as the excessive use of swearing by Marcinko, as well as poor AI and graphics. In 2010, Rourke played the role of the main villain Whiplash in the film Iron Man 2.