Considered the best actor of his generation, Robert De Niro has built a durable star career out of his formidable ability to disappear into a character, whether tempering his charisma to become a believable everyman or imbuing his renowned gallery of mobsters and psychopaths with a compelling, frightening authority. After rising to stardom in the 1970s with landmark performances as violent New York brutes in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1973), Taxi Driver (1976), and Raging Bull (1980), not to mention his quietly bravura turn in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (1974), De Niro appeared to falter in the 1980s. Rejuvenated after The Untouchables (1987) and Goodfellas (1990), as well as the founding of the Tribeca Film Center, De Niro picked up his pace in the 1990s, strengthening his fame into the 2000s with his hilarious self-parodies in the blockbuster comedies Analyze This (1999) and Meet the Parents (2000).
The son of artists, De Niro was raised in New York’s Greenwich Village by his mother after his parents split up when he was two. Nicknamed “Bobby Milk” for his pallor, the youthful De Niro joined a Little Italy street gang, but the direction of his future had already been determined by his stage debut at age ten playing the Cowardly Lion in his school’s production of The Wizard of Oz. Along with finding relief from shyness through performing, De Niro was also entranced by the movies, and he quit high school at age 16 to pursue acting. Studying under Stella Adler and Lee Strasberg, De Niro espoused the Method tenets that guided the work of such trailblazing 1950s stars as Marlon Brando, learning how to immerse himself in a character emotionally and physically. While he labored in off-off-Broadway productions in the early ‘60s, De Niro was cast alongside fellow novice Jill Clayburgh in film school graduate Brian De Palma’s The Wedding Party (1969). It didn’t see the light of theaters, however, until the late ‘60s. His movie breakthrough seemingly limited to a brief walk-on in Marcel Carné’s Trois Chambres à Manhattan (1965), De Niro returned to theater in the mid-‘60s. His luck began to change when De Palma asked De Niro to star as one of three friends trying to dodge the Vietnam draft in his low-budget satire Greetings (1968). A small indie success, Greetings spawned a sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970), featuring De Niro as an oddball downtown voyeur-turned-quasi-radical bomber. With another small movie, Sam’s Song (1969), to his credit and the backing of friend Shelley Winters, De Niro got a shot at “going Hollywood” late-‘60s style with a role as one of the murderous Barker clan in the Bonnie and Clyde (1967) rip-off Bloody Mama (1970), a well-acted Roger Corman special. Though he followed Bloody Mama with three more movies, including playing a taxi driver in drug drama Jennifer on My Mind (1971) and replacing Al Pacino in the ill-conceived farce The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight (1971), De Niro found himself back doing off-Broadway theater by 1972.
De Niro’s professional life took an auspicious turn, however, when he was re-introduced to former Little Italy acquaintance Martin Scorsese at a party in 1972. Sharing a love of movies as well as their neighborhood background, De Niro and Scorsese hit it off; De Niro was immediately interested when Scorsese asked him about appearing in his new film, Mean Streets. Conceived as a grittier, more authentic portrait of the Mafia as a collection of petty street hoods rather than The Godfather’s (1972) wealthy dons, Mean Streets drew on Scorsese’s neighborhood experiences in its story of Harvey Keitel’s conflicted striver Charlie and his ruinous friendship with De Niro’s volatile Johnny Boy. Though he initially didn’t want the part, De Niro transformed Johnny Boy into an indelible combination of anarchic energy and violent stupidity, from the moment he blew up a mail box onscreen, through his humorous improvised monologue about Joey Clams to his bloody end. Though Mean Streets failed to catch on outside of cities, its assured style and superb acting turned Scorsese and De Niro into rising artistic stars. De Niro caught the critics’ attention again that same year with his completely different performance as a dying, simple-minded catcher in the quiet baseball drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). Though the New York Film Critics’ Circle gave De Niro the Best Supporting Actor prize for both roles, the Academy ignored him. Nevertheless, Francis Ford Coppola was impressed enough by Mean Streets to cast De Niro as the young Vito Corleone in the early 1900s portion of The Godfather Pt. II. Closely studying Brando’s Oscar-winning performance as Don Corleone in The Godfather, and perfecting his accent for speaking his lines in subtitled Sicilian, De Niro was so effective as the lethally ambitious and lovingly paternal Corleone that he created Oscar history when he took home an acting prize, albeit Best Supporting, for playing Vito.
