Robert De Niro

Robert Anthony De Niro (/də ˈnɪəroʊ/ də NEER-roh, Italian: [de ˈniːro]; born August 17, 1943) is an American actor, director, and film producer. He is considered to be one of the greatest and most influential actors of his generation. De Niro is the recipient of various accolades, including two Academy Awards and a Golden Globe Award as well as nominations for eight BAFTA Awards and four Emmy Awards. He was honored with the AFI Life Achievement Award in 2003, the Kennedy Center Honors in 2009, the Cecil B. DeMille Award in 2011, the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2016, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award in 2019, and the Honorary Palme d'Or in 2025.

De Niro studied acting at HB Studio, Stella Adler Conservatory, and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Vito Corleone in the crime drama The Godfather Part II (1974), becoming the first male to win for an Italian-language performance. Six years later, he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of Jake LaMotta in the biopic drama Raging Bull (1980). He was further Oscar-nominated for his performances in Taxi Driver (1976), The Deer Hunter (1978), Awakenings (1990), Cape Fear (1991), Silver Linings Playbook (2012), and Killers of the Flower Moon (2023), while also earning a nomination for Best Picture for producing The Irishman (2019).

De Niro is known for his dramatic roles in Mean Streets (1973), 1900 (1976), The King of Comedy (1982), Once Upon a Time in America (1984), Brazil (1985), The Mission (1986), Angel Heart (1987), The Untouchables (1987), Goodfellas (1990), This Boy's Life (1993), Heat (1995), Casino (1995), Jackie Brown (1997), Ronin (1998), and Joker (2019), as well as his comedic roles in Midnight Run (1988), Wag the Dog (1997), Analyze This (1999), the Meet the Parents films (2000–2010), and The Intern (2015). He directed and acted in both the crime drama A Bronx Tale (1993) and the spy film The Good Shepherd (2006). On television, he portrayed Bernie Madoff in the HBO film The Wizard of Lies (2017).

De Niro and producer Jane Rosenthal founded the film and television production company TriBeCa Productions in 1989, which has produced several films alongside his own. Also with Rosenthal, he founded the Tribeca Film Festival in 2002. Many of De Niro's films are considered classics of American cinema. Six of De Niro's films have been inducted into the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" as of 2023. Five films were listed on the AFI's 100 greatest American films of all time.

Robert Anthony De Niro was born in the Manhattan borough of New York City on August 17, 1943, the only child of painters Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. His father was of Irish and Italian descent, while his mother had Dutch, English, French, and German ancestry. His parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, separated when he was two years old after his father announced that he was gay. De Niro was raised by his mother in the Greenwich Village and Little Italy neighborhoods of Manhattan. His father lived nearby, and remained close with De Niro during 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. Some, however, have remained his lifelong friends. His mother was raised Presbyterian but became an atheist as an adult, while his father had been a lapsed Catholic since the age of 12. Against his parents' wishes, his grandparents had De Niro secretly baptized into the Catholic Church while he was staying with them during his parents' divorce.

De Niro attended PS 41, a public elementary school in Manhattan, through the sixth grade. He began acting classes at the Dramatic Workshop and made his stage debut in school at age 10, playing the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz. He later went to Elisabeth Irwin High School, the upper school of the Little Red School House, for the seventh and eighth grades. He was then accepted into the High School of Music & Art for the ninth grade, but attended for only a short time before transferring to a public junior high school: IS 71, Charles Evans Hughes Junior High School. De Niro attended high school at McBurney School and later, Rhodes Preparatory School. He found performing as a way to relieve his shyness, and became fascinated by cinema, so he dropped out of high school at 16 to pursue acting. He later said, "When I was around 18, I was looking at a TV show and I said, 'If these actors are making a living at it, and they're not really that good, I can't do any worse than them.'" He studied acting at HB Studio and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio. De Niro also studied with Stella Adler, of the Stella Adler Conservatory, where he was exposed to the techniques of the Stanislavski system. As a young actor, De Niro was inspired by the work of Marlon Brando, Montgomery Clift, James Dean, Greta Garbo, Geraldine Page, and Kim Stanley.

De Niro had minor film roles in Encounter, Three Rooms in Manhattan (both released in 1965) and Les Jeunes Loups (1968). Shortly afterwards, De Niro landed a major role in Greetings (1968), a satirical film about men avoiding the Vietnam War draft. The film marked the first of a series of early collaborations between De Niro and director Brian De Palma. A year later, De Niro appeared in the drama Sam's Song in which he portrays a New York City filmmaker. Also in 1969, he appeared in De Palma's comedy The Wedding Party; although it was filmed in 1963, it was kept unreleased for six years. De Niro, who was still unknown at the time, gained a favorable review from The New York Times' Howard Thompson: "This farcical comedy, modestly produced by a trio of young people and utilizing some unfamiliar faces, is great fun."

He then appeared in Roger Corman's low-budget crime drama Bloody Mama (1970), a loose adaptation of Ma Barker's life, who was the mother of four American criminals, of which De Niro portrayed one: Lloyd Barker. Thompson praised the film and thought the cast gave "fine performances." Next, De Niro starred in De Palma's comedy Hi, Mom! (1970), a sequel to Greetings. Writing for The New Yorker, Richard Brody opined that De Niro "brings unhinged spontaneity" to his character. He also had a small role in Jennifer on My Mind (1971) and in Ivan Passer's Born to Win (1971). His last film appearance of 1971 was in The Gang That Couldn't Shoot Straight, a crime-comedy based on the 1969 novel by Jimmy Breslin.