Robert De Niro

Born (Date):August 17, 1943 [New York City]

Occupation: Actor | Producer

Years active: From 1963

Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. (born August 17, 1943) is an American actor and producer. He is particularly known for his nine collaborations with filmmaker Martin Scorsese, and is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award. In 2009, De Niro received the Kennedy Center Honor, and received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from U.S. President Barack Obama in 2016.

De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the film and television production company TriBeCa Productions in 1989, which has produced several films alongside his own. Also with Rosenthal, he founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Six of De Niro's films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

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Reception and legacy

In 2009, he was announced as one of the Kennedy Center Honorees with the commemoration: "One of America's greatest cinematic actors, Robert De Niro has demonstrated a legendary commitment to his characters and has co-founded one of the world's major film festivals". Martin Scorsese and Meryl Streep honored him at the event. In 2016, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama. Obama said “Everybody on this stage has touched me in a very powerful, very personal way These are folks who have helped make me who I am". White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest added, "There is no arguing that the individuals who will be honored today are richly deserving," he said.

Many De Niro's films have become classics of American cinema, with six of his films inducted into the U.S. National Film Registry as of 2020. Five of his films are featured on the American Film Institute's list of the 100 greatest American films of all time. De Niro and James Stewart share the title for the most films represented on the AFI list. Timeout magazine's list of 100 best movies included seven of De Niro's films, as chosen by actors in the industry. In 2006, De Niro donated his collection of film-related materials, such as scripts, wardrobe pieces and props, to the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin. The collection, which took more than two years to process and catalog, opened to the public in 2009.

Career

Born in Manhattan in New York City, De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. His first major role was in Greetings (1968), and he gained early recognition with his role as a baseball player in the sports drama Bang the Drum Slowly (1973). De Niro's first collaboration with Scorsese was Mean Streets (1973), where he played small-time NYC crook "Johnny Boy". Stardom followed with his role as young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's crime epic The Godfather Part II (1974), which won De Niro the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. For his portrayal of Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver (1976) and a soldier in the Vietnam War drama The Deer Hunter (1978), he earned two nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actor.

De Niro won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of world middleweight boxing champion Jake LaMotta in Scorsese's biographical drama Raging Bull (1980), his first Oscar in this category. He soon thereafter diversified to other roles, playing a stand-up comic in The King of Comedy (1982), and gained further recognition for his performances in Bernardo Bertolucci's epic 1900 (1976), Sergio Leone's crime epic Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Terry Gilliam's dystopian satire Brazil (1985), the religious epic The Mission (1986), and the comedy Midnight Run (1988).

De Niro portrayed gangster Jimmy Conway in Goodfellas (1990), a catatonic patient in the drama Awakenings (1990), and a criminal in the psychological thriller Cape Fear (1991). All three films received praise for De Niro's performances. He then starred in This Boy's Life (1993), and directed his first feature film with 1993's A Bronx Tale. His other critical successes include the crime films Heat (1995) and Casino (1995).

He is also known for his comic roles in latter Wag the Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), and Meet the Parents (2000). After appearing in several critically panned and commercially unsuccessful films, he earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in David O. Russell's 2012 romantic comedy Silver Linings Playbook. In 2017, De Niro portrayed Bernie Madoff in The Wizard of Lies, earning a Primetime Emmy Award nomination. He then starred in the psychological thriller Joker (2019) and Scorsese's crime epic The Irishman (2019).