Rather than cash in on his Godfather success, however, De Niro headed to Europe to star in Bernardo Bertolucci’s opus 1900 (1976). A sprawling allegory about class struggle in 20th century Italy, 1900’s expansive story hinged on the lifelong relationship between De Niro’s rich landowner and his proletarian best friend (Gérard Depardieu). Cut down to a mere four hours for its American release in 1977, 1900 impressed critics more with its sumptuous visuals than its content; the restored five-hour, 20-minute version attracted more kudos in 1991.
After 1900’s equally epic shoot, De Niro returned to the U.S. to collaborate with Scorsese on the far leaner (and meaner) production Taxi Driver. After working for two weeks as a Manhattan cabbie and losing weight, De Niro transformed himself into disturbed “God’s lonely man” Travis Bickle. An extreme study in urban alienation, De Niro’s Vietnam vet Bickle was painfully awkward with people, whether hanging out with fellow cabbie Peter Boyle, disastrously courting Cybill Shepherd, or trying to verbally save Jodie Foster. Once he began preening in front of the mirror with his weapons and issuing his reflection the signature “You talkin’ to me?” challenge, however, Bickle became frighteningly alive before descending into the climactic ultra-violent bloodbath. One of the definitive films of the decade, Taxi Driver earned the Cannes Film Festival’s top prize, good box office, and several Oscar nominations including Best Picture and De Niro’s first nod for Best Actor. Controversy erupted about the film’s violence, however, when would-be Presidential assassin John W. Hinckley cited Taxi Driver as a formative influence in 1981.
Seeking a change of pace, De Niro next starred as refined, doomed Irving Thalberg-esque movie producer Monroe Stahr in Elia Kazan’s final movie, the adaptation of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Last Tycoon (1976). Though the film failed, it was De Niro, along with Scorsese, who faced a potentially hostile audience to present Kazan with his honorary Oscar in 1999. De Niro and Scorsese met with another brand of hostility in 1977 with the release of Scorsese’s lavish, underrated musical New York, New York (1977). Though De Niro and co-star Liza Minnelli made an excellent, contentious pair, New York, New York’s downbeat take on the genre found little audience favor. De Niro quickly recovered with another risky, ambitious project, Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter (1978). One of the first wave of Vietnam movies, The Deer Hunter starred De Niro as one of three Pennsylvania steel-town friends thrown into the war’s inferno, emerging as profoundly changed men. Though the film provoked an uproar over its portrayal of Viet Cong violence as (literally) Russian roulette, The Deer Hunter won several Oscars including Best Picture; De Niro lost Best Actor to Jon Voight’s turn as a Vietnam vet in Coming Home (1978).
Returning to the realm of more personal violence, De Niro followed The Deer Hunter with his and Scorsese’s masterpiece, Raging Bull. Though Scorsese suffered a physical breakdown after New York, New York, De Niro convinced his friend that Raging Bull could be the de facto cure, and the pair reworked Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin’s initial adaptation of boxer Jake La Motta’s autobiography. With Rocky’s (1976) producers backing them, Scorsese and De Niro went to creative extremes to do justice to La Motta’s capacity for taking a beating in the ring and living brutally outside it, revealing the blood on the ropes and refusing to gloss over Jake’s spousal abuse. Along with his notorious 60-pound weight gain that rendered him unrecognizable as the middle-aged Jake, De Niro also trained so intensely for the outstanding fight scenes that La Motta himself averred that De Niro could have boxed professionally. Along with his physical dedication, De Niro won over critics with his ability to humanize La Motta without softening him; though some were put off by La Motta’s repugnance, none could deny that Scorsese and De Niro had created an extraordinary biopic and Raging Bull received eight Oscar nominations, including Best Picture. After Hinckley shot President Ronald Reagan the day of the Oscars, De Niro attended the re-scheduled ceremony and pointedly noted at the end of his acceptance speech for his richly deserved Best Actor statuette, “I love everybody.”
