American actor Robert John Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965. With almost $14 billion in global box office receipts from his main roles, he is among the highest-grossing performers of all time. In the 1980s, he made his film debut and joined the cast of Saturday Night Live; but, years of drug use hampered his rise to fame. After eventually making a change in his life, he received both critical and public praise once more and is now regarded as an A-list actor in Hollywood.
Time magazine identified Downey as one of the 100 most important persons in the world in 2008, and Forbes rated him as Hollywood’s highest-paid actor from 2013 to 2015.
Quick Facts
- Birth Name: Robert John Downey Jr.
- Birth Date: April 4, 1965
- Birth Place: New York, United States
- Gender: Male
- Career: Actor, Producer
- Most Known For: As Iron Man in ten Marvel Cinematic Universe films, starting with Iron Man (2008) and ending with Avengers: Endgame (2019), Downey became well-known around the world. In addition, he appeared in the science fiction Oppenheimer published in 2023 and as Sherlock Holmes in Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes.
Early Life
Born in Manhattan, New York City, on April 4, 1965, Robert John Downey Jr. was the younger of two children. His mom, Elsie Ann (née Ford) was an actress who starred in Robert Downey Sr.’s films, and his father, Robert Downey Sr., was also an actor and filmmaker. Growing up in Greenwich Village, he was with his elder sister Allyson.
Drugs were all around Downey as a youngster. At the age of six, Downey’s drug-addicted father gave him permission to try marijuana; the father subsequently expressed regret for the decision. Subsequently, Downey said that drug usage developed into an emotional connection with his father.
In his early years, Downey appeared in a few small roles in his father’s movies. At five years old, he starred as a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy Pound (1970). At seven years old, he made his feature film debut in the surrealist Western Greaser’s Palace (1972). He was ten years old when he moved to England and began studying classical ballet as part of a more extensive curriculum.
When he was a youngster, he went to the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York. Following his parents’ divorce in 1978, Downey relocated to California with his father. However, in 1982, he left Santa Monica High School to focus entirely on his acting career, returning to New York.
Early Career
Downey started expanding his career in theater with parts in productions like as Norman Lear’s short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983. He was one of the newer cast members chosen for Saturday Night Live in 1985, but he and the majority of the new group were fired and replaced after a year of low viewership and criticism of their comic abilities.
In Tuff Turf that same year, Downey had a serious acting debut as James Spader’s sidekick, and he later portrayed a bully in John Hughes’s Weird Science. His first leading role was with Molly Ringwald in The Pick-up Artist (1987), while he was also considered for the part of Duckie in John Hughes’s Pretty in Pink (1986).
In the 1987 film adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis’s novel Less than Zero, Downey portrayed Julian Wells, a drug-addled affluent youth whose life quickly falls out of his hands. Zero propelled Downey into higher-profile and higher-budget movies including Soapdish (1991) starring Whoopi Goldberg, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Sally Field, and Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O’Neal.
‘Charlie Chaplin,’ ‘Short Cuts’ and Other Movies
He studied hard for the role of Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin (1992), learning to play tennis and the violin with his left hand. He worked with a personal coach to assist him mimic Chaplin’s stance and demeanor. At the 65th Academy Awards, Downey was nominated for Best Actor for the performance, but he lost to Al Pacino in Scent of a Woman.
He starred in the 1993 motion pictures Short Cuts, starring Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, and Heart and Souls, starring Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick.
In 1994, he acted in Woody Harrelson’s Natural Born Killers and Marisa Tomei’s Only You. Following that, he starred in the films Restoration (1995), Richard III (1995), Home for the Holidays (1995), Two Girls and a Guy (1997), U.S. Marshals (1998) as Special Agent John Royce, and Black and White (1999).
Battling Substance Abuse
Downey was arrested many times between 1996 and 2001 on drug-related crimes involving cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. Due to his repeated arrests, he was denied jobs in films that may have expanded his resume. Later on, he disclosed that this had altered when filming Less Than Zero, in which he played a junkie-faggot person. He said the part seemed like the ghost of Christmas future to him. He exaggerated himself to create the persona. Subsequently, the situation shifted, and he started to resemble the role more than not.
‘Ally McBeal,’ ‘Family Guy’ and ‘Zodiac’
In 2000, Downey transitioned to the small screen as a regular cast member of the hit program Ally McBeal, which starred Calista Flockhart. With this new part, Downey demonstrated his skill, likeability, and adaptability to both reviewers and fans once more. He then earned a Screen Actors Guild Award shortly after winning a 2001 Golden Globe Award.
