Best Known As: Heartthrob star of the 1997 film Titanic
Leonardo DiCaprio has been an international superstar since the box office megahit Titanic (1997, directed by James Cameron). In front of the camera since childhood, his first big role came in 1991, on the television series Growing Pains. As a young movie actor he won critical raves for his role in This Boy's Life (1993, with Robert DeNiro), and an Oscar nomination for What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993, with Johnny Depp). His performance in 1996's Romeo and Juliet proved his bankability as a leading man and heartthrob, and after the success of Titanic (with Kate Winslet), DiCaprio became a favorite of the tabloids, with a party-boy reputation. He kept on working, however, and has since grown into one of Hollywood's top movie actors. Along the way he appeared in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998, with Gretchen Mol), starred in Steven Spielberg's Catch Me If You Can (2002, with Christopher Walken) and made three movies with Martin Scorsese: Gangs of New York (2002, co-starring Cameron Diaz), The Aviator (he was nominated for an Oscar for playing eccentric innovator Howard Hughes) and The Departed (2006, starring Matt Damon). His performance in Blood Diamond (2006, with Djimon Hounsou) brought him another Oscar nomination. Off-screen DiCaprio is an advocate for environmental protection, an issue he became publicly involved with after he and the makers of The Beach (2000) were criticized for the environmental impact their filming had on locations in Thailand.
"People want you to be a crazy, out-of-control teen brat. They want you miserable, just like them. They don't want heroes; what they want is to see you fall."
Career Highlights: What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Titanic, William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet
First Major Screen Credit: Critters 3 (1991)
Biography
As the blond, blue-eyed icon for millions of teenage girls and more than a few boys everywhere, Leonardo DiCaprio emerged from relative television obscurity to become perhaps the hottest under-30 actor of the 1990s. After leading roles in William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet and James Cameron's Titanic, the actor became a phenomenon, spawning legions of websites and an entire industry built around his name.
Born in the town that would later make him famous, DiCaprio came into the world on November 11, 1974, in Hollywood, CA. The son of a German immigrant mother and an underground comic book artist father who separated shortly after his birth, DiCaprio was raised by both of his parents, who encouraged his early interest in acting. At the age of two and a half, the fledgling performer had his first brush with notoriety and workplace ethics when he was kicked off the set of Romper Room for what the show's network deemed "uncontrollable behavior." After this rather inauspicious start to his career, DiCaprio began to hone his skills -- and, presumably, his professional behavior -- with summer courses in performance art while he was in elementary school. He also joined the Mud People, an avant-garde theater group, with which he performed in Los Angeles, earning the title of "The Littlest Mud Person."
In high school, DiCaprio acted in his first real play and began doing commercials, educational films, and the occasional stint on the Saturday morning show The New Lassie. In 1990, after securing his first full-time agent at the age of 15, DiCaprio landed a role as a teenage alcoholic on the daytime drama Santa Barbara. He also continued to appear on other TV shows, such as The Outsiders and Parenthood, and made his film debut in the 1991 horror film Critters 3.
The actor got the first of many big breaks with a recurring role on the weekly sitcom Growing Pains. His portrayal of a homeless boy won him sufficient notice to get him an audition for Michael Caton-Jones' upcoming screen adaptation of Tobias Wolff's This Boy's Life. DiCaprio won the film's title role after beating out 400 other young actors and it proved to be his career breakthrough. The 1993 film, and DiCaprio's performance, won raves and the actor further increased the adulation surrounding him when, later that year, he played Johnny Depp's mentally retarded younger brother in Lasse Hallström's What's Eating Gilbert Grape. DiCaprio won an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his performance, and at the tender age of 19, found himself being hailed as an actor to watch.
