Robert De Niro

Born: 17th August 1943
Where: New York, USA

The legendary star hit a career-defining high with his Oscar-winning role as boxer Jake La Motta in Martin Scorsese's Raging Bull.

The part of the famous fighter embodied everything that makes him great : he bulked up 40lbs - not only for the fight scenes but La Motta's out-of-shape cabaret owner.

He prepared for the role with the customary vigorous application of "the method" and lived the part on and off set during filming.

De Niro also landed an Academy Award for best supporting actor for the role of Vito Corleone in The Godfather II (he and Marlon Brando are the only two actors to win an Oscar for playing the same character).

Other best actor Oscar nominations for De Niro were Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Awakenings and Cape Fear.

The son of abstract expressionist Robert De Niro Snr (who subsequently came out as a homosexual) and painter Virginia Admiral, he discovered his love of acting playing The Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz aged 10.

The quit school aged 16 to run with a local gang before taking up a place to study acting with the Stella Adler Conservatory and The American Workshop.

Early stage appearances included off-Broadway productions and he also took an uncredited role in Three Rooms in Manhattan in 1965 and Brian De Palma's Greetings, The Wedding Party and Hi Mom!

In 1973, he landed his breakthrough role as a young thug in Scorsese's Mean Steets. (growing up in the same neighbourhood as Scorsese, the two were aware of one another but did not meet until 1972).

The following year De Niro essayed Mafia boss Corleone in The Godfather II (he spent four months mastering the Sicilian dialect before playing the role which won him a best supporting actor Oscar).

In 1976, he again impressed - as unhinged Vietnam Veteran Travis Bickle in Scorsese's Taxi Driver - and went on to star in Bernardo's Bertolucci's epic 1900 and Elia Kazan's romantic drama The Last Tycoon.

In Scorsese's musical New York, New York De Niro demonstrated his range opposite Liza Minnelli and then landed the Oscar-nominated role of Vietnam vet Michael Vronsky in Michael Cimino's The Deer Hunter.

(in the latter movie he appeared alongside his favourite actress to work with - Meryl Streep).

In 1980, he hit an artistic high as La Motta in Raging Bull (in his Oscar acceptance speech he thanked Joey LaMotta (brother of Jake), who was at the time suing United Artists for the portrayal of him.

De Niro then dramatically switched styles as aspiring comedian Rupert Pupkin opposite Jerry Lewis in Scorsese's The King of Comedy.

Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In America saw him again cast as an Italian-American gangster (in reality, De Niro is actually three-quarters Irish) and he went on to star in Terry Gilliam's splendidly bleak Brazil alongside former Python Michael Palin.

Roles followed in Roland Joffe's The Mission and he also showed his diabolic side as Louis Cyphre in Alan Parker's dark drama Angel Heart in 1987.

He played mobster Al Capone in De Palma's critically-acclaimed The Untouchables alongside Sean Connery and Kevin Costner and also appeared as an accountant wanted by the mob in Midnight Run. He also turned down the role of Jesus in The Last Temptation of Christ (it went to Willem Dafoe).

Neil Jordan's 1989 comedy We're No Angels alongside Sean Penn didn't show De Niro at his comedic best but he was back on form in Scorsese's definitive gangster movie Goodfellas the following year.

He received Oscar nominations for the drama Awakenings with Robin Williams and as a rapist/stalker Max Cady in Scorsese's remake of the 1962 classic chiller Cape Fear.

Although the early 90s proved rocky for his acting career, with a series of films that made little impact with the press or public, the period did mark his first flowering as a filmmaker.

He enhanced his reputation as a champion of New York film production with his TriBeCa Film Center, home to his own TriBeCa Films company, and springboard for the likes of Meet The Parents, the Oscar-nominated Wag The Dog and Marvin's Room.

(In 1993, he made his own feature directorial debut with A Bronx Tale, on which he also served as producer and co-star.)

Back on firmer ground after the likes of Mad Dog and Glory and Frankenstein, he returned to the gangster genre for Casino and appeared for the first time opposite Al Pacino in Michael Mann's slick crime drama Heat.

Roles followed in James Mangold's impressive Cop Land alongside Sylvester Stallone and Quentin Tarantino's crime thriller Jackie Brown in 1997.

The following year he vowed never to return to France after he was innocently embroiled in the Paris prostitution ring furore that dominated international headlines.

Film-wise, for his own TriBeCa productions, De Niro switched to comedy, starring opposite Billy Crystal as a New York gangland boss experiencing panic attacks in Analyze This.

Staying with comedy, he produced and starred in the combined live-action/animated The Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle, and followed this with hilarious Meet the Parents opposite Ben Stiller.

Back on the crime trail, he was paid £10m for Frank Oz's heist caper The Score but subsequent outings - Showtime, City By The Sea and Godsend - saw him on auto-pilot.

He reteamed with Crystal for the so-so sequel Analyze That but was on firmer ground with Stiller for Meet The Fockers, also starring Dustin Hoffman and Barbra Streisand.

Recent work includes the psychological thriller Hide and Seek.