However, Downey’s boss was becoming impatient with his growingly complex personal life. Downey’s time on Ally McBeal ended after his second arrest in April 2001; the show’s producers had made the decision to finish filming the season’s last few episodes without the actor. At around the same time, Downey’s attorneys and the prosecution came to a deal that called for him to enter a plea of not guilty to charges involving cocaine.
After a hiatus from television, Downey made a voice appearance in the Family Guy episode “The Fat Guy Strangler” in 2006. Because his son Indio is a big fan of the program, Downey has previously called the production team to inquire about producing or helping to create an episode. The show’s producers took him up on his offer and gave Downey the role of Patrick Pewterschmidt, the long-lost, mentally ill brother of Lois Griffin.
Based on a genuine tale, David Fincher’s mystery thriller Zodiac starred Downey in 2007. He portrayed Paul Avery, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle covering the Zodiac Killer investigation.
Iron Man and Subsequent Roles
In his whole career, Downey had received high praise from critics, but he had never been in a “blockbuster” movie. When Downey featured in the critically and financially successful movies Tropic Thunder and Iron Man in 2008, it all changed. In 2008, Downey went from being a highly regarded actor by critics to becoming a movie office sensation.
In the Marvel Comics superhero film Iron Man, he portrayed Tony Stark, a rich businessman who turned criminal. The film became a box office success, earning over $318 million domestically and inspiring two follow-up releases in 2010 and 2013.
The film’s director, Jon Favreau, pushed on having Downey because he kept saying that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a leading man who could both improve the picture’s quality and draw in more viewers.
Downey also portrayed a white actor in this war movie who pretended to be a Black actor in the comedy Tropic Thunder (2008), which he did while taking a big risk. The majority of reviews were favorable to his work; Todd McCarthy of Variety magazine wrote that “the audacity of Downey’s performance” was one of “the best reasons to see the film.”
With Tropic Thunder, Downey won multiple awards for his performance, including nominations for the Screen Actors Guild’s Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Supporting Role, the Oscar for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role, and the Golden Globe for Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role in a Motion Picture.
‘The Soloist,’ ‘Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘The Avengers’
In 2009, Downey co-starred with Jamie Foxx in The Soloist, a film that chronicles the bond between a homeless musician with Juilliard training and a Los Angeles journalist (Downey). The movie did quite well at the box office and received positive reviews from critics who praised Downey and Foxx’s performances.
Proving he isn’t scared of blockbusters (or English accents), Downey acted with Jude Law as Dr. John Watson in the Guy Ritchie-directed Sherlock Holmes film in 2009. For Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows, a 2011 sequel, the two collaborated once more.
When Downey’s Iron Man character returned to action in 2012’s The Avengers, a film starring a plethora of Hollywood talent, including Don Cheadle as Colonel James “Rhodey” Rhodes, Mark Ruffalo as the Hulk, Samuel Jackson as Nick Fury, and Scarlett Johansson as Black Widow, among others, the crime fighting resumed.
In the drama The Judge (2014), Downey played the shrewd city lawyer Hank Palmer opposite Robert Duvall. Later, in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019), Downey returned to his dual role as Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Recent Roles
In late 2019, after spending five years just doing Marvel-branded film appearances, Downey made a comeback as the presenter of the YouTube series The Age of AI. He played a veterinarian who communicates with animals in the January 2020 film Dolittle, which was adapted on the beloved children’s book series by British author Hugh Lofting.
Downey played the title role in the 2020 movie Dolittle, which tells the story of a Welsh veterinarian from the 19th century who had animal communication skills. This was Team Downey’s second movie. It was a box office letdown and garnered unfavorable reviews from critics who deemed it too drawn out and dull.
Downey played Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan’s Oppenheimer in 2023, and the critics praised his portrayal. In addition to being nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor and the BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting performance, he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture for the performance.
Personal Life
In 1984, Downey began a romantic relationship with Sarah Jessica Parker, an actress she had met on the Firstborn production. His drug abuse caused the pair to split up in 1991. Following a 42-day relationship, Downey wed singer and actress Deborah Falconer on May 29, 1992. 1993 saw the birth of their son.
The stress of Downey’s many arrests and jail stays ultimately took a toll on their marriage; in 2001, after Downey’s final arrest and sentence to a lengthy rehab stay, Falconer left Downey and took their kid with her. On April 26, 2004, Downey and Falconer concluded their divorce.
Downey’s home life has significantly improved over the years, despite his turbulent past with the law. On February 7, 2012, he and producer Susan Levin had their first child together. He married Levin in 2005. Their kid is called Exton Elias. Avri, a daughter, was Downey and Levin’s second child, born on November 4, 2014.
Governor Jerry Brown of California pardoned Downey in December 2015 for the drug conviction from 1996 that had resulted in a year-long jail sentence.
