Robert Mario De Niro Jr., credited professionally as Robert De Niro (born August 17, 1943), is a two-time Academy Award and Golden Globe-winning American film actor, director, and producer. He is noted for his method acting and portrayal of conflicted, troubled characters, for his enduring collaboration with director Martin Scorsese and for his early work with director Brian De Palma. He is best known for his roles in The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas and Casino.De Niro was born in New York City, to Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor, and Virginia Admiral, a painter. De Niro's father was Catholic and of Irish and Italian descent and his mother a Presbyterian-raised atheist of French, Dutch, and German descent. His Italian great-grandparents had emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise in the early 20th century.His parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when he was two years old. De Niro grew up in the Little Italy area of Manhattan. His childhood nickname was "Bobby Milk" due to his pale complexion.
De Niro first attended the Little Red School House and was then enrolled by his mother at the High School of Music and Art in New York. He dropped out at the age of 13 and joined a Little Italy street gang. He then had a falling-out with his father, though they were eventually reconciled when, at 18, he flew to Paris to bring home his father, who had been suffering from depression.
De Niro attended the Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as Lee Strasberg's Actor's Studio (though De Niro conflicted with Strasberg's methods, and used his membership there mostly as a professional advantage). At the age of 16 he toured in Chekhov's The Bear.
De Niro has been married twice. He has a stepdaughter, Drena and son Raphael with first wife Dianne Abbott, as well as twin sons Julian Henry and Aaron Kendrick (conceived by in vitro fertilization) from a long-term live-in relationship with former model Toukie Smith. Raphael, a former actor, now works in New York real estate.
Since 1989, De Niro has been investing in the TriBeCa neighborhood in lower Manhattan. His capital ventures have included co-founding the film studio TriBeCa Productions, the hugely popular TriBeCa Film Festival, and finally the TriBeCa Grill, Nobu, and now-defunct Layla restaurants that usually need advance reservations.
In February 1998, during a film shoot in France, he was taken in for questioning for nine hours by French police and questioned by a magistrate, over a prostitution ring. De Niro denied any involvement saying that he had never paid for sex, "and even if I had, it wouldn't have been a crime". The magistrate wanted to speak to him after his name was mentioned by one of the call girls. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said, "I will never return to France. I will advise my friends against going to France", and he would "send your Legion of Honour back to the ambassador, as soon as possible". French judicial sources say that the actor is regarded as a potential witness, not a suspect. In 2003, Robert De Niro, with film director Woody Allen, jazz musician Wynton Marsalis and writer George Plimpton joined a pro-French tourism campaign as a direct response to anti-French sentiment in the US related to the Iraq invasion.
In 2003, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The prognosis for De Niro, who was 60 at the time, was good, according to his publicist, Stan Rosenfield.
"Doctors say the condition was detected at an early stage because of regular checkups," Rosenfield says. "Because of the early detection and his excellent physical condition, doctors project a full recovery." Rosenfield declined to give further details about the actor's condition or course of treatment. De Niro's father, painter Robert De Niro Sr., died of cancer in 1993 at age 71.
De Niro is among a number of celebrities who have been diagnosed with prostate cancer. They include Yankees manager Joe Torre, former New York mayor Rudy Guiliani, comedian Jerry Lewis, former senator Bob Dole and retired general Norman Schwarzkopf. Rosenfield credited the early discovery of De Niro's cancer to the actor's "proactive personal health-care program".
In 1997, De Niro married his second wife, Grace Hightower, a former flight attendant, at their estate near Marbletown in upstate New York (De Niro also has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan). Their son Elliot was born in 1998 and the couple filed for divorce shortly after his birth, although the action was never officially finalize
De Niro, whose paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Ferrazzano, in the region of Molise, Italy, was due to be bestowed with honorary Italian citizenship at the Venice Film Festival in September 2004. However, the Sons of Italy lodged a protest with Italian Prime Minister, Silvio Berlusconi, claiming De Niro had damaged the image of Italians and Italian-Americans by frequently portraying them in criminal roles. Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani dismissed the objections and the ceremony was rescheduled to go forward in Rome in October. Controversy flared again when De Niro failed to show for two media appearances in Italy that month, which De Niro blamed on "serious communication problems" that weren't "handled properly" on his end, and stating, "The last thing I would want to do is offend anyone. I love Italy." The citizenship was conferred to De Niro on October 21, 2006, during the Rome Film Festival finale.
De Niro is a staunch supporter of the Democratic Party, and vocally supported Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election. Filmmaker Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 includes a clip of De Niro standing next to Gore at a rally; Moore identifies him as "that Taxi Driver guy". De Niro publicly supported John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election. In 1998, he lobbied Congress against impeaching President Bill Clinton, and in August 2004 announced he would not collect his honorary Italian citizenship in person so as to avoid discouraging Italians living in America from voting for Kerry, following controversy over the earlier citizenship protest. (See above.) De Niro also narrated a documentary about the September 11, 2001 attacks, shown on CBS and centering on video footage made by Jules Naudet and Gedeon Naudet, which focused on the role of firefighters following the attacks. De Niro was a supporter of the 2003 invasion of Iraq but hasn't made any comments about it since then. While promoting his movie The Good Shepherd with co-star Matt Damon on the December 8, 2006 episode of Hardball with Chris Matthews, De Niro was asked who he would like to see as president of the United States. De Niro responded, "Well, I think of two people: Hillary Clinton and Obama".
