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Robert Downey, Sr.

 
Director: Robert Downey, Sr.
Home > Library > Entertainment & Arts > Actors
  • Born: Jun 01, 1936 in Tennessee
  • Occupation: Director, Writer, Actor
  • Active: '60s-'90s
  • Major Genres: Comedy
  • Career Highlights: Putney Swope, Greaser's Palace, The Gong Show Movie
  • First Major Screen Credit: Babo 73 (1964)

Biography

American director Robert Downey served in the Army, pitched in semi-pro baseball and became an actor, all before he was 25 years old. In 1963, he began directing basement-budgeted absurdist films which gained a following in the "underground" cinema circuit: Babo 73 (1963), Chafed Elbows (1965) and No More Excuses (1968). Putney Swope (1969) was the first Downey-directed film to earn a mainstream release; a devastating satire of Madison Avenue, Putney explored the possibilities of an African-American activist given carte blanche at an advertising agency. The commercial parodies contained in the film were so "right on" (to use the vernacular of the era) that some impressionable reviewers assumed that Downey himself was black. The director thrived in the laissez-faire film world of the '70s with such irreverent films as Pound (1970), wherein humans (successfully) behaved like dogs for 90 minutes, and Greaser's Palace (1972), an outrageous restaging of the life of Christ in "spaghetti western" terms. He also continued his erstwhile acting career with appearances in films like Is There Sex After Death? (1971). Downey's take-no-prisoners sense of humor didn't mesh well with the comic attitudes of others, as witness Up the Academy (1980), a failed attempt by Mad magazine to emulate the National Lampoon movies. Thus Downey entered the '90s marching to his own beat again, making films exclusively for his specialized audience. Robert Downey is the father of actor Robert Downey Jr., who made his own film debut at age five in his dad's Pound. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
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Wikipedia: Robert Downey, Sr.
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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
Robert Downey Sr.
Born Robert John Elias Jr.
1937 (age 72)
United States
Occupation Director, actor, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer
Years active 1961-present
Spouse(s) Elsie Downey (div. 1975)
Laura Ernst (1991–1994)
Rosemary Rogers (1998–present)

Robert John Downey Sr. (born Robert John Elias, Jr. in 1937) is an American actor, writer, film director and father of actor Robert Downey, Jr. He is known as the director and writer of the cult classic feature film Putney Swope, a biting satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world.

Contents

Biography

Personal life

Downey's father was Jewish and his mother was Irish Catholic.[1][2][3] Downey is the father of actor Robert Downey, Jr. and actress-writer Allyson Downey, both children from his first marriage to actress Elsie Downey. They were divorced in 1975. Downey, Sr.'s second marriage, to the actress-writer Laura Ernst, ended with her 1994 death from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. He currently lives in New York City with his wife, Rosemary Rogers, whom he married in 1998.

Career

By the age of 22, Downey had served in the Army, played minor league baseball, become a Golden Gloves champion and an Off-Off-Broadway playwright. In 1961, working with the film editor Fred von Bernewitz, he began writing and directing low-budget 16mm films which gained an underground following, beginning with Ball's Bluff (1961), a fantasy short about a Civil War soldier who awakens in Central Park in 1961.

He moved into big-budget filmmaking with the surrealistic Greaser's Palace (1972).[4] His most recent film was Rittenhouse Square (2005), a documentary capturing life in a Philadelphia park.

Filmography

References

  1. ^ http://www.interfaithfamily.com/arts_and_entertainment/popular_culture/Interfaith_Celebrities_On_Jake_Gyllenhaals_Jewish-ishness_and_Robert_Downey_Jr_the_Jubu.shtml
  2. ^ Daisy Fried (1 May 1997). "Senior Class". Philadelphia City Paper. http://www.citypaper.net/articles/042497/article017.shtml. Retrieved 2008-06-17. 
  3. ^ Jamie Diamond. "Robert Downey Jr. Is Chaplin (on Screen) and a Child (Off)". The New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E0CE2DB1039F933A15751C1A964958260. Retrieved 2008-06-17. 
  4. ^ Vincent Canby. "Review: Greaser's Palace". The New York Times. http://movies2.nytimes.com/mem/movies/review.html?title1=&title2=Greaser%27s%20Palace%20%28Movie%29&reviewer=VINCENT%20CANBY&pdate=19720801. Retrieved 2008-06-17. 

External links


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