Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro is an American actor, director, producer, and voice actor.
He was raised by his mother Virginia Holton Admiral, a painter and poet, in the Little Italy neighborhood of Manhattan, and in Greenwich Village. His father Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor, lived within walking distance, and Robert spent much time with him as he was growing up. The direction of his future had already been determined by his stage debut at age ten when he played the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. Along with finding relief from shyness through performing, De Niro was also entranced by the movies, and he dropped out of high school at age sixteen to pursue acting. He studied acting at the Stella Adler Conservatory, as well as Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.
His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) and Mean Streets (1973). In 1974, after not receiving the role of Michael Corleone in The Godfather, he was cast as the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather Part II, a role for which he won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.
His longtime collaboration with director Martin Scorsese began with Mean Streets, and later earned De Niro an Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the 1980 film Raging Bull. He earned nominations for Taxi Driver in 1976 and Cape Fear in 1991. De Niro received additional Academy Award nominations for Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter (1978), Penny Marshall's Awakenings (1990), and David O. Russell's Silver Linings Playbook (2012). His portrayal of gangster Jimmy Conway in Scorsese's Goodfellas earned him a BAFTA nomination in 1990.
De Niro has earned four nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy, for his work in New York, New York (1977), Midnight Run (1988), Analyze This (1999), and Meet the Parents (2000). He has also simultaneously directed and starred in films such as 1993's A Bronx Tale and 2006's The Good Shepherd. De Niro has received accolades for his career, including the AFI Life Achievement Award (2003) and the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award (2010).
De Niro has starred in over ninety films throughout his career.