With his breathtaking 1973 breakthrough performance in Martin Scorsese's
Mean Streets De Niro forged an enormously fruitful
collaboration--resulting in Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, and
Goodfellas, films which, alongside his roles in the likes of The
Godfather Part Two, The Deer Hunter, and Once Upon a Time in
America, read like a list of the top Hollywood films of the last 30
years. As a method actor De Niro lives and breathes his roles,
notoriously gaining 60lbs for Raging Bull and learning to play the
saxophone for New York, New York, while in recent years, films such as
Analyze This and Meet the Parents have found him honing a previously
unheralded talent for comedy acting. Offscreen, De Niro is notoriously
reluctant to discuss his life, though his relationships with supermodels
such as Toukie Smith and current wife Grace Hightower have often made
the news. His forays into the director's chair as well as setting up his
own production company, TriBeCa Productions, have seen him more willing
to discuss his work, and he's been vocal about his politics. He is an
active supporter of the Democrat Party, lending his support to Barack
Obama, and has pledged to revitalize the TriBeCa region of New York
following September 11.
