Star Of The Month: Robert Downey, Jr.

To kick a new monthly feature here on Hero Worship, I chose Robert Downey Jr as the first actor to have this honor. Similar to what I do on my classic movies blog All Good Things which focus on classic movie goddesses. Here I will focus on the current generation of actors and actresses. My other choices for the rest of the year will include Sarah Michelle Gellar, Denzel Washington, Bruce Willis, Lucy Lawless to name just a few.

Robert John Downey Jr. was born in Greenwich Village, New York City, at 1:10 pm. He's the son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.. His first part in a movie was in his father's Pound (1970), in which 5-year-old Downey played a puppy. When he was 20 years old, he joined _Saturday Night Live_ (1985) for one season. After that, he went to Hollywood. In 1987, he got the leading role in director James Toback's film The Pick-up Artist (1987), co-starring with Molly Ringwald. The same year, he played drug addict Julian Wells in the movie Less Than Zero (1987). In 1992, he played Charles Chaplin in Sir Richard Attenborough's film Chaplin (1992). For his astonishing performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In the year 2000, he guest-starred in the comedy series "Ally McBeal" (1997), where he portrayed the attorney Larry Paul, who became Ally's love interest. For that performance, he won the Golden Globe for "best supporting actor in a comedy series." On "Ally McBeal" (1997), Downey got to show that he can sing as well as act, when he sang Joni Mitchell's "River," "Chances Are" as a duet with Vonda Shepard, and "Every Breath You Take" together with Sting. He released one song of his own, "Snakes," on the "Ally McBeal" (1997) album "For Once in My Life," and a full album of his own work entitled "The Futurist" in 2005. Robert has had a huge resurgence in film and 2008 was a banner year. First he played Tony Stark in the super-hero flick Iron Man, which became Downey's biggest hit ever at over $500 million at the worldwide box-office. Then he followed that with a hilarious role in Ben Stiller's Tropic Thunder, which landed him another Oscar nod. He continued his hot streak in 2009 with a new take on the Sherlock Holmes legend. And 2010 should yield his biggest hit yet with the sequel Iron Man 2 due in May. Not bad for a guy whose career had hit rock bottom thanks to drugs back in the 90's. It's good to see Robert doing so well.


I will post facts and trivia and reviews about Robert Downey Jr. all month long.