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De Niro: A Biography
The life of Hollywood’s number one movie actor, the elusive Robert De Niro, who shuns the limelight and rarely gives interviews, written by the leading film critic and biographer of Spielberg, Kubrick, Woody Allen and George Lucas. Robert De Niro is the pre-eminent Hollywood character performer of our film portraits like the young Don Vito Corleone in THE GODFATHER II, Jake La Motta in RAGING BULL and Travis Bickle in TAXI DRIVER are some of the most vivid ever put on celluloid. De Niro cannot be cast to type, prefers to work for old friends like Martin Scorsese, and (apart from FRANKENSTEIN) has never played anything but 20th-century roles. John Baxter calls him ‘the archetypal empty bottle which only becomes visible when it’s filled by a role’: which makes him such a tempting subject for one of Hollywood’s finest historian/biographers. As well as his film roles, Baxter examines De Niro’s often controversial private life, his collaborations with directors like Martin Scorsese and performers like Harvey Keitel and Meryl Streep, and his increasingly ambitious off-screen activities.
384 pages, Paperback
First published October 6, 2003
24 people are currently reading
128 people want to read
About the author
John Baxter
228 books123 followersJohn Baxter (born 1939 in Randwick, New South Wales) is an Australian-born writer, journalist, and film-maker.
Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989, where he is married to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter, Louise.
He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as THE GOD KILLERS, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about SF in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction.
Baxter has also written a large number of other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.
In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.
For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.
Since 2007 he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.
Baxter has lived in Britain and the United States as well as in his native Sydney, but has made his home in Paris since 1989, where he is married to the film-maker Marie-Dominique Montel. They have one daughter, Louise.
He began writing science fiction in the early 1960s for New Worlds, Science Fantasy and other British magazines. His first novel, though serialised in New Worlds as THE GOD KILLERS, was published as a book in the US by Ace as The Off-Worlders. He was Visiting Professor at Hollins College in Virginia in 1975-1976. He has written a number of short stories and novels in that genre and a book about SF in the movies, as well as editing collections of Australian science fiction.
Baxter has also written a large number of other works dealing with the movies, including biographies of film personalities, including Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, Steven Spielberg, Stanley Kubrick, Woody Allen, George Lucas and Robert De Niro. He has written a number of documentaries, including a survey of the life and work of the painter Fernando Botero. He also co-produced, wrote and presented three television series for the Australian Broadcasting Commission, Filmstruck, First Take and The Cutting Room, and was co-editor of the ABC book programme Books And Writing.
In the 1960s, he was a member of the WEA Film Study Group with such notable people as Ian Klava, Frank Moorhouse, Michael Thornhill, John Flaus and Ken Quinnell. From July 1965 to December 1967 the WEA Film Study Group published the cinema journal FILM DIGEST. This journal was edited by John Baxter.
For a number of years in the sixties, he was active in the Sydney Film Festival, and during the 1980s served in a consulting capacity on a number of film-funding bodies, as well as writing film criticism for The Australian and other periodicals. Some of his books have been translated into various languages, including Japanese and Chinese.
Since moving to Paris, he has written four books of autobiography, A Pound of Paper: Confessions of a Book Addict, We'll Always Have Paris: Sex and Love in the City of Light, Immoveable feast : a Paris Christmas, and The Most Beautiful Walk in the World : a Pedestrian in Paris.
Since 2007 he has been co-director of the annual Paris Writers Workshop.
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Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews
April 22, 2007
Well, I only kept at this one for as long as I did because it was Robert De Niro. But it was not well-written at all. I think that I'm going to have to wait until he dies (hopefully for a long long long long time) before a decent biography comes out. I liked reading about how all his films came together and how he worked his craft, but it did things like, say, he took a class with an African-American (was the guy his teacher, his class-mate? I don't know), and this is the reason he hung out with black people for the rest of his life. What? Said absolutely nothing about the guy. Another one was that he had a pretty, vapid girlfriend at one point, said nothing about the relationship except that this was the reason he tended to marry trophy wives. Okaaay. Does anyone here know of a good biography on him? Cause I'm still interested.
July 9, 2019
If you love glowing celebrity biographies which portray the subject in the best possible light, this book is not for you.
I'm a long-time De Niro fan and I wanted something more than just a list of all the movies he's acted in. This book provides some interesting details about his early life and his parents. I already knew about his father but I knew nothing whatsoever about his mother.
I get the impression that the author really isn't enamoured with the subject. He portrays De Niro as an amoral, selfish womaniser who has little personality of his own outside of his acting roles. I'm not too shocked by anything I've read, because I already know a fair amount about his method acting and the lengths he goes to when studying for roles. I also know that most of his relationships have failed because he largely ignored his partners whilst doing movie projects. The same can be said of many high-profile actors. It goes with the territory.
I did learn some new things about his off-screen life, such as his business investments, most of which seem to have been abysmal failures. The author also doesn't seem to have a high opinion of most of De Niro's movie output, denigrating the majority of them as poor choices for roles and making losses at the box office.
With celebrity biographies, you can never be sure how accurate the sources are. This one does a reasonable job, but I expect hardcore fans would probably be disappointed.
I'm a long-time De Niro fan and I wanted something more than just a list of all the movies he's acted in. This book provides some interesting details about his early life and his parents. I already knew about his father but I knew nothing whatsoever about his mother.
I get the impression that the author really isn't enamoured with the subject. He portrays De Niro as an amoral, selfish womaniser who has little personality of his own outside of his acting roles. I'm not too shocked by anything I've read, because I already know a fair amount about his method acting and the lengths he goes to when studying for roles. I also know that most of his relationships have failed because he largely ignored his partners whilst doing movie projects. The same can be said of many high-profile actors. It goes with the territory.
I did learn some new things about his off-screen life, such as his business investments, most of which seem to have been abysmal failures. The author also doesn't seem to have a high opinion of most of De Niro's movie output, denigrating the majority of them as poor choices for roles and making losses at the box office.
With celebrity biographies, you can never be sure how accurate the sources are. This one does a reasonable job, but I expect hardcore fans would probably be disappointed.
June 8, 2013
Just because a book is easy to read it does not mean it's well written.
August 21, 2020
What amazed me about this book which details the life of a great actor is that i always thought that he was one of the most successful and wanted actors in Hollywood. I have seen lots of his films (my two favourites being Once Upon a Time in America and Casino) and to me his acting is outstanding. I rather felt that the writer here spent too much time saying what was bad about the films and concentrating on the negatives. Dont get me wrong i know that de niro had problems off screen and on screen but this felt more like an attack than a biography.
December 19, 2022
This was tough to stick with not because it was difficult to read but because it was so boring.I never thought I’d use that word to describe a De Niro bio but I have to say it was badly written and the author spent the entire book slating everything De Niro did. I have seen him in many good films and admire him as an actor but if anyone unfamiliar with his films had read this book first and seen them so negatively dissected they would never watch any of his films. I would not recommend this book.
May 9, 2011
Terribly written and seems to end mid sentence
October 25, 2