Subsequent roles in three 1995 films, Sam Raimi's Western The Quick and the Dead; Total Eclipse, in which he played the bisexual poet Rimbaud; and The Basketball Diaries, in which he starred as a struggling junkie, all put the actor in the limelight, but it wasn't until the following year that he became a bona fide star. This transition was made possible by his portrayal of Romeo in the hugely popular William Shakespeare's Romeo + Juliet opposite Claire Danes. The success of the film gave DiCaprio international fame, many lucrative opportunities, and a slew of comparisons to actors such as James Dean.
After starring with Diane Keaton, Meryl Streep, and Robert DeNiro (his father in This Boy's Life) in Marvin's Room (1996), DiCaprio was catapulted into the stratosphere of international fame with his starring role in James Cameron's epic about a big boat and an even bigger piece of ice. Starring opposite Kate Winslet in the 1997 smash Titanic, DiCaprio got to be part of film history, as, in addition to being the highest-grossing movie ever, the film garnered 14 Oscar nominations, winning 11, including Best Picture and Best Director. DiCaprio's much discussed exclusion from the nominations did nothing to hurt his popularity, and somewhat ironically, he next chose to parody his own celebrity with an appearance in Woody Allen's Celebrity (1998) as a badly behaved movie star.
After displaying his nastier side, he won back the hearts of teens everywhere with his title role in the same year's swashbuckler The Man in the Iron Mask. The film allowed him to explore his good and bad side, as well as the perils of bad wigs, playing twins alongside such older and well-respected personages as Jeremy Irons, Gabriel Byrne, John Malkovich, and Gérard Depardieu. Following the commercial success of the film, DiCaprio went in a completely different direction, with a lead role in Danny Boyle's screen adaptation of Alex Garland's novel The Beach. The film met with eager anticipation from its first day of shooting, as Leo fans everywhere waited with baited breath to see what kind of impression their golden child would next make on the film world; unfortunately, the muddled Beach drew neither praise nor box-office success. DiCaprio pushed forward with an appearance in the small independent film Don's Plum (2001). Cast alongside future Spider-ManTobey Maguire, the film followed a rambling group of young adults as they made their way through city streets in search of a good time. Drawing fairly lukewarm reviews overseas, the obscure film would ultimately be relegated to a curiousity for stateside audiences as DiCaprio and Maguire sued to prevent a U.S. release of the film.
These initial post-Titanic roles, however, could be considered a regrouping before DiCaprio regained his status as one of the rare young actors who could command both commercial and critical success. He began collaborating with another famous Italian-American in the industry, Martin Scorsese, for the epic Gangs of New York (2002), in which DiCaprio was cast as the protagonist in a tale of gangland violence in early America. Long marred in rumors of disagreement between director Scorsese and producer Harvey Weinstein regarding the film's running time, the film that was originally to be released in December of 2001 was finally delivered to audiences in time for the 2002 holiday/Oscar season.
As if Scorsese's massive crime epic wasn't quite enough to give audiences their fill of DiCaprio, moviegoers got yet another dose of the tireless actor with the release of Steven Spielberg's Catch Me if You Can (2002). A decidedly lighthearted effort from the director who had recently labored on such high-concept sci-fi films as A.I. (2001) and Minority Report (2002), Catch Me if You Can told the true-life tale of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a scam artist so effective that he eluded authorities while assuming a number of high-profile false identities and racking-up over $2.5 million in fraudulent checks while jet-setting in twenty-six countries. Where his work in Gangs seemed a bit leaden, his fleet-footed, cocky turn in Catch played better with audiences and critics, although he would not receive Oscar nods for either film.
Two years later he reteamed with Martin Scorsese, earning some of the best reviews of his career as well as an Oscar nomination for Best Actor playing the young Howard Hughes in The Aviator. Tapping into an energy that was lacking in Gangs, DiCaprio and Scorsese would both achieve further heights two years later with The Departed, a crime drama in which DiCaprio played an undercover cop trying to bring down criminal Jack Nicholson. Doubling up during Oscar season yet again, that same year he played the lead in Edward Zwick's The Blood Diamond, as an Afrikaner who must team up with a South African mercenary in order to find a rare gem of great value to both of them. Both films opened to praise and box-office success, resulting in dual Golden Globe nominations for Best Actor -- Drama. Perhaps pushing its luck, Warner Bros. -- the studio behind both films -- campaigned DiCaprio for a lead Oscar in Diamond and a supporting one in Departed; Oscar voters only nominated him for Diamond.