Not coincidentally, De Niro’s next film with Scorsese, The King of Comedy (1983), delved into the dark recesses of fandom. Though De Niro was remarkable as creepy comedian wannabe Rupert Pupkin, The King of Comedy’s incisive dissection of celebrity and TV proved too bleakly acerbic for audiences; Scorsese and De Niro decided to part creative ways afterwards. De Niro’s subsequent mid-‘80s movies continued to fall short. Though he was well suited to star in Sergio Leone’s epic homage to gangster films, Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Leone’s tough, transcendent vision couldn’t survive the studio’s decision to hack 88 minutes out of the American release version, and it bombed. De Niro’s cameo as a militant repairman was also subsumed by the offscreen theatrics attending the production and release of Terry Gilliam’s fantasy Brazil (1985). De Niro’s attempt at playing a “normal” romantic lead opposite Meryl Streep in Falling in Love (1984) failed to attract an audience; noble subject matter, spectacular visuals, and Cannes’ Palme D’Or couldn’t turn The Mission (1986) into an American hit. After his turn as the Devil in the controversial disappointment Angel Heart (1987), De Niro took a breather from films to return to the stage, playing a drug dealer in the New York Public Theater production Cuba and His Teddy Bear. During his theater stint, De Palma made De Niro a movie offer he couldn’t refuse when he asked him to play a small role in his film version of The Untouchables (1987). As the rotund, charismatic, bat-wielding Al Capone, De Niro was a memorable adversary for Kevin Costner’s upstanding Elliot Ness, and The Untouchables became De Niro’s first hit in almost a decade. De Niro followed The Untouchables with his first comedy success, Midnight Run (1988). Co-starring as a bounty hunter opposite Charles Grodin’s bail-jumping accountant, De Niro finally got to show his lighter side, and the hilarious pair turned Midnight Run into a summer sleeper hit. De Niro’s next foray into comedy in We’re No Angels (1989), however, was not so appealing.
His movie stardom revitalized, De Niro founded Manhattan’s Tribeca Film Center in 1989. Housing ascendant indie Miramax as well as De Niro’s own Tribeca Productions, the Film Center also included a restaurant co-owned by De Niro and decorated with his father’s art. From this base of operations, De Niro launched into the most prolific period of his career. Though he earned an Oscar nomination for his touching performance as a coma patient in Penny Marshall’s popular drama Awakenings (1990), movie fans were perhaps more thrilled by De Niro’s return to the Scorsese fold, playing cruelly duplicitous Irish mobster Jimmy “The Gent” opposite Ray Liotta’s turncoat Henry Hill in the critically lauded Mafia film Goodfellas (1990). Along with appearing onscreen with Scorsese as directors fighting the black list in Guilty by Suspicion (1991), De Niro worked with Scorsese again in the thriller remake Cape Fear (1991). Sporting a hillbilly accent and pumped-up physique, De Niro’s vengeful rapist Max Cady was a terrifying creation, particularly in his quietly creepy seduction scene with Juliette Lewis. Despite critics’ grumblings that De Niro was perhaps too flamboyant, Cape Fear became Scorsese and De Niro’s biggest hit together and earned another Oscar nod for the star. De Niro subsequently co-starred as a geeky cop in the Scorsese-produced Mad Dog and Glory (1993) and reunited with Cape Fear’s Jessica Lange for the noir remake Night and the City (1992).
De Niro also revealed that he had learned a great deal from his work with Scorsese with his own directorial debut, A Bronx Tale (1993). A well-observed story of a boy torn between his father and the local Mob, A Bronx Tale earned praise, but De Niro opted to stick with acting and producing afterwards. De Niro made his third Scorsese film of the decade when he starred as Vegas kingpin Sam Rothstein in Casino (1995). Though it was staged with Scorsese’s customary visual brilliance and paired De Niro with his Raging Bull brother and Goodfellas associate Joe Pesci, Casino received mixed notices and failed to score financially. De Niro passed on another opportunity to collaborate with Scorsese, as well as another co-starring turn with his This Boy’s Life (1993) and Marvin’s Room (1996) colleague Leonardo Di Caprio, when he dropped out of Gangs of New York (2002).
