{"id":2547,"date":"2024-01-09T08:56:09","date_gmt":"2024-01-09T08:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thebestbiography.com\/?p=2547"},"modified":"2024-01-09T08:56:09","modified_gmt":"2024-01-09T08:56:09","slug":"robert-downey-biography","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thebestbiography.com\/robert-downey-biography\/","title":{"rendered":"Robert Downey Jr. (American Actor) Biography"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert Downey, Jr.<\/strong>\u00a0(born April 4, 1965,\u00a0New York City,\u00a0New York, U.S.) American actor considered one of Hollywood\u2019s most gifted and versatile performers. Robert Downey <\/a>was raised in an artistic household in New York City\u2019s Greenwich Village; his father was a noted underground filmmaker who gave the five-year-old Downey his first part. After dropping out of\u00a0high school\u00a0in California, Downey returned to New York City to pursue an\u00a0acting\u00a0career.\u00a0<\/p>

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Robert Downey Info<\/strong><\/h2>

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Born<\/strong><\/td>April 4, 1965 \u00b7 Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA<\/td><\/tr>
Birth name<\/strong><\/td>Robert John Downey Jr
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Nicknames<\/strong><\/td>Bob RDJ<\/td><\/tr>
Height<\/strong><\/td>5\u2032 8\u2033 (1.73 m)
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Spouses<\/strong><\/td>Susan Downey(August 27, 2005 – present) (2 children)
Deborah Falconer(May 29, 1992 – April 26, 2004) (divorced, 1 child)<\/td><\/tr>
Children<\/strong><\/td>Indio Falconer Downey
Avri Roel Downey
Exton Elias Downey<\/td><\/tr>
Parents<\/strong><\/td>Robert Downey Sr.
Elsie Downey
Laura Ernst<\/td><\/tr>
Relatives<\/strong><\/td>Allyson Downey(Sibling)<\/td><\/tr>
Net Worth<\/strong><\/td>$300 Million<\/strong><\/td><\/tr>
Nationality<\/strong><\/td>United States of America<\/td><\/tr>
Age<\/strong><\/td>58 Years<\/td><\/tr><\/tbody><\/table><\/figure>

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Robert Downey Early life and family<\/strong><\/h2>

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 (n\u00e9e 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.<\/p>

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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<\/em> (1970), and then at seven appeared in the surrealist Western Greaser’s Palace<\/em> (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.<\/p>

Downey and Kiefer Sutherland, who shared the screen in the 1988 drama 1969<\/em>, were roommates for three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting.<\/p>

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Robert Downey Career<\/strong><\/h2>

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Downey began building upon theater roles, including in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion<\/em> 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<\/em>, 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<\/em> cast member in its entire run, stating that the “Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL<\/em> great.” That same year, Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough when he played James Spader’s character’s sidekick in Tuff Turf<\/em> and then a bully in John Hughes’s Weird Science<\/em>. He was considered for the role of Duckie in John Hughes’s film Pretty in Pink<\/em> (1986), but his first lead role was with Molly Ringwald in The Pick-up Artist<\/em> (1987). Because of these and other coming-of-age films Downey did during the 1980s, he is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.<\/p>

In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero<\/em>. His performance, described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times<\/em> as “desperately moving”, was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him “the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future”. Zero<\/em> drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are<\/em> (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O’Neal, Air America<\/em> (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish<\/em> (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, and Whoopi Goldberg.<\/p>

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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<\/em>.<\/p>

In 1993, he appeared in the films Heart and Souls<\/em> with Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick and Short Cuts<\/em> with Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, along with a documentary that he wrote about the 1992 presidential campaigns titled The Last Party<\/em> (1993). He starred in the 1994 films, Only You<\/em> with Marisa Tomei, and Natural Born Killers<\/em> with Woody Harrelson. He then subsequently appeared in Restoration<\/em> (1995), Richard III<\/em> (1995), Home for the Holidays<\/em> (1995), Two Girls and a Guy<\/em> (1997), as Special Agent John Royce in U.S. Marshals (1998), and in Black and White (1999).<\/p>

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Robert Downey Career Setbacks<\/strong><\/h2>

