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Trivia
Birth name: Robert De Niro Jr.
Date of birth: 17 August 1943
Place of birth: New York, New York, USA
Nickname: Bobby Milk (childhood, due to his pallor)
Height: 5' 10" (1.78 m)
Spouse: Grace Hightower (17 June 1997 - present) 1 child,
Diahnne Abbott (1976 - 1988) (divorced) 1 child.
Also co-owns several restaurants in New York
including Nobu and Layla.
Drena De Niro is his daughter through
adoption. She is Diahnne Abbott's daughter from a previous marriage.
He and his wife, Grace Hightower, had their
first child, Elliot. [18 March 1998]
Caught up in a Paris prostitution ring
investigation. De Niro, denying any involvement, vowed never to return
to France again. [1998]
Father of actor Raphael De Niro
Ranked #5 in Empire (UK) magazine's
"The Top 100 Movie Stars of All Time" list. [October 1997]
Turned down the role of Jesus in The Last
Temptation of Christ (1988)
Son of Robert De Niro Sr., an abstract
expressionist, and Virginia Admiral, a painter.
In his 1980 Oscar acceptance speech he
thanked Joey LaMotta (brother of Jake LaMotta), who was at the time
suing United Artists for Raging Bull (1980)'s portrayal of him.
He formed his production company, TriBeCa
Productions, in 1989.
He owns a restaurant, "Ago" in
West Hollywood.
Had twin sons with his girlfriend Toukie
Smith, Aaron Kendrick De Niro and Julian Henry De Niro (October 20,
1995) conceived by in-vitro fertilization.
Although he is commonly referred to as an
Italian-American actor, De Niro is actually three-quarters Irish in
ancestry. He was, however, quite close to his Italian paternal
grandfather, whom Robert visited frequently in Syracuse, NY when he was
young.
Was offered but turned down the role of Sal
the pizza shop owner in Do the Right Thing (1989).
He is the second actor to win an Oscar for
portraying Vito Corleone. He and Marlon Brando are the only two actors
to win an Oscar for playing the same character.
He first discovered his love for acting at
age 10 when he portrayed The Cowardly Lion in a local production of
"The Wizard of Oz". He dropped out of high school to join a
gang.
Formerly held the World Record for Most
Weight Gained for a Movie, in gaining over 60 pounds for his role in
Raging Bull (1980). But seven years later, Vincent D'Onofrio eclipsed
him in gaining 70 pounds for his role in Full Metal Jacket (1987).
Three movies (at least) that De Niro has
appeared in have the song "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling
Stones noticeably featured in the soundtrack - The Fan (1996), Casino
(1995) and Goodfellas (1990).
Ranked #78 in Premiere's 2002 annual Power
100 List.
In 1993, he was tapped to star as Enzo
Ferrari in the film Ferrari which was budgeted at $65 million (U.S.) and
had Michael Mann attached as director. The project fell through.
He organised the first Tribeca Film Festival
in May 2002. He intended to revitalise the Lower Manhattan area after
September 11th attacks.
Has said that Meryl Streep is his favorite
actress to work with.
He was voted as the best actor of all time
at FilmFour.com (2002)
Inducted into the Italian-American Hall of
Fame in 2002
British 80s pop group Bananarama (Siobhan
Fahey, Sarah Dallen and Karen Woodward) had a song dedicated to De Niro
called "Robert De Niro's Waiting". De Niro heard about it and
arranged to meet the three girls. They got so nervous waiting for him
that all three got drunk before he even arrived.
Diagnosed with prostate cancer, and expected
to make a full recovery. [October 2003]
Owns a San Francisco restaurant called
Rubicon with Francis Ford Coppola and Robin
Williams.
Spent four months learning to speak the
Sicilian dialect in order to play Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part
II (1974). Nearly all the dialogue that his character spoke in the movie
was in Sicilian.
When he was a child, he was an avid reader
of playwrights.
According to a profile in Vanity Fair's
annual Hollywood issue, is the first actor to do a method interpretation
of a cartoon character as Fearless Leader in The Adventures of Rocky
& Bullwinkle (2000).
He started the whole "awards show
ribbon" tradition by wearing a green ribbon on his lapel at the
1981 Academy Awards. The ribbon was in rememberance of several
African-American children who were victims of a serial killer in
Atlanta, Georgia in 1980-1981. The ribbon was given to him by a fan in
the bleachers as he arrived; the victims' families had been wearing them
for months.
He often plays Italian characters in films,
and the common perception is that he is a stereotypical Italian-American
from Brooklyn. However, he is actually three-quarters Irish, not
Italian, and was born and raised in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, not
in Brooklyn.
Was in Ossining, New York (home of the
infamous Sing Sing penitentiary) to shoot three different movies:
Analyze This (1999), Analyze That (2002) and Hide and Seek (2005).
In the Egyptian film Medina, El (1999), the
main actor Ali has a duck that he named De Niro after his favorite
actor.
