Personal life and gloomy complexes of Robert De Niro: the actor turns 79 years old

Tough childhood on the streets of New York

Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in the heart of New York, in Manhattan. His parents were second-generation descendants of Italian emigrants and prominent figures in the city’s creative bohemia, namely painters, sculptors and poets. We can say that the boy absorbed the love of art with his mother’s milk.

However, the life of little Robert was not at all ideal. Three years after his birth, his parents divorced. Moreover, the actor still does not know what became the stumbling block in their relationship: neither mother nor father ever told him about it. He stayed with his mother, but she never paid enough attention to him, preferring the circle of art lovers to her own son.

Therefore, as a child, De Niro spent all his free time on the streets of Little Italy, an area inhabited, as you might guess, mainly by Italians. In the company of guys with a Mediterranean skin tone, Robert seemed too pale, after all, two generations of American ancestral life made themselves felt. For this, his friends nicknamed him “Bobby Milk”.

Life in a big city could not be called calm. Immediately after the end of the Second World War, New York was covered by a wave of crime, at night in Little Italy, the mafiosi turned their dark deeds. De Niro was almost drawn into a small gang, but the parents talked to the boy in time and set him on the right path. However, he used his criminal experience more than once in future films, especially in The Godfather.

Even as a child, he showed a penchant for acting, often acting in school theater plays. Thanks to the connections of his parents, Robert was able to be sent to the prestigious New York High School of Music, Art and Performing Arts, Fiorello LaGuardia. He was taught by Stella Adler, who gave lessons to Stanislavsky himself, and by Lee Strasberg, whose alumni included Marlon Brando, Marilyn Monroe, and Jane Fonda.

First roles

While still a student, Robert met one of the main directors in his career – Brian De Palma. De Palma belonged to a generation of filmmakers of the so-called “New Hollywood”, young people who rebelled against American censorship alien to their souls. He and De Niro quickly hit it off, and the director invited him to play a role in his feature debut, The Wedding Party. Due to financial problems, this film fell on the shelf and was released only after 6 years, when De Palma became one of the leading directors in the United States.

After graduating from his alma mater, Robert moved to France to try out his skills in a completely different culture. In Europe, he made his first full-fledged debut, he played an episodic role in the film of the great director Marcel Carne “Three Rooms in Manhattan”. However, he could not earn any big money abroad, so he soon decided to return to his homeland.

After returning, De Niro’s career finally began to take off. By that time, Brian De Palma had secured the support of big studios, so Robert was able to completely forget about unemployment. Together they worked on the films “Bloody Mom”, “Thinking of Jennifer”, “The Gang That Couldn’t Shoot” and many others. Also, the actor began to patronize Shelley Winters, a prominent socialite of that time, the star of the films “A Place in the Sun” by Stevens and “Lolita” by Kubrick.

Thanks to the support of Winters, Robert met another important creator for his career – Martin Scorsese. They were both descendants of Italian immigrants, both fought for freedom of expression in the cinema, so they quickly converged on the characters. For his role in Scorsese’s film Mean Streets, De Niro was first awarded one of the most important American film awards – the prize of the National Guild of Film Critics.

However, absolute world fame came to him, of course, thanks to the film by Francis Ford Coppola “The Godfather 2”. In it, he played the role of a young mafioso Vito Corleone, who sacrificed everything for the sake of revenge on the murderers of his parents. For his excellent performance, Robert was awarded an Oscar.

The best roles of Robert De Niro

There is an endless debate among fans about which roles of the great actor can rightly be called his best. During his career, he has acted in more than 130 films and TV shows, so the choice is really very difficult. Most often among the best works of De Niro are the following:

1. “Deer hunter.” The story tells about three Russian emigrants in America who decide to go to fight in Vietnam. De Niro here played the role of Mikhail Vronsky, who was never able to return to a peaceful life after the horror he experienced.

2. “Taxi driver”. The legendary drama about the taxi driver Travis Bickle, who, day after day, watching all the dirt and debauchery of the streets of a big city, slowly begins to go crazy. Robert played the main role in the film.

3. “Raging Bull”. This is partly a biographical story about boxer Jake LaMotta, who became so immersed in his favorite sport that he could no longer distinguish between reality and the ring. The actor also played the main role here.

What is Robert De Niro doing now?

Despite the seemingly advanced age, De Niro continues to act very actively in a wide variety of projects. And he tries to stay away from big Hollywood films, because he believes that commerce kills all the best in cinema.

Therefore, it is rather ironic that his last picture was the comedy Hollywood Hustle. In it, he played the role of director Max Barber, who decided to kill the lead actor in his own film in order to get money from the insurance company. The film also stars Tommy Lee Jones and Morgan Freeman.

The actor continues his long-term collaboration with Martin Scorsese. Next year, their next collaboration, “The Killers of the Flower Moon,” will be released, in which De Niro will star in a pair with Leonardo DiCaprio. The plot will be based on a true story about the mysterious killings of Indians in Oklahoma in the 1920s.

The immediate future film of the actor will be the crime drama “Amsterdam” about a conspiracy in the ruling circles of the American elite. The film stands out primarily for its stellar cast, because in addition to De Niro, Anya Taylor-Joy, Margot Robbie, Christian Bale and many others will appear there.

Personal life of Robert De Niro

De Niro has always tried to show himself as a responsible family man. His own childhood without much love from both parents laid a heavy burden on him, so Robert tried not to repeat the same mistakes.

For the first time, the actor married at the very beginning of his career to singer Dianne Abbott. Abbott left a daughter from her first marriage, and the actor took her into his life as his own, even issued documents for adoption. In addition, in marriage he had a son, who was also named Robert. The adopted daughter of the actor now sometimes acts in small roles, and the son has started his own business. After 10 years of marriage, the love between Dianne and Robert faded and they parted ways.

The next darling of De Niro was the African-American model Tuki Smith. The couple did not dare to register the relationship, although they lived together for many years. Unfortunately, after the first marriage, the actor could no longer have children for physiological reasons, so he and Tuki decided to have a child through a surrogate mother. Thus, two more boys appeared in the family – Julian and Aaron. Both are now 26 years old.

In the 1990s, De Niro began dating singer Grace Hightower, and in 1997 they got married. The couple lived together for a long 20 years. During this time, in their family, also with the help of surrogate motherhood, two babies were born – son Elliot and daughter Helen. In 2018, after long quarrels and periodic breakups, the couple decided to finally disperse.

By the way, De Niro is an ardent opponent of vaccines and pharmaceutical companies. His anti-vaccination story began when little Elliot was diagnosed with autism. Robert immediately blamed corporations for his family misfortune, saying that they injected his son with an untested drug. Since then, he has spent huge sums on a campaign to expose the pharmaceutical industry.