Who Is Robert Downey Jr?
Born in New York City on April 4, 1965, Robert Downey Jr. began acting as a young child. He made his first film appearances and was a cast member on Saturday Night Live in the 1980s, but his growing success was marred by years of struggles with drug abuse. Eventually turning his life around, he earned a resurgence of critical and popular acclaim, and is considered one of Hollywood's A-list actors.
Robert Downey Jr. in an 'Iron Man' publicity still.
(Photo: Marvel Studios)
Net Worth
As of 2019, Robert Downey Jr. has an estimated net worth of $300 million and is one of the highest-paid actors in the industry.
Height
Downey is 5 feet 9 inches tall.
Early Movies
Downey made his earliest feature film appearances in such films as Baby, It's You (1983), Firstborn (1984), Weird Science (1985) and Back to School (1986). From 1985 to '86, he was a regular cast member of Saturday Night Live, NBC's popular sketch-comedy program.
Downey's first leading role on the big screen was a charming womanizer in The Pick-up Artist (1987), a romantic comedy co-starring that was written and directed by James Toback. His breakthrough performance came in 1987 with Less Than Zero (1987), in which he co-starred with Andrew McCarthy. Downey played the party-loving, cocaine-addicted Julian Wells in the film.
Substance Abuse Problems
Sadly, the story line and character rang especially true for Downey, who had been introduced to drugs at the age of eight by his father, and developed a full-fledged addiction as he headed into his 20s.
"Until that movie, I took my drugs after work and on the weekends," he later explained. "Maybe I'd turn up hungover on the set, but no more so than the stuntman. That changed on Less Than Zero. I was playing this junkie-faggot guy, and, for me, the role was like the ghost of Christmas future. The character was an exaggeration of myself. Then things changed, and, in some ways, I became an exaggeration of the character. That lasted far longer than it needed to last."
A stint in drug rehabilitation followed shortly afterward, but Downey's struggles with drugs and alcohol would continue. And yet, his career continued to advance forward. By the early 1990s, Downey had established a reputation as a critically acclaimed A-List actor. He earned praise for his comic turn as a shifty soap opera producer in Soapdish (1991), co-starring , Kevin Kline and . More adoration followed when Downey landed a featured role in Short Cuts (1993), the critically lauded ensemble film by Robert Altman.
Movies of Critical Acclaim
A particular high point in Downey's career came in 1993 when he was nominated for an Academy Award (Best Actor) for his performance in Chaplin (1992), directed by Richard Attenborough. In the highly acclaimed film, which didn't go over nearly as well with audiences as with critics, Downey nimbly portrayed the legendary from ages 19 to 83. The role displayed his dramatic range as well as his considerable talent for physical comedy. By this time, the 27-year-old Downey had come to be seen as one of the most gifted actors of his generation, but he had also earned a reputation as a troubled and controversial figure in Hollywood.
In the wake of his critical success with Chaplin, Downey anchored a documentary about the 1992 presidential election, The Last Party. In 1994, he appeared in the romantic comedy Only You, as well as in 's acclaimed but controversial Natural Born Killers. The following year, the actor starred in the period film Restoration alongside and Sam Neill; an updated film version of Richard III (1995), co-starring and; and the -directed Home for the Holidays, also starring Holly Hunter.
