Robert Downey : Biography
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. He and his older sister Allyson grew up in Greenwich Village. As a child, Downey was "surrounded
Robert Downey Jr. has evolved into one of the most respected actors in Hollywood. With an amazing list of credits to his name, he has managed to stay new and fresh even after over four decades in the business.
Downey was born April 4, 1965 in Manhattan
New York, the son of writer, director and filmographer Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey (née Elsie Ann Ford). Robert's father is of half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, descent, while Robert's mother was of English, Scottish, German, and Swiss-German ancestry. Robert and his sister, Allyson Downey, were immersed in film and the performing arts from a very young age, leading Downey Jr. to study at the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York, before moving to California with his father following his parents' 1978 divorce. In 1982, he dropped out of Santa Monica High School to pursue acting full time. Downey Sr., himself a drug addict, exposed his son to drugs at a very early age, and Downey Jr. would go on to struggle with abuse for decades.
Downey Jr. made his debut as an actor at the age of five in the film Pound (1970)
written and directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr.. He built his film repertoire throughout the 1980s and 1990s with roles in Tuff Turf (1985), Weird Science (1985), True Believer (1989), and Wonder Boys (2000) among many others. In 1992, Downey received an Academy Award nomination and won the BAFTA (British Academy Award) for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of Chaplin (1992).
In Robert Altman's Short Cuts (1993)
He appeared as an aspiring film make-up artist whose best friend commits murder. In Oliver Stone's Natural Born Killers (1994), with Woody Harrelson and Juliette Lewis, Downey starred as a tabloid TV journalist who exploits a murderous couple's killing spree to boost his ratings. For the comedy Heart and Souls (1993), Downey starred as a young man with a special relationship with four ghosts. In 1995, Downey starred in Restoration (1995), with Hugh Grant, Meg Ryan and Ian McKellen, directed by Michael Hoffman. Also that year, he starred in Richard III (1995), in which he appears opposite his Restoration (1995) co-star McKellen.
In 1997, Downey was seen in Robert Altman's The Gingerbread Man (1998)
Alongside Kenneth Branagh, Daryl Hannah and Embeth Davidtz; in One Night Stand (1997), directed by Mike Figgis and starring Wesley Snipes and Nastassja Kinski; and in Hugo Pool (1997), directed by his father, Robert Downey Sr. and starring Sean Penn and Patrick Dempsey. In September of 1999, Downey appeared in Black and White (1999), written and directed by James Toback, along with Ben Stiller, Elijah Wood, Gaby Hoffmann, Brooke Shields and Claudia Schiffer. In January of 1999, he starred with Annette Bening and Aidan Quinn in In Dreams (1999), directed by Neil Jordan.
In 2000, Downey co-starred with Michael Douglas and Tobey Maguire in Wonder Boys (2000)
Directed by Curtis Hanson. In this dramatic comedy, Downey played the role of a bisexual literary agent. In 2001, Downey made his prime-time television debut when he joined the cast of the Fox-TV series Ally McBeal (1997) as attorney "Larry Paul". For this role, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Series, Mini-Series or Motion Picture Made for Television, as well as the Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male in a Comedy Series. In addition, Downey was nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series.
The actor's drug-related problems escalated from 1996 to 2001
Leading to arrests, rehab visits and incarcerations, and he was eventually fired from Ally McBeal (1997). Emerging clean and sober in 2003, Downey Jr. began to rebuild his career.
He marked his debut into music with his debut album
The Titled "The Futurist", on the Sony Classics Label on November 23rd, 2004. The album's eight original songs, that Downey wrote, and his two musical numbers debuting as cover songs revealed his sultry singing voice and his musical talents. Downey displayed his versatility in two different films in October 2003: the musical/drama The Singing Detective (2003), a remake of the BBC hit of the same name, and the thriller Gothika (2003) starring Halle Berry and Penélope Cruz. Downey starred in powerful yet humbling roles inspired by real-life accounts of some of history's most precious kept secrets, including Richard Minister's A Scanner Darkly (2006) in 2006 co-starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder and Woody Harrelson, and Fur: An Imaginary Portrait of Diane Arbus (2006) co-starring Nicole Kidman, a film inspired by the life of Diane Arbus, the revered photographer whose images captured attention in the early 1960s. These roles exhibited Downey's momentum from the previous year of 2005, in which he starred in the Academy Award®-nominated feature film Good Night, and Good Luck. (2005), directed by George Clooney and in Shane Black's action comedy Kiss Kiss Bang Bang (2005) co-starring Val Kilmer. In 2007, he co-starred in David Fincher's suspenseful Zodiac (2007), alongside Jake Gyllenhaal and Mark Ruffalo, about the notorious serial killer who haunted San Francisco during the 1970s.
In May 2008, Downey achieved critical acclaim and worldwide box office success for his starring role in Iron Man (2008)
Jon Favorites big-screen rendering of the Marvel comic book superhero. The film co-starred Gwyneth Paltrow, Jeff Bridges and Terrence Howard. In August of 2008, Downey starred with Ben Stiller and Jack Black in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), and went on to receive an Academy Award®-nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his, Kirk Lazarus.
In December 2009
Downey starred in the action-adventure Sherlock Holmes (2009). The film, directed by Guy Ritchie, co-starred Jude Law and Rachel McAdams and earned Downey a Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Comedy or Musical in January of 2010. In early Summer 2010, Downey re-teamed with director Jon Favreau and reprised his role as "Tony Stark/Iron Man" in the hugely successful sequel to the original film, Iron Man 2 (2010), starring Gwyneth Paltrow, Scarlett Johansson, Samuel L. Jackson and Mickey Rourke.
