Robert De Niro Bio
Robert Anthony De Niro (born August 17, 1943, in New York City) is an American actor, director, and film producer widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation. Across a career that began in 1963, he has earned two Academy Awards, a Golden Globe Award, the AFI Life Achievement Award, the Kennedy Center Honors, the Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and the Honorary Palme d’Or. He is also a co-founder of the Tribeca Film Festival and the production company TriBeCa Productions.
De Niro is celebrated for his transformative method of acting and his long collaboration with director Martin Scorsese, with whom he has made several landmark films. His filmography includes titles that are routinely named among the greatest works of American cinema.
Early Life and Background
Robert Anthony De Niro was born on August 17, 1943, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, the only child of painters Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. His father was of Irish and Italian descent, and his mother had Dutch, English, French, and German ancestry. His parents met in the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, and separated when he was two years old after his father came out as gay. De Niro was raised by his mother in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy neighborhoods of Manhattan, while his father lived nearby and remained close with him throughout his childhood.
Nicknamed “Bobby Milk” because of his pale complexion, De Niro befriended many street kids in Little Italy, much to the disapproval of his father. He began acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop as a child and made his stage debut at age 10, playing the Cowardly Lion in a school production of The Wizard of Oz. As a young actor, he was inspired by the work of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Greta Garbo, Geraldine Page, and Kim Stanley.
De Niro attended several schools, including PS 41, Elisabeth Irwin High School, the High School of Music & Art, McBurney School, and Rhodes Preparatory School. He found performing to be a way to relieve his shyness and became fascinated by cinema, eventually dropping out of high school at 16 to pursue acting full-time.
Path to Celebrity
De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, the Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg’s Actors Studio, where he was exposed to the techniques of the Stanislavski system. His first film appearance came in 1965 with a minor role in Encounter, followed by small parts in several other low-budget productions throughout the late 1960s.
His first major break came in 1968 with Greetings, a satirical film about men avoiding the Vietnam War draft directed by Brian De Palma. The role marked the beginning of a long collaboration between De Niro and De Palma, and it earned him a favorable review in The New York Times. Throughout the early 1970s, he built his reputation with roles in films such as Bang the Drum Slowly (1973), in which his portrayal of a baseball player with Hodgkin’s disease drew strong critical praise.
In 1973, De Niro began his legendary partnership with Martin Scorsese when he appeared as Johnny Boy Civello in the crime film Mean Streets. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival to strong reviews, with critics such as Roger Ebert and Pauline Kael hailing De Niro’s explosive performance. This collaboration set the foundation for the kind of intense, character-driven work that would define his career.
Robert De Niro Career
Early Career (1963–1973)
De Niro’s earliest film work included uncredited and minor roles in low-budget productions in the mid-1960s. In 1968, he appeared in Brian De Palma’s Greetings, which was the first of several collaborations between the two filmmakers. He also starred in Roger Corman’s Bloody Mama (1970) and De Palma’s Hi, Mom! (1970), with critics praising the raw energy he brought to each role.
By the early 1970s, De Niro had earned recognition as one of the most promising young actors in American cinema. His lead role in Bang the Drum Slowly (1973) brought him widespread critical acclaim, and his co-star Vincent Gardenia was nominated for an Academy Award. His performance in Mean Streets later that year cemented his reputation as a leading dramatic talent and led to his casting in larger and more prestigious productions.
Breakthrough (1974–1991)
De Niro’s first Academy Award came for his portrayal of the young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather Part II (1974). He became the first male actor to win an Oscar for an Italian-language performance, and he shared the distinction with Marlon Brando of being the first pair of actors to win Academy Awards for portraying the same fictional character.
He then starred in Martin Scorsese’s Taxi Driver (1976), in which his portrayal of the unstable loner Travis Bickle became one of the most iconic performances in film history. To prepare for the role, De Niro lost 30 pounds, took firearm training, and spent time with members of a U.S. Army base to learn their Midwestern accent. His improvised line, “You talkin’ to me?,” was later selected by the American Film Institute as the 10th most memorable movie quote of all time. He earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor for the performance.
