Hot with a Chance of Sexy: Robert de Niro

In another Hot with a Chance of Sexy first, I give you the man who puts the "sex" in "sexagenarian": ladies and bitches, boys and girls, hogs and heifers, puppies and kittens, Robert De Niro. That it has taken me so long to include this man in the Hot with a Chance of Sexy feature warrants a kick in the tits for me because Robert De Niro is a bad ass.  What constitutes bad ass, you ask?  His talent, passion, smoldering "De Nironess", and the fact that he has had his name in a song title while he's still alive.  Not a lot of bitches can say that.

In fact, that Bananarama song, "Robert De Niro's Waiting (Talkin' Italian)", was my first introduction to Bobby (and I call him "Bobby" because we're cool like that in our friendship in my head) back in 1984 when I was 14.  I'd spent the seventies and early eighties watching movies like What's Up, Doc?, Herbie Goes to Monte Carlo, Little Darlings, Scavenger Hunt, and National Lampoon's Vacation. Robert De Niro, with his dark, serious, grown-folks movies was nowhere on my barely bleedin' tween ass radar.

Born in Greenwich Village on August 17, 1943, this actor, director, and producer has art in his blood. His mother was a painter and poet and his father was an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor.  Bobby Milk, as his friends called him because of his coloring, made his acting debut at age 10 playing the Cowardly Lion in his school's production of The Wizard of Oz.  From that moment, this sexy Leo knew what he wanted to do with his life.  He dropped out of school at 16 to pursue acting- studying at the Stella Adler Conservatory and Lee Strasberg's Actors Studio.

Bobby's first movie was playing opposite of Jill Clayburgh in The Wedding Party in 1963, but the movie wasn't released until 1969.  He got tons more attention playing a dying Major League baseball player in 1973's Bang the Drum Slowly.  I have never seen that movie, but I know that Bobby could still, to this day, bang my drum slowly and that's all I know.  Apologies- I digress.

One of my favorite De Niro stories- of Robert the Younger - is about how he got the role of the young Vito Corleone in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II:  it was partly because Coppola remembered and was so taken with him from his previous auditions for Sonny Corleone, Michael Corleone, Carlo Rizzi, and Paulie Gatto, in the Godfather.  Who knows how many times he actually auditioned for those 4 roles, and whether or not he actually got, or was promised one or more. He still came back to audition again for Godfather Part II. Now that is tenacity, perseverance, and self-confidence mixed with a whole lot of sexy.  And what did it get him?  Just an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor.  Next time I feel like quitting something, I am not gonna go diggin' for that poem- I am just gonna think about bad ass Bobby D.

His 1973 collaboration with Martin Scorsese in Mean Streets, parlayed into a successful working relationship for the two of them that spanned decades.  All told, Bobby has done too many movies to list here, but interestingly though we tend to think of him in mob roles, he has done a wide array of films including Brazil, Midnight Run, Analyze This, Angel Heart, and Cape Fear. De Niro also showed his talent in directing with 1993's A Bronx Tale and 2006's The Good Shepherd.

This prostate cancer survivor has had some bad times while filming as well. In 1998, while he was shooting in France, he was hauled in by the French po-po for 9 hours and then questioned by a magistrate over a prostitution ring.  To say he was pissed and let them know he wasn't the one was an understatement to the fullest degree.  According to French newspaper, Le Monde, De Niro said of France,

"I want to get this fuck where he breathes!  I want to find this nancy boy...I want him DEAD!  I want his family DEAD!  I want his house burned to the GROUND! I wanna go there in the middle of the night and I wanna PISS ON HIS ASHES!"

Okay- that's a quote from The Untouchables, but it seemed appropriate because he was so mad. Actually he said that he would never go back to France, but he obviously recanted when he showed up as the President of the Jury for the 64th Cannes Film Festival in 2011.

Besides acting and directing, Bobby co-founded the film studio TriBeCa Productions and the TriBeCa Film Festival.  He co-owns Nobu and TriBeCa Grill, as well as The Greenwich Hotel and the restaurant inside of it called Locanda Verde.  He has been investing in the TriBeCa neighborhood since 1989 and has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan, and an estate in Marbletown in upstate New York.  I'm sure all his successes have to be source of personal pride, but it also must feel good to know his wife, Grace Hightower, and 6 children and 3 grandchildren will be well provided for in the future.  Bad ass.