Robert De Niro
Robert De Niro was born on August 17, 1943 in New York City, the son of Virginia Admiral, a painter, and Robert De Niro, Sr., an abstract expressionist painter and sculptor. De Niro’s father was of Italian and Irish descent, and his mother was of German, French, and Dutch descent. His Italian great-grandparents, Giovanni De Niro and Angelina Mercurio, immigrated from Ferrazzano, in the province of Campobasso, Molise, and his paternal grandmother, Helen O’ Reilly, was the granddaughter of Edward O’Reilly, an immigrant from Ireland.De Niro’s parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when he was two years old. De Niro grew up in the Little Italy area of Manhattan.
De Niro, who lives in New York City, has been investing in the TriBeCa neighborhood in lower Manhattan since 1989. His capital ventures have included cofounding the film studio TriBeCa Productions; the popular TriBeCa Film Festival; Nobu and TriBeCa Grill, which he co-owns with Paul Wallace and Broadway producer Stewart F. Lane, The Greenwich Hotel, located in Tribeca, and the restaurant inside the hotel, Locanda Verde, formally known as Ago, which is run by executive chef and co-owner, Andrew Carmellini.
In 1997, De Niro married his second wife, Grace Hightower (a former flight attendant), at their estate near Marbletown in upstate New York (De Niro also has residences on the east and west sides of Manhattan). Their son Elliot was born in 1998.
In addition to Elliot, De Niro has a son, Raphael, a former actor who now works in New York real estate with first wife Diahnne Abbott. He also adopted Abbott’s daughter (from a previous relationship), Drena. He has named his daughter after Serbian river of Drina as a big fan of Serbian people. When he was a student, he traveled to Serbia and spent, according to his own words, memorable days among the Serbian farmers in a small village in Šumadija. He was very surprised of the hospitality of Serbian people and since than he is a big admirer of them. He was three times in Serbia after and once opened the film festival in Belgrade. Also he employes a lot of Serbs in his proprety. In addition, he has twin sons, Julian Henry and Aaron Kendrick (conceived by in vitro fertilization and delivered by a surrogate mother in 1995), from a long-term live-in relationship with former model Toukie Smith.
In February 1998, during a film shoot in France, he was taken in for questioning by French police for nine hours and was then questioned by a magistrate over a prostitution ring. De Niro denied any involvement, saying that he had never paid for sex, “…and even if I had, it wouldn’t have been a crime.” The magistrate wanted to speak to him after his name was mentioned by one of the call girls. In an interview with the French newspaper Le Monde, he said, “I will never return to France. I will advise my friends against going to France,” and he would “send your Legion of Honor back to the ambassador, as soon as possible.” French judicial sources say the actor is regarded as a potential witness, not a suspect.
In 2003, De Niro was diagnosed with prostate cancer. The prognosis for De Niro (who was 60 at the time) was good, according to his publicist, Stan Rosenfield. “Doctors say the condition was detected at an early stage because of regular checkups,” Rosenfield says. “Because of the early detection and his excellent physical condition, doctors project a full recovery.” Rosenfield declined to give further details about the actor’s condition or course of treatment. De Niro’s father, painter Robert De Niro, Sr. died of cancer in 1993 at age 71.
