Robert De Niro: From Taxi Driver to Little Fockers

Robert De Niro: From Taxi Driver to Little Fockers

He is one of the greatest screen-performers of his generation, and well known for his brutal and unstable characters. Welcome to Watchmojo.com and today we’ll be taking a look at the acting career of Robert De Niro.

Born on August 17th, 1943 in New York City; he was raised in a Manhattan neighborhood. There he made his stage debut at the tender age of ten in a school play. Embracing this experience, he quickly overcame his deep routed shyness. As a result, he eventually dropped out of school altogether, consumed with the dream of one day becoming an actor.

However, before he could find his way, he spent a long period involved with a street gang, earning himself several lifetime friends and the nickname Bobby Milk, due to his pale complexion.

Eventually, he decided to stop messing around and enrolled at the Stella Adler Conservatory and Lee Strasberg’s Actor’s Studio.

In short order, he landed his first role in Brian De Palma’s 1963 film ‘The Wedding Party’. Unfortunately, the film wouldn’t be released for another six years after filming ended.

Despite this major setback, he gained a significant amount of attention for his role as a dying Major League Baseball player in 1973’s “Bang The Drum Slowly”. And the next year, he became Don Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s “The Godfather Part II.” This role not only widened his appeal, but it earned him his first academy award for Best Supporting Actor.

At the same time, he began his long running, and career defining collaboration with Martin Scorsese by starring as “Johnny Boy”, opposite Harvey Keitel, in “Mean Streets.”

For the next two decades, he continued to star in a string of the director’s high profile film projects. These included the iconic film role of Travis Bickle in “Taxi Driver”, before taking the lead in the musical tribute “New York, New York.”

Following this he put on sixty pounds to play a confused and all-too-human boxer in “Raging Bull”, explored the subject of celebrity stalking in the dark comedy “The King of Comedy”, became a gang member in “Goodfellas”, earned Academy Award and Globe Nominations for his role as a convicted rapist seeking revenge in “Cape Fear”, and became the man trusted to run the mob’s gambling operations in “Casino.”

When not working with Scorsese, he continued to take on countless classic roles and projects. These included a Vietnam War prisoner in 1973’s “The Deer Hunter”, a troubled youth in 1984’s “Once Upon A Time In America, a baseball-bat wielding Al Capone in 1987’s ‘The Untouchables” and a patient emerging from a catatonic state in 1990’s “Awakenings.”

In fact, the 90s was one of De Niro’s busiest decades as an actor. During that time he starred in “Mad Dog and Glory,” “Heat”, “The Fan”, Jackie Brown”, and even starred opposite Billy Crystal in the comedy “Analyze This.”

At the turn of the millennium he continued to perform strongly at the box office, as he starred as a veteran thief taking on one final job in “The Score”, a police office given a reality show opposite Eddie Murphy in “Showtime”, and even took on a horror role in “Hide and Seek”, before playing a cross-dressing captain in the fantasy film “Stardust.”

However, if there is one role that had defined him throughout the 2000s, it was as an Ex CIA agent who interrogates and tests his soon-to-be son-in-law, played by Ben Stiller, in “Meet The Parents”, and its two popular sequels.

With a career spanning over four decades, Robert De Niro has been honored several times with prestigious awards, and has even been recognized as the Hollywood actor to hold the record for the most deaths ever on the silver screen.

And at the 68th Annual Golden Globe Awards, with over 70 film credits to his name, was awarded with the Cecil B. Demille Award for his outstanding contribution to, and impact on, the world of entertainment.