Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. Biography
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr., usually known as Robert De Niro, is a well-known American actor and producer. He is well recognized for his collaborations with filmmaker Martin Scorsese on nine productions.
He has received several awards, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and others.
In 2009, Robert De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and in 2016, U.S. President Barack Obama gave him the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Key Takeaways
- Full Name: Robert Anthony De Niro Jr.
- Stage Name: Robert De Niro
- Born: 17 August 1943 (age 79 years old)
- Place of Birth: Greenwich Village, New York, United States
- Nationality: American
- Height: 1.77 m
- Parents: Robert De Niro Sr., Virginia Admiral
- Siblings: Joan De Niro, John De Niro
- Wife • Spouse: Grace Hightower (m. 1997–2018), Diahnne Abbott (m. 1976–1988)
- Girlfriend • Partner: Beatrice Marot (1996), Stephanie Adams (1993), Naomi Campbell (1993-1999), Charmaine Sinclair (1993-1995), Toukie Smith (1988-1996), Gillian De Terville (1984), Helena Springs (1979-1982), Leigh Taylor-Young (1971-1974), Karen Duffy
- Children: Drena De Niro, Helen Grace De Niro, Julian Henry De Niro, Raphael De Niro, Elliot De Niro, Aaron Kendrick De Niro
- Occupation: Actor • TV Personality
- Net Worth: $520 million
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. Personal Life
Robert De Niro married actress Diahnne Abbott in 1976. Their only child is Raphael De Niro, a former actor who works in real estate in New York. He also adopted Drena De Niro, Diahnne Abbott’s kid from a previous marriage. He and Diahnne Abbott divorced in 1988. From 1988 through 1996, he was romantically connected with model Toukie Smith.
Robert De Niro’s twin boys, Julian Henry De Niro and Aaron Kendrick De Niro, were born in 1995 via surrogate mother thanks to in vitro fertilization.
In 1997, he married actress Grace Hightower. After the birth of their son, Elliot De Niro, in 1998, the couple divorced in 1999. They remarried in 2004, although their divorce was never finalized. Helen Grace De Niro, their daughter, was delivered via surrogate in December 2011. In 2014, he and Grace Hightower moved into a 6,000-square-foot, five-bedroom condo at 15 Central Park West.
After four years, Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower announced the breakup of their 20-year marriage. Robert De Niro has four grandkids, one to his daughter Drena De Niro and three to his son Raphael De Niro.
Robert De Niro’s counsel said in a fake divorce process presided over by a Manhattan court on April 19, 2021, that his client is “working at an unsustainable rate to maintain Hightower and pay off all his prior taxes.” Grace Hightower’s counsel claimed that after the couple filed for divorce in 2018, Robert De Niro has unfairly reduced the agreed-upon payments to her.
Beatrice Marot (1996), Stephanie Adams (1993), Naomi Campbell (1993-1999), Charmaine Sinclair (1993-1995), Toukie Smith (1988-1996), Gillian De Terville (1984), Helena Springs (1979-1982), Leigh Taylor-Young (1971-1974), and Karen Duffy have all dated Robert De Niro. Drena De Niro, Helen Grace De Niro, Julian Henry De Niro, Raphael De Niro, Elliot De Niro, and Aaron Kendrick De Niro are his children.
Robert De Niro was born in New York City, New York, on August 17, 1943. His father, poet, painter, and sculptor Robert De Niro Sr. His mother, Virginia Admiral, also sold artwork.
His parents had a prominent salon in Greenwich Village that catered to intellectuals and artists. They divorced while their child was quite small. When he approached puberty, Robert De Niro was withdrawn and had a sickly look. He has a brother, John De Niro, and a sister, Joan De Niro.
Because of his light appearance, he was known as Bobby Milk in his upbringing’s ethnic area of Little Italy. On his first stage appearance, at the age of 10, he portrayed the cowardly lion in a local production of The Wizard of Oz.