The hybrid-car driving DiCaprio has also been an outspoken proponent of environmentalism, a topic he is so passionate about he was allowed to interview then President Bill Clinton on the issue in a 2000 televised prime-time special. ~ Rebecca Flint Marx, All Movie Guide
DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California, the only child of Irmelin (née Indenbirken), a former legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books.[3] His mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany, to the U.S. during the 1950s,[4] while his father is a fourth-generation American of half Italian and half German descent.[5][6][1] His maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken, who was born Yelena Smirnova, was a Russian immigrant to Germany.[7] DiCaprio's parents met while attending college together and subsequently moved to Los Angeles.[1] He was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked.[8] His parents divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother, although his father was around intermittently. During his childhood, he attended Seeds Elementary School. He was interested in baseball cards, comic books, and he frequently visited museums with his father. DiCaprio and his mother lived in several neighborhoods such as Echo Park.
During his teen years, he lived at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district of Los Angeles, California (which was later converted into a local public library) and his mother worked several jobs to support them.[1] He graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.
Career
Early career
DiCaprio's career began with his appearing in several commercials and educational films. He got his break on television in 1990 when he was cast in the short-lived series based on the movie Parenthood. On set, he met another struggling child actor, Tobey Maguire. The two quickly became friends and made a pact to help each other find roles in TV and movies. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a brief stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara, playing the young Mason Capwell.
His debut film role was Critters 3, a B-grade horror film, which later went straight to video. Soon after, in 1991, he became a recurring cast member on the hit ABC sitcom Growing Pains, playing Luke Brower, a homeless boy who is taken in by the Seavers.
The black-and-white film Don's Plum, a low budget drama featuring the actor and his friends (including Tobey Maguire) was filmed between 1995 and 1996. Its release was blocked by DiCaprio and Maguire, who argued that they never intended to make it a theatrical release. Nevertheless, it premiered in Berlin in 2001.
Also in 1995, he starred as Jim Caroll in The Basketball Diaries, a life story of drugs and prostitution. Baz Luhrmann's 1996 film Romeo + Juliet, again featured DiCaprio as the male lead and was one of the first films to cash in on DiCaprio's future star-status, with a worldwide box office take of $147 million.[9] Later that year he starred in Marvin's Room, reuniting with Robert De Niro and appearing alongside Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton.
Superstardom and "Leo-Mania"
The move from "star" to "superstar" came when DiCaprio played Jack Dawson in the 1997 blockbuster Titanic, alongside Kate Winslet as Rose DeWitt Bukater, which soon became the highest grossing film of all time and received 11 Oscars. In 1998, he made a cameo appearance in Woody Allen's satire Celebrity. That year he also starred in the dual roles of the villainous King Louis XIV and his secret, sympathetic twin brother Philippe in The Man in the Iron Mask. His popularity at the time was dubbed "Leo-mania", comparing his sudden fame and fan frenzy to that of the Beatles in the 1960s, known as Beatlemania. The Man in the Iron Mask may have benefited from Leo-Mania, considering its remarkably high worldwide box office gross (especially outside North-America) despite mediocre reviews.[10]
DiCaprio, 2000
What came with fame were tales in the tabloids of excesses and indulgence. Time summed up the fame superhighway and its trappings in an interview with the actor in 2000, reporting:[11]
DiCaprio still thinks of himself as an edgy indie actor, not the Tiger Beat cover boy. "I have no connection with me during that whole Titanic Phenomenon and what my face became around the world," DiCaprio commented, adding, "I'll never reach that state of popularity again, and I don't expect to. It's not something I'm going to try to achieve either."
