Robert Downey
Robert John Downey Jr. born April 4, 1965 is an American actor and producer. His career has been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth followed by a period of substance abuse and legal troubles before a resurgence of commercial success later in his career. In 2008. Downey was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world and from 2013 to 2015. He was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.
At the age of five he made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound in 1970. He subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science 1985 and Less than Zero 1987. In 1992 Downey portrayed the title character in the biopic Chaplin for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a BAFTA Award. Following a stint at the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges. He joined the TV series Ally McBeal for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He was fired from the show in the wake of drug charges in 2000 and 2001. He stayed in a court ordered drug treatment program and has maintained his sobriety since 2003.
Initially completion bond companies would not insure Downey until Mel Gibson paid the insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective. He went on to star in the black comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang 2005 the thriller Zodiac 2007 and the action comedy Tropic Thunder 2008 for the latter. He was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
Downey gained global recognition for starring as Tony Stark Iron Man in ten films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning with Iron Man 2008 and leading up to Avengers Endgame 2019. He has also played the title character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes 2009.
Early life and family
As a child Downey was "surrounded by drugs." His father a drug addict allowed Downey to use marijuana at age six, an incident which his father later said he regretted. Downey later stated that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: When my dad and I would do drugs together it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how. Eventually Downey began spending every night abusing alcohol and "making a thousand phone calls in pursuit of drugs.
During his childhood Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy Pound 1970 and then at seven appeared in the surrealist Western Greaser's Palace 1972. At the age of 10 he was living in England and studied classical ballet as part of a larger curriculum. He attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York as a teenager. When his parents divorced in 1978 Downey moved to California with his father.But in 1982 he dropped out of Santa Monica High School and moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full time.
Downey and Kiefer Sutherland. Who shared the screen in the 1988 drama 1969 were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting.
Downey was born in Manhattan new York City the younger of two children. His father Robert Downey Sr was an actor and filmmaker while his mother Elsie Ann née Ford was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films. Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish one quarter Hungarian Jewish and one quarter Irish descent. While Downey's mother had Scottish, German and Swiss ancestry. Robert's original family name was Elias which was changed by his father to enlist in the Army. Downey and his older sister Allyson grew up in Greenwich Village.
Career
Downey began building upon theater roles including in the short lived off Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983 produced by Norman Lear. In 1985 he was part of the new younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live. But following a year of poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents he and most of the new crew were dropped and replaced. Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its entire run stating that the Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great. That same year Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough. When he played James Spader's character's sidekick in Tuff Turf and then a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science. He was considered for the role of Duckie in John Hughes's film Pretty in Pink 1986. But his first lead role was with Molly Ringwald in The Pick up Artist 1987. Because of these and other coming of age films Downey did during the 1980. He is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.
In 1987 Downey played Julian Wells a drug addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero. His performance described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as desperately moving was widely praised though Downey has said that for him the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an "exaggeration of the character in real life. Zero drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names such as Chances Are 1989 with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal. Air America 1990 with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish 1991 with Sally Field, Kevin Kline and Whoopi Goldberg.
In 1992. He starred as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin a role for which he prepared extensively learning how to play the violin as well as tennis left handed. He had a personal coach in order to help him imitate Chaplin's posture, and a way of carrying himself. The role garnered Downey an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards 65th ceremony, losing to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.
In 1993 he appeared in the films Heart and Souls with Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick and Short Cuts with Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore along with a documentary that he wrote about the 1992 presidential campaigns titled The Last Party 1993. He starred in the 1994 films Only You with Marisa Tomei and Natural Born Killers with Woody Harrelson. He then subsequently appeared in Restoration 1995 Richard III 1995 Home for the Holidays 1995 Two Girls and a Guy 1997 as Special Agent John Royce in U.S. Marshals 1998 and in Black and White 1999.
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