Iconic Celebrity #8: Robert De Niro

With close to 100 films to his credit, Robert De Niro is known to movie lovers all over the world for his chameleon-like ability to transform himself into character. However, for New Yorkers, De Niro is more fondly known for his unrestrained love for this city he has called home now for over 70 years.

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New York Born and Creatively Bred

 
De Niro was born in 1943 to Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro, Sr., prominent artists who made Greenwich Village their home. Their subsequent divorce and his father's exit disrupted De Niro's early life, but he was still able to maintain a strong and loving bond with both parents.

De Niro loved acting from a very early age, and with the blessing of his mother, he dropped out of school at age 16 to pursue acting lessons full time. He took the money she had set aside for his college education and delved into the world of acting with lessons from renowned coach Stella Adler, whose Stanislavski teaching method would inform much of his screen work throughout his career. In addition, he studied with Lee Strasberg at the Actor's Studio in New York. After many years of auditions and minor parts, two breakthrough roles in the 1970s finally changed everything.

A Pivotal Friendship

 
De Niro became an overnight sensation,10 years in the making, with the release of two brilliant films in the early 1970s. "Bang the Drum Slowly" showcased the actor's ability to saturate himself in a character's DNA, here playing that of a dying baseball player. He followed this up with a brilliant turn in "Mean Streets," his first collaborative effort with director Martin Scorsese, which would catapult him to public attention and generate the tough guy mystique he would be identified with for many years.

Scorsese and De Niro's friendship is almost as legendary as their professional collaboration. Both men, capable of exuding a combination of untouchable stardom and guy-in-the-apartment-next-door likability, became the quintessential New York movie makers of the 1970s and 1980s. Movies like "Taxi Driver" and "New York, New York" solidified their street cred as well as their talent. During the next several decades, the two would go on to make movie history with films like "Raging Bull," "Goodfellas," "The King of Comedy" and "Casino."

A Multifaceted New Yorker Takes the Mean Streets

 
Once desolate, the neighborhood of TriBeCa owes much of its current glory to De Niro. He first called this area "home" in the 1970s when he was looking for a place to practice the pivotal boxing scenes in "Raging Bull." He found a sun-drenched, isolated loft space in TriBeCa and converted it into a boxing ring.

During the 1980s, the area started to build up just enough, but not too much, and was to De Niro's liking. He approached restaurateur Drew Nieporent who had successfully opened the restaurant Montrachet with David Bouley in the area with an idea for a new type of local restaurant. The collaboration resulted in TriBeCa Grill, the cornerstone many restaurants and local businesses would build upon, completely altering the face of the area and creating a magnetic and unique pulse.

De Niro went on to establish TriBeCa Productions, a film and television production house with partner Jane Rosenthal in 1989, which has produced over 50 films. The twosome would go on to found the TriBeCa Film Festival in 2002, along with Rosenthal's husband and real estate mogul Craig Hatkoff. The Festival's stated mission is to "enable the international film community and the general public to experience the power of film by redefining the film festival experience."

His First Love

 
Throughout all these ventures of developing restaurants, a neighborhood and even an internationally recognized film festival, De Niro has continued to stay true to his first passion: Making movies. Many of his most recent are a departure from his early, tough-guy persona. Comedies such as "Analyze This" and "Meet the Fockers" remain classics which have re-defined him for a new generation. His recent role in "The Silver Linings Playbook" brought renewed accolades for this New York-based star. It seems as New York continues to grow and thrive, this brilliant actor's career continues to thrive alongside it.

Corey Whelan is a freelance writer in New York. Her work can be found at Examiner.com.