De Niro reunited with Scorsese again for the biographical drama Raging Bull (1980), in which he portrayed middleweight boxer Jake LaMotta. To prepare for the role, he gained 60 pounds and learned to box. The performance earned him his second Academy Award, this time for Best Actor, and the film has since been regarded as one of the greatest of the 1980s. He closed the decade with a series of acclaimed performances in The King of Comedy (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), and Midnight Run (1988), before reuniting once more with Scorsese for the crime masterpiece Goodfellas (1990).
Notable Works and Milestones
Among De Niro’s most celebrated works are The Godfather Part II, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Goodfellas, and Casino, each of which is considered a classic of American cinema. His willingness to undergo dramatic physical transformations, from losing weight for Taxi Driver to gaining weight for Raging Bull, became a defining feature of his craft. He has received Academy Award nominations for performances in Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Cape Fear, Silver Linings Playbook, and Killers of the Flower Moon, along with a Best Picture nomination as a producer of The Irishman.
Robert De Niro Award Nominations
Across his five-decade career, Robert De Niro has received numerous major award nominations, including eight Academy Award nominations, four Primetime Emmy Award nominations, eight British Academy Film Award nominations, and multiple Golden Globe nominations. His Oscar nominations span Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather Part II, Best Actor for Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, Awakenings, Cape Fear, and Silver Linings Playbook, Best Supporting Actor for Killers of the Flower Moon, and Best Picture as a producer of The Irishman. His Emmy nominations include Outstanding Lead Actor in a Limited Series for The Wizard of Lies, Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for Saturday Night Live, and Outstanding Limited Series as a producer of When They See Us.
Robert De Niro Awards Won
Robert De Niro has won two Academy Awards, the industry’s highest honor: Best Supporting Actor for The Godfather Part II (1975 ceremony) and Best Actor for Raging Bull (1981 ceremony). He has also received a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Motion Picture Drama for Raging Bull, the Cecil B. DeMille Award for lifetime contributions to entertainment, the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Honorary Palme d’Or at the Cannes Film Festival in 2025.
| Award | Wins | Year |
|---|---|---|
| Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor (The Godfather Part II) | 1 | 1975 |
| Academy Award for Best Actor (Raging Bull) | 1 | 1981 |
Robert De Niro Family
Robert De Niro is the son of painters Robert De Niro Sr. and Virginia Admiral. His parents separated when he was two years old, and he was raised by his mother in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy neighborhoods of Manhattan. His father, an abstract expressionist painter, remained a close presence in his life throughout his childhood, and De Niro later produced a 2014 HBO documentary about his father titled Remembering the Artist Robert De Niro Sr.
Personal Life
De Niro has been married twice. He married actress Diahnne Abbott in 1976, and the couple divorced in 1988. Together they have a son, Raphael, and De Niro adopted Abbott’s daughter, Drena, from a previous relationship. He was later in a relationship with model Toukie Smith from 1988 to 1996, and the couple welcomed twins, son Julian and daughter Airyn, born in 1995 through in vitro fertilization delivered by a surrogate. In 1997, De Niro married actress Grace Hightower, with whom he has a son, Elliot, born in 1998, and a daughter, Helen, born in 2011 via surrogate. The couple separated in 2018 after more than two decades of marriage.
In April 2023, De Niro welcomed his seventh child, a daughter named Gia, with his girlfriend, Tiffany Chen. De Niro is a long-term resident of New York City and owns properties in Manhattan, including a 6,000-square-foot apartment at 15 Central Park West, as well as a 78-acre estate in Gardiner, New York, that serves as his primary residence. He has four grandchildren, including one through his daughter Drena. In July 2023, his grandson Leandro De Niro Rodriguez died at the age of 19 from a combined drug intoxication involving fentanyl and cocaine.
