"RDJ" redirects here.

For other uses, see RDJ (disambiguation).

Robert Downey Jr.

Downey in 2014

Born Robert John Downey Jr.

April 4, 1965 (age 57)

Manhattan, New York, U.S.

Education Santa Monica High School

 Actor
Occupation
 producer

Years active 1970–present

Works Full list

 Deborah Falconer
Spouses
 (m. 1992; div. 2004)

 Susan Downey

(m. 2005)

Partner(s) Sarah Jessica Parker

(1984–1991)

Children 3

Parent Robert Downey Sr. (father)

Relatives Jim Downey (half-uncle)

Awards Full list

Signature

Robert John Downey Jr. (born April 4, 1965)[1] is an American actor and producer. His career has
been characterized by critical and popular success in his youth, followed by a period of substance
abuse and legal troubles, before a resurgence of commercial success later in his career. In 2008,
Downey was named by Time magazine among the 100 most influential people in the world,[2][3] and
from 2013 to 2015, he was listed by Forbes as Hollywood's highest-paid actor.[2][3]
At the age of 5, he made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s film Pound in 1970. He
subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than
Zero (1987). In 1992, Downey portrayed the title character in the biopic Chaplin, for which he was
nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor and won a BAFTA Award. Following a stint at
the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges, he joined the TV series Ally
McBeal, for which he won a Golden Globe Award. He was fired from the show in the wake of drug
charges in 2000 and 2001. He stayed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and has
maintained his sobriety since 2003.
Initially, completion bond companies would not insure Downey, until Mel Gibson paid the insurance
bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective.[4] He went on to star in the black comedy Kiss Kiss
Bang Bang (2005), the thriller Zodiac (2007), and the action comedy Tropic Thunder (2008); for the
latter, he was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Downey gained global
recognition for starring as Tony Stark in ten films within the Marvel Cinematic Universe, beginning
with Iron Man (2008), and leading up to Avengers: Endgame (2019). He has also played the title
character in Guy Ritchie's Sherlock Holmes (2009), which earned him his second Golden Globe, and
its sequel, Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).
 Contents

 1Early life and family

 2Career
o 2.11983–1995: Early work and critical acclaim
o 2.21996–2001: Career setbacks
o 2.32001–2007: Resurgence
o 2.42008–present: Iron Man and further success
 2.4.1Upcoming projects
 3Other ventures
o 3.1Music
o 3.2Production company
 4Personal life
o 4.1Relationships and family
o 4.2Sobriety
o 4.3Religious beliefs
o 4.4Views
 5Filmography and awards
 6Discography
o 6.1Studio album
o 6.2Soundtrack appearances
 7References
 8External links

Early life and family

Downey was born in Manhattan, New York City, the younger of two children. His father, Robert
Downey Sr., was an actor and filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (née Ford), was an actress
who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films.[5] Downey's father was of half Lithuanian Jewish, one-
quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one-quarter Irish descent,[6][7][8][9] while Downey's mother had Scottish,
German, and Swiss ancestry.[10][11][12] Robert's original family name was Elias which was changed by
his father to enlist in the Army.[13] Downey and his older sister Allyson grew up in Greenwich Village.
[14]

As a child, Downey was "surrounded by drugs." His father, a drug addict, allowed Downey to
use marijuana at age six, an incident which his father later said he regretted. [14] Downey later stated
that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: "When my dad and I would do
drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how."
Eventually, Downey began spending every night abusing alcohol and "making a thousand phone
calls in pursuit of drugs".[15][16]
During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the
age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy Pound (1970), and then at seven appeared
in the surrealist Western Greaser's Palace (1972).[11] At the age of 10, he was living in England and
studied classical ballet as part of a larger curriculum.[17][18] He attended the Stagedoor
Manor Performing Arts Training Center in upstate New York as a teenager. When his parents
divorced in 1978, Downey moved to California with his father, but in 1982, he dropped out of Santa
Monica High School, and moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time. [19]
Downey and Kiefer Sutherland, who shared the screen in the 1988 drama 1969, were roommates for
three years when he first moved to Hollywood to pursue his career in acting. [20]
Career
1983–1995: Early work and critical acclaim

Downey at the premiere of Air America in 1990

Downey began building upon theater roles, including in the short-lived off-

Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983, produced by Norman Lear. In
1985, he was part of the new, younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live, but following a year of
poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents, he and most of the new crew were
dropped and replaced.[19] Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its
entire run, stating that the "Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great."[21] That same
year, Downey had a dramatic acting breakthrough when he played James Spader's
character's sidekick in Tuff Turf and then a bully in John Hughes's Weird Science. He was
considered for the role of Duckie in John Hughes's film Pretty in Pink (1986),[22] but his first lead role
was with Molly Ringwald in The Pick-up Artist (1987). Because of these and other coming-of-
age films Downey did during the 1980s, he is sometimes named as a member of the Brat Pack.[19][23]
In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his
control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero. His performance, described
by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as "desperately moving",[24] was widely praised, though
Downey has said that for him "the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future" since his drug habit
resulted in his becoming an "exaggeration of the character" in real life. [25] Zero drove Downey into
films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan
O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline,
and Whoopi Goldberg.[26][27][28]
In 1992, he starred as Charlie Chaplin in Chaplin, a role for which he prepared extensively, learning
how to play the violin as well as tennis left-handed. He had a personal coach in order to help him
imitate Chaplin's posture, and a way of carrying himself. [29] The role garnered Downey an Academy
Award nomination for Best Actor at the Academy Awards 65th ceremony, losing to Al
Pacino in Scent of a Woman.[30]
In 1993, he appeared in the films Heart and Souls with Alfre Woodard and Kyra Sedgwick and Short
Cuts with Matthew Modine and Julianne Moore, along with a documentary that he wrote about the
1992 presidential campaigns titled The Last Party (1993).[31][32][33] He starred in the 1994 films, Only
You with Marisa Tomei, and Natural Born Killers with Woody Harrelson.[34][35] He then subsequently
appeared in Restoration (1995), Richard III (1995), Home for the Holidays (1995), Two Girls and a
Guy (1997),[36] as Special Agent John Royce in U.S. Marshals (1998), and in Black and White (1999).
[37][38][39][40]
1996–2001: Career setbacks
From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested numerous times on charges related to drugs
including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.[41] He went through drug treatment programs
unsuccessfully, explaining in 1999 to a judge: "It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my
finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal." He said he had been addicted to drugs
since the age of eight, due to the fact that his father, also an addict, had been giving them to him. [42]
In April 1996, Downey was arrested for possession of heroin, cocaine, and an unloaded .357
Magnum handgun while he was speedin