Appearing in as many as three films a year after 1990, including his Scorsese work, De Niro’s output garnered as many bad notices as good, but every time he appeared to take a wrong turn, he quickly managed to recover. Any doubts raised by the failed romance Stanley and Iris (1990) and the Hollywood schlock Backdraft (1991) were allayed by Goodfellas and Cape Fear; De Niro’s too-psychotic abusive stepfather in This Boy’s Life and bizarre eponymous monster in the flop Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1994) were offset by his polished reserve in Michael Mann’s glossy policer Heat (1995). Starring De Niro as a cool bank robber opposite Al Pacino’s fervid cop, Heat offered the rare spectacle of De Niro and Pacino sharing the screen, if only in two scenes. After indifferently received turns in The Fan (1996), Sleepers (1996), and Cop Land (1997), De Niro stepped outside his usual gallery of cops and criminals to play a puckish, amoral political strategist in Barry Levinson’s sharp satire Wag the Dog (1997). Though co-stars Pam Grier and Robert Forster received more attention, De Niro also rose to the acting occasion as a dangerously dimwitted crook in Quentin Tarantino’s laid-back crime story Jackie Brown (1997). John Frankenheimer’s smooth Euro-style espionage thriller Ronin (1998) allowed De Niro to headline a topnotch international cast; he took a back seat, however, to the young lovers and the lush green production design in Alfonso Cuarón’s contemporary adaptation of Great Expectations (1998).
De Niro was front and center once again in the comedy Analyze This (1999). As teary, stressed-out Mafia boss Paul Vitti, De Niro acknowledged and goofed on his esteemed collection of screen mobsters, aided and abetted by a nicely low-key Billy Crystal as his reluctant psychiatrist; the pair’s humorous chemistry turned Analyze This into a major hit. De Niro’s more serious, “actorly” turns as a homophobic stroke victim in Flawless (1999) and a prejudiced Navy officer in Men of Honor (2000) were further eclipsed by De Niro the new comic star with Meet the Parents (2000). Playing off of De Niro’s renowned history of screen menace, Meet the Parents pitted the absurdly stern De Niro as the potential father-in-law from hell against Ben Stiller’s increasingly hapless male nurse Greg Focker, and became a blockbuster success. Not surprisingly, both films spawned sequels, Analyze That (2002) and Meet the Fockers (2004). De Niro’s comic outing opposite Eddie Murphy in Showtime (2002), however, bombed.
Along with the comedies, De Niro still continued to take on his customary dramatic roles. His potentially interesting opportunity to co-star with his Godfather model and youthful inspiration Marlon Brando and his gifted young counterpart Edward Norton in the crime drama The Score (2001), however, was undermined by the ordinariness of the heist plot. Covering familiar territory, De Niro played troubled N.Y. cops in 15 Minutes (2001) and City by the Sea (2002). His daughter, Drena De Niro, from his first marriage to Diahnne Abbott, also appeared in City by the Sea (his second marriage ended in 2002).
As a New Yorker and downtown resident, De Niro took time from his packed movie schedule to contribute to the commemoration of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attack on the World Trade Center and the revitalization of downtown Manhattan. Working closely with Scorsese, De Niro co-organized the first Tribeca Film Festival in May 2002. Reaching the national audience, De Niro also made a rare TV appearance, in footage shot in his Tribeca neighborhood a few blocks from the Trade Center site, to narrate the award-winning CBS documentary 9/11 (2002).
As the decade wore on, De Niro continued to take on roles that failed to live up to his acclaimed earlier work. 2004 saw him staying in the comedy vein, parodying himself as the voice of a shark mobster in the animated Shark Tale and starring in the aforementioned Meet the Fockers. Meanwhile, he also served up a pair of critically-maligned thrillers with Godsend and Hide and Seek. All the while, De Niro continued to work on his ambitious and long-planned next foray behind the camera, the CIA drama The Good Shepherd. —allmovie guide