Robert De Niro attended PS 41, a public elementary school in Manhattan, from kindergarten through sixth grade. After his acting instruction at the Dramatic Workshop, he made his school theatrical debut as the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz at the age of ten. He then attended the Little Red School House’s upper school, Elisabeth Irwin High School, for the seventh and eighth grades.
In the ninth grade, Robert De Niro was admitted to the High School of Music and Art, but he only stayed for a short time before moving to IS 71, Charles Evans Hughes Junior High School, a public junior high school. During high school, he attended McBurney School and Rhodes Preparatory School.
He discovered acting as a method to overcome his shyness and acquired a love of movies, so he dropped out of high school at the age of 16 to pursue acting. He studied acting at HB Studio and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio.
Robert De Niro also attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, where he learned about the Stanislavski techniques. When he was younger, he was influenced by the acting of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Greta Garbo, Geraldine Page, and Kim Stanley.
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. Career
Robert De Niro’s first paid part came when he was 16 years old, in a performance of Anton Chekhov’s The Bear. He was a drug addict. He dropped out of high school just a few credits shy of graduation and studied Method acting with Lee Strasberg and Stella Adler. During the next 14 years, he performed off-Broadway, at dinner theaters, on tour, and in television commercials and short films. His cinematic career began under Brian De Palma’s directing.
The Wedding Party, Hello, and Hey, Mom! are low-budget films in which he cast the young New Yorker. In the film Greetings, Robert De Niro starred as a draft evader. Shelley Winters, an actress, quickly adopted him as her own. She assisted him in landing a role in Roger Corman’s low-budget Bloody Mama film. He played one of Ma Barker’s notorious serial killersons. As part of his training, Robert De Niro spent weeks in the Ozark Mountains practicing an Arkansas dialect.
Following that, he appeared in a string of critically criticized films, including Jennifer on My Mind, Born to Win, and The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot Straight. Despite the film’s dismal reviews, numerous critics began to acknowledge his outstanding performances. Robert De Niro, who was 30 at the time, finally garnered international acclaim in 1973 with two remarkable performances. In Bang the Drum Slowly, he played a dying baseball player.
Robert De Niro was not athletic and had never played baseball, yet he was able to master the game via meticulous preparation, close study of actual and fictitious players, and extensive reading. He delivered an excellent performance. Later that year, Robert De Niro played as a restless, explosive juvenile hoodlum in Mean Streets, the first of many collaborations with director Martin Scorcese, a contemporary who also grew up on New York’s Lower East Side. His acting was really sincere. According to author David Thomson, the image seemed as if a rogue had gone from the streets, proclaiming how out of control he was.
In 1974, Robert De Niro portrayed a young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s massively popular The Godfather, Part II. In terms of accent and temperament, he spent weeks learning the Sicilian dialect and attempting to imitate Marlon Brando, who played the elder Corleone in the original Godfather film.
According to Pauline Kael, film critic, Robert De Niro is perfectly equipped to represent the young Brando because he possesses the physical bravery, elegance, and instinct required to thrive as an actor. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his groundbreaking performance, in which he said just 17 words in English. As Travis Bickle, the cab driver in Martin Scorsese’s 1976 film Taxi Driver, he received critical acclaim. To prepare for the role, Robert De Niro lost 35 pounds and listened to a taped narration of assassin Arthur Bremer’s memoirs, who assassinated presidential candidate George Wallace in 1972.
He also acquired a temporary driver’s license and worked as a cab driver in New York for many weeks. Robert De Niro’s daring, unnerving performance pushed the divisive film. According to David Thomson, his reluctance to oversimplify is what distinguishes his acting. He’ll never pick a shaman or a sacred beast.
Length, lonely sections provide the viewer with a confessional feeling. The sequence in which Robert De Niro toyed with his pistol and rehearsed his bravado in front of a mirror was improvised. He then tries out the famous remark, You talkin’ to me? The phrase entered the American lexicon and has since come to represent white male rage as well as a jaded, won’t-take-it-anymore attitude.
Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. Net Worth
Various internet sources, including Wikipedia, Forbes, IMDB, etc., estimate Robert De Niro‘s net worth to be $520 million. He is regarded as the best American actor in the world.
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