Downey next starred in Due Date (2010)
A comedy directed by Todd Phillips, in which he plays the role of an expectant father on a road trip racing to get back in time for the birth of his first child. Due Date (2010), starring The Hangover (2009)'s Zach Galifianakis, was released in November 2010.
Downey was honored by Time Magazine's
"Time 100" in 2008, an annual list of the 100 most influential people in the world. His laurels include two Academy Award nominations, three Golden Globe wins, numerous other award nominations and wins, and tremendous popular and commercial success, particularly in his roles as Sherlock Holmes and Tony Stark (the latter of which he has so far played in Iron Man (2008), Iron Man 2 (2010), Avengers Assemble (2012), Iron Man 3 (2013), and Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015). For three consecutive years, from 2012 to 2015, Downey has topped the Forbes list of Hollywood's highest-paid actors, making an estimated $80 million in earnings between June 2014 and June 2015.
In 2005, Downey Jr
The Married Susan Downey, with whom he has two children. Downey also has another son, Indio Falconer Downey, born 1993, from his first marriage to Deborah Falconer, from whom he was officially divorced in 2004.
One of the highest-paid actors In
Hollywood, Robert Downey Jr., is as well-known for being a talented, successful actor as he is for his struggle with addiction. He spent decades in and out of rehab, sobering up, slipping up, and getting arrested. It was a downward spiral that ended with him serving time in state prison. It took him losing everything—his money, career, and family—to finally face his addiction head-on and to find his way to recovery. The Iron Man star didn’t just play a superhero on the big screen—his triumph over addiction is a heroic tale of overcoming the odds and unlearning years of bad habits.
Growing Up Surrounded by Substance Abuse
Robert Downey Jr. was born in New York City in 1965 to underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Downey. At an early age, his father, who also struggled with substance abuse, introduced him to drugs, allowing him to try marijuana at a party when he was only eight years old. In an interview with People Magazine, Downey Jr. explained how doing drugs with his father became their way of bonding, and that this early exposure to drugs led Downey Jr. to spend most nights throughout his 20’s and 30’s getting drunk and scouting dealers.
In the early 1980s, Robert Downey Jr.
Left New York City for Hollywood to pursue an acting career, where his role in the film Weird Science earned him a spot in The Brat Pack, a group of young actors who starred in many of the decade’s most iconic coming-of-age films. In 1985, he joined the cast on Saturday Night Live for a year before landing his first leading role in The Pick-Up Artist, at which point his acting career took off.
The Beginning of His Career and His Struggle with Addiction
In 1987, Downey Jr. gave a stellar performance as a wealthy, troubled youth in the film Less Than Zero, followed by an unexpected triumph as Charlie Chaplin in Richard Attenborough’s biopic Chaplin in 1992 that earned him an Oscar nomination. He continued starring in films even as his struggle with alcohol and drug use began to take hold of his life off the set. He was able to stay sober while working on a film for a period of time but would soon fall off the wagon and begin using again, going on days-long benders. By 1995, he was smoking heroin and freebasing cocaine, leading to several arrests and stints in rehab facilities. In the summer of 1996, within the span of just a few weeks, Downey Jr. was arrested multiple times for bizarre and reckless, drug-fueled behavior. This included one incident when police stopped him for speeding and found him not only intoxicated, but with heroin and cocaine on him, and an unloaded .356 magnum in his passenger seat. Soon after, he was picked up by police again when he wandered into a neighbor’s home and passed out in their son’s bedroom. This was the beginning of Downey Jr.’s downward spiral.
Hitting Rock Bottom and Losing It All
For the next few years, Downey Jr. cycled in and out of rehab for addiction in state institutions throughout California. In 1999, he was sentenced to 36 months in state prison, where he spent 12 months serving time before being paroled. He was arrested two more times within eight months before being sent to rehab for six months at Wavelengths International, one of many court-mandated addiction treatment centers he visited over the years. For Robert Downey, Jr., this period of his life was what he calls his “rock bottom,” when he reached his lowest point of addiction and lost everything. His wife left him and took their son. He was fired from his acting job on the show Ally McBeal. He was in massive debt and on the verge of bankruptcy. It was then that he decided it was time to take a year and fully address his substance abuse. It was time for recovery.
A Cinematic Recovery and a Hollywood Ending
In 2002, Robert Downey Jr. was making a comeback after his time in rehab and jumped back into his acting career with roles in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and the box office hit Zodiac. However, it was when he began his romance with film producer Susan Levin while working on the film Gothika in 2003 that he fully committed to his recovery. They got married in 2005 and now have two children together. His commitment to recovering from addiction and regenerating his acting career led him to his greatest success yet: starring as Tony Stark in Marvel Studio’s Iron Man and The Avengers film franchise.
Today, Robert Downey Jr. enjoys a relatively quiet life
Trading wild nights out and weekend-long drug binges for nights in and weekends spent with his family in their Malibu home. The 54-year-old credits his relationship with his wife Susan, his children, Eastern martial arts, yoga, and the 12-Step program for helping him overcome his addiction and stay sober. Of course, his career also keeps him busy and focused. His latest film, Dolittle, came out earlier this year. He and his wife also work at the film production company they founded together, Team Downey.
In a famous Vanity Fair interview, Downey Jr.
Then age 49 with about a decade of sobriety under his belt, said, “For some folks it’s just a function of age. It’s perfectly normal for people to be obsessive about something for a period of time, then leave it alone.”
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