Robert Anthony De Niro (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, producer and director who has both Italian and American citizenship. He was cast as the young Vito Corleone in the 1974 film The Godfather Part II, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. His longtime collaboration with director Martin Scorsese earned him the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake La Motta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He received the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2010, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2016.
De Niro’s first major film roles were in the sports drama, Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Scorsese’s crime film Mean Streets (1973). He earned Academy Award nominations for the psychological thrillers Taxi Driver (1976) and Cape Fear (1991), both directed by Scorsese. De Niro received additional nominations for Michael Cimino‘s Vietnam war drama, The Deer Hunter (1978), Penny Marshall‘s drama Awakenings (1990), and David O. Russell‘s romantic comedy-drama, Silver Linings Playbook (2012).
His portrayal of gangster Jimmy Conway in Scorsese’s crime film, Goodfellas (1990), and his role in black comedy film The King of Comedy (1983), earned him BAFTA Award nominations.
De Niro has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in the musical drama New York, New York (1977), the action comedy Midnight Run (1988), the gangster comedy Analyze This (1999), and the comedy Meet the Parents (2000). Other notable performances include roles in Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Untouchables (1987), Heat (1995), and Casino (1995). He has directed and starred in films such as the crime drama A Bronx Tale (1993) and the spy film The Good Shepherd (2006).
Nominations received by Robert De Niro
A seven-time Academy Award nominee, he won Oscars playing Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II (1974) and Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull (1980). For his first Oscar win, De Niro was not present and Francis Ford Coppola accepted the award on his behalf. He is also a six-time BAFTA Award nominee, and an eight-time Golden Globe Award nominee. In 2009, he was among the five recipients of the Kennedy Center Honors, presented by U.S. President Barack Obama.
Acting style and legacy
De Niro studied with Stella Adler where he learned the techniques of the Stanislavski-system. The technique encouraged the actor to explore both internal and externals aspects to fully realize the character being portrayed. He is praised for his commitment to roles, De Niro gained 60 lb (27 kg) and learned how to box for his role as Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull,ground his teeth for Cape Fear, lived in Sicily for The Godfather Part II, worked as a cab driver for a few weeks for Taxi Driver, and learned to play the saxophone for New York, New York. He again put on weight for his performance as Al Capone in The Untouchables (1987).
De Niro’s brand of acting includes employing whatever extreme tactic he feels is necessary to elicit the best performance from those with whom he is working. During the filming of The King of Comedy, he directed a slew of anti-Semitic epithets at co-star Jerry Lewis to enhance and authenticate the anger demonstrated by Lewis’ character. According to People magazine, the technique was successful, with Lewis recalling: “I forgot the cameras were there… I was going for Bobby’s throat.”
Early life
Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Greenwich Village area of Manhattan, New York, the son of Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. Both of his parents were painters; his father was of half Italian and half Irish descent, while his mother was of half German ancestry, with her other roots being French, English and Dutch.
De Niro’s parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when he was two years old after his father announced that he was gay.De Niro was raised by his mother in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy areas of Manhattan. His father lived within walking distance and De Niro spent much time with him as he grew up.His mother was raised Presbyterian but became an atheist as an adult, while his father was a lapsed Catholic since the age of 12.[8][10] Against his parents’ wishes, his grandparents had him secretly baptized into the Catholic Church while he was staying with them during his parents’ divorce.
De Niro attended PS 41, a public elementary school in Manhattan, through the sixth grade. He then went to Elisabeth Irwin High School, the private upper school of the Little Red School House, for the seventh and eighth grades.He was accepted into the High School of Music and Art for the ninth grade, but only attended for a short time before transferring to a public junior high school.
De Niro began high school at the private McBurney Schooland later attended the private Rhodes Preparatory School, although he never graduated from either. Nicknamed “Bobby Milk” for his pallor, De Niro hung out with a group of street kids as a youth in Little Italy, some of whom have remained his lifelong friends.The direction of his future had already been foreshadowed by his stage debut at age 10, when he played the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. Along with finding relief from shyness through performing, he was also fixated by cinema, and he dropped out of high school at age 16 to pursue acting. He studied acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as Lee Strasberg‘s Actors Studio.
Robert De Niro received an Italian passport in 2006. His Italian citizenship was granted by the Prime Minister, on behalf of the Italian Republic despite strong opposition by the Sons of Italy.
Goodfellas
Plot
Henry Hill quits school and is taken under the wing of local mob leader, Paul “Paulie” Cicero and his associates: James “Jimmy the Gent” Conway, who loves hijacking trucks; and Tommy DeVito, an aggressive armed robber with a temper. In April 1967, they commit the Air France robbery. Enjoying the perks of their criminal life, they spend most of their nights at the Copacabana nightclub carousing with women. Henry meets and later marries Karen, a Jewish woman from the Five Towns area of Long Island. Karen is initially troubled by Henry’s criminal activities but is soon seduced by his glamorous lifestyle.
On June 11, 1970, Billy Batts, a mobster in the Gambino crime family, insults Tommy with persistent remarks about him having been a shoeshine boy in his younger days. Enraged, Tommy and Jimmy attack and kill him. Knowing their murder of a made man would mean retribution from the Gambino crime family, which could possibly include Paulie being ordered to kill them, Jimmy, Henry, and Tommy cover up the murder. They transport the body in the trunk of Henry’s car and bury it in upstate New York. Six months later, Jimmy learns that the burial site is slated for development, forcing them to exhume the decomposing corpse and move it.
Henry sets up his mistress, Janice Rossi, in an apartment. When Karen finds out about their relationship, she tries to confront Janice and then threatens Henry at gunpoint. Henry moves out to live with Janice, but Paulie gets involved, mediates between the couple and directs him to return to Karen after completing a job for him. Henry and Jimmy are sent to collect a debt from a gambler in Florida, but they are arrested after being turned in by the gambler’s sister, a typist for the FBI. Jimmy and Henry receive ten-year prison sentences.
In prison, Henry sells drugs smuggled in by Karen to support his family on the outside. After his early release in 1978, Henry further establishes himself in the drug trade, ignoring Paulie’s ban on drug trafficking, and convinces Tommy and Jimmy to join him. Jimmy and a lot of Henry’s associates commit the Lufthansa heist at John F. Kennedy International Airport, stealing $6 million. After a few members buy expensive items and the getaway car is found by police, Jimmy has most of the crew killed. Tommy is eventually killed in retribution for Batts’ murder, having been fooled into thinking he would become a made man.
By May 11, 1980, Henry is a nervous wreck from cocaine use and insomnia. He tries to organize a drug deal with his associates in Pittsburgh, but he is arrested by narcotics agents and jailed. After he is bailed out, Karen tells him she flushed $60,000 worth of cocaine down the toilet to prevent FBI agents from finding it during their raid, leaving the family virtually penniless. Feeling betrayed by Henry’s drug dealings, Paulie gives him $3,200 and ends their association. Facing federal charges, and realizing Jimmy plans to have him killed, Henry decides to enroll in the Witness Protection Program. He gives sufficient testimony to have Paulie and Jimmy arrested and convicted. Forced out of his gangster life, Henry now has to face living in the real world. He narrates: “I’m an average nobody. I get to live the rest of my life like a schnook“.
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