Was voted the Number 2 greatest movie star
of all time in a Channel 4 (UK) poll, narrowly being beaten by Al
Pacino.
It was tricky to make him look huge as
Frankenstein's monster in Frankenstein (1994) , considering that Kenneth
Branagh, who played Dr. Frankenstein, is of similar height. Many of the
tricks used to make humans, wizards and elves dwarf the hobbits later on
for "Lord of the Rings" trilogy were also employed to make De
Niro appear much bigger than his co-stars, including using very large
men as body doubles for shots where only the hands and feet are seen.
He was voted the 34th Greatest Movie Star of
all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Singer P.J. Harvey refers to De Niro in a
song, "Reeling," from her album '4-Track Demos".
Finley Quaye mentions him in the song
"Sunday Shining", in the line "I'm a hero like Robert De
Niro".
Was unable to accept his first Oscar in 1975
due to filming committments to Bernardo Bertolucci's 1900 (1976)
Was good friends with comedian John Belushi,
who died of a drug overdose in 1982. He visited Belushi's apartment at
3:00 on the morning of his death but, according to eyewitnesses, left
minutes later after seeing that Belushi was ill. Belushi had also been
visited by Robin
Williams less than an hour earlier, who also left straight away.
Ranked #1 in Empire (UK) magazine's
"The Greatest Living Actor (Gods Among Us)" list. [October
2004]
He and wife Grace Hightower renewed their
wedding vows in November 2004. The couple's divorce, filed in 1999, was
never finalized.
His Irish mother, despite having had a
strict Catholic upbringing, was not a Christian and was a practicing Jew
for most of Robert's childhood. His mostly Italian father, a painter,
wasn't religious in any way.
At the age of 17, after leaving the movies
with a friend, he unexpectedly stated that he was going to be a film
actor. No one believed him until he dropped out of his senior year of
high school and joined Stella Adler's acting school.
His father, after Robert was born, came out
of the closet as a homosexual and eventually divorced Robert's mother.
His boyhood idols among actors included
Montgomery Clift, Robert Mitchum and Marlon Brando. He preferred the
darker, more character-driven work of these men to the older stars of
Hollywood, for whom their public persona as a star was more important
than their immersion into the character.
Rarely does interviews and is known as one
of the most ultra-private celebrities. He was the subject of a late 90s
interview (and cover photo) for Esquire magazine. Most of the article
focused on how guarded he is with his personal life, what few details
are known about him, what rumors are speculated while only a minority of
the article dealt with the actual interview itself. The writer noted
that while the interview was ultimately agreed upon, he was given a
substantial list of off-limit subjects NOT to ask De Niro about. They
included: politics, religion, his family, his reported interest in fine
wines, and so on.
When they met shortly before making Mean
Streets (1973) De Niro and Harvey Keitel became fast friends. De Niro
was an Irish-Italian from the Village in Manhattan and was taught by
Stella Adler and Keitel was a Jew from the Brighton Beach area of
Brooklyn and was mainly mentored by Lee Strasberg, but the two guarded
actors bonded and remain close to this day.
He and Martin Scorsese were brought up
blocks apart in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, but never
formally meet when they were young. When introduced at a party in 1972,
the two came to realize that they had seen each other many times but had
never spoken.
Limo drivers in Los Angeles joke about his
less than generous tips by referring to him as "No Dinero".
Very good friends with fellow actor and
frequent co-star, Joe Pesci.
He was voted the 38th Greatest Movie Star of
all time by Entertainment Weekly.
Both of his Oscar-winning performances
involved doing an impersonation of Marlon Brando. His first Oscar, for
Best Supporting Actor, had him playing the younger version of Brando's
character Vito Corleone. His second, for Best Actor in Raging Bull
(1980), he recited Brando's famous lines from On the Waterfront (1954).
Underwent surgery for prostate cancer at New
York's Sloan-Kettering Hospital in December 2003. The cancer has now
gone into remission.
Studied at Actors Studio with Stella Adler
and Lee Strasberg.
Is left handed. However, he wrote with his
right hand in Taxi Driver (1976).
Co-owns the Rubicon restaurant in San
Francisco with Bay area residents Francis Ford Coppola and Robin
Williams. Much of his father's art work adorns the walls of the
business.
Shares a birthday with friend and
sometime-co-star Sean
Penn.
First actor to win an Oscar (for The
Godfather: Part II (1974)) for a performance in a sequel. (The very
first performer to win an Oscar for a sequel was Katharine Hepburn)
He is a staunch supporter of the US
Democratic Party. He lobbied Congress against impeaching President
Clinton in 1998, supported Al Gore in the 2000 Presidential election,
and supported John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential election.
Renewed his marriage vows to wife Grace
Hightower at De Niro's Ulster County farm near New York's Catskill
Mountains. De Niro married Hightower in 1997, but their marriage looked
to be ending when De Niro filed for divorce two years later. Their
fallout continued into 2001 as a potential custody battle over their son
Elliott heated up. However, the divorce was never finalized and they
managed to smooth over their troubles
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