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In April 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of an unloaded .357 Magnum handgun while he was speeding down Sunset Boulevard. A month later, while on parole, he trespassed into a neighbor’s home and fell asleep in one of the beds. He received three years’ probation.<\/p>

In 1999, he was arrested again. A week after his 2000 release, Downey joined the cast of the hit television series Ally McBeal<\/em>, playing a new love interest. He was nominated for the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor \u2013 Series, Miniseries or Television Film. He also appeared as a writer and singer on Vonda Shepard’s Ally McBeal: For Once in My Life<\/em> album, and sang with Sting a duet of “Every Breath You Take” in an episode of the series. In January 2001, Downey was scheduled to play the role of Hamlet in a Los Angeles stage production directed by Mel Gibson.<\/p>

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Before the end of his first season on Ally McBeal<\/em>, over the Thanksgiving 2000 holiday, Downey was arrested when his room at Merv Griffin’s Hotel and Givenchy Spa in Palm Springs, California, was searched by the police, who were responding to an anonymous 911 call. Despite the fact that, if convicted, he would have faced a prison sentence of up to four years and eight months, he signed on to appear in at least eight more Ally McBeal episodes.<\/p>

In April 2001, while Downey was on parole, a Los Angeles police officer found him wandering barefooted in Culver City. He was arrested, but was released a few hours later. After this last arrest, Ally McBeal<\/em> executives ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots and fired Downey, despite the fact that Downey’s character had resuscitated Ally McBeal<\/em>‘s ratings. The Culver City arrest also cost him a role in the high-profile film America’s Sweethearts, and the subsequent incarceration prompted Gibson to cancel his Hamlet<\/em> production. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time.<\/p>

In a December 18, 2000, article for People magazine entitled “Bad to Worse”, Downey’s stepmother Rosemary told author Alex Tresnlowski that Downey had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder “a few years ago” and added that this was “the reason he has a hard time staying sober. What hasn’t been tried is medication and intensive psychotherapy”. In the same article, Dr. Manijeh Nikakhtar, a Los Angeles psychiatrist and co-author of Addiction or Self-Medication: The Truth, claimed she received a letter from Downey in 1999, during his time at Corcoran II, asking for advice on his condition. She discovered that “no one had done a complete [psychiatric] evaluation [on him] … I asked him flat out if he thought he was bipolar, and he said, ‘Oh yeah. There are times I spend a lot of money and I’m hyperactive, and there are other times I’m down.'” In an article for the March 2007 issue of Esquire, Downey stated that he wanted to address “this whole thing about the bipolar” after receiving a phone call from “the Bipolar Association” asking him about being bipolar. When Downey denied he had ever said he was bipolar, the caller quoted the People<\/em> article, to which Downey replied, “‘No! Dr. Malibusian<\/em> said [I said I was bipolar] … ‘, and they go, ‘Well, it’s been written, so we’re going to quote it.'” Downey flatly denied being “depressed or manic” and that previous attempts to diagnose him with any kind of psychiatric or mood disorder have always been skewed.<\/p>

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Robert Downey, Jr.’s Net Worth<\/strong><\/h2>

Robert Downey, Jr is an American actor, producer and singer. Robert Downey, Jr has a net worth of $300 million. Robert Downey, Jr. is probably most widely recognized today for his role as Iron Man in the Marvel franchise of the same name. The role made him one of the highest-paid actors in the history of Hollywood.<\/p>

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Robert Downey, Jr. has had some incredible ups and downs in both his personal and professional lives. Always recognized as a brilliant actor, he also had a penchant for partying too hard, and a nasty habit of drinking and\/or drugging himself into a stupor.  Unfortunately, his lifestyle caught up with him and derailed his career. After jail time, and multiple trips to rehab, he finally got himself straightened out.  The last ten years have seen him shoot to the top of the A-list in Hollywood, appearing in such hit projects as the “Sherlock Holmes” franchise, the “Iron Man” franchise, “The Soloist”, “Tropic Thunder”, the surprise independent hit, “A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints”, and “Kiss Kiss Bang,Bang”, among many others.<\/p>

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Robert Downey<\/strong><\/strong> FAST FACTS<\/strong><\/h2>