Nonetheless, the headlines and controversy failed to let up, peaking when he starred in a project by Danny Boyle based on Alex Garland's backpacker cult classic The Beach that year. Because of clashes with the Thai authorities over the use of the island of Ko Phi Phi in 1999, the film garnered more bad press than expected. It was reported that permission granted to the film company to physically alter the environment inside Phi Phi Islands National Park was illegal.
Acting acclaim
In 2002, DiCaprio starred in Gangs of New York (directed by Martin Scorsese) and Catch Me If You Can (directed by Steven Spielberg). Both films were very well received by critics. Forging a collaboration with Scorsese, the two paired again for a biopic of American aviation pioneer Howard Hughes in The Aviator, a film that scored DiCaprio a second Academy Award nomination, for Best Actor.
DiCaprio continued his run with Scorsese (some call him Scorsese's "new De Niro") in the 2006 film The Departed as Billy Costigan, a smart undercover cop in Boston. His next film was Blood Diamond, released in December 2006. The film itself received generally favorable reviews and DiCaprio was praised for the authenticity of his South AfricanAfrikaner accent, known as a difficult accent to emulate.
In 2006, the Golden Globes and Broadcast Film Critics Association nominated DiCaprio twice in the same category: Best Actor for Blood Diamond and The Departed. Also in the same year, he received two nominations for the Screen Actors Guild Awards, a lead actor nomination for Blood Diamond and a supporting actor nomination for The Departed. He earned an Oscar nomination for lead actor in Blood Diamond and a BAFTA nod for lead actor for The Departed.
A committed environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for opting to fly on commercial flights instead of chartering private jets. He has also mentioned that he drives a hybrid car and that his house has solar panels.[12] His actions have inspired other celebrities, such as Orlando Bloom and Penelope Cruz. In an article in Ukula about his new film 11th Hour (which he co-wrote, co-produced and narrated), DiCaprio cites global warming as "the number one environmental challenge."[13] DiCaprio and former vice-president Al Gore announced at the 2007 Oscar ceremony that the Oscars had incorporated environmentally intelligent practices throughout the planning and production processes, thus affirming their commitment to the environment. On July 7, 2007, DiCaprio presented at the American leg of Live Earth. During the 2004 Presidential election, DiCaprio campaigned and donated to John Kerry's presidential bid.
In 1998, DiCaprio and his mother donated $35,000 for a state-of-the-art “Leonardo DiCaprio Computer Center” at the Los Feliz branch of the Los Angeles Public Library (1874 Hillhurst Avenue) which happens to be the site of his childhood home. It was rebuilt after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, and opened in early 1999.[14]
During the filming of Blood Diamond, DiCaprio worked with 24 orphaned children from the SOS Children's Village in Maputo, Mozambique, and was said to be extremely touched by his interactions with the children.[15]
He was invited to The Scottish Parliament at Holyrood in Edinburgh, Scotland, to talk about his environmental foundation to teach people about global warming. It is not yet known if he has accepted the offer, due to his busy schedule in Hollywood.
On August 5, 2008, DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (b. July 7, 1915), died in Oer-Erkenschwick, Germany, at the age of 93. His grandmother was an important pillar in his life; DiCaprio called her "Oma" (Grandma) and took her to some of his movie premieres. He had visited her in Germany in the last days of her life.[19]
DiCaprio owns a home in Los Angeles and an apartment in TriBeCa, in Manhattan, New York. He bought an island in Belize where he is planning to create an eco-friendly resort,[20] as well as an apartment in Riverhouse, an eco-friendly building overlooking the Hudson River in Manhattan.
DiCaprio has said in interviews that his favorite TV show is The Twilight Zone and he plans to make a series of movies based on episodes written by Rod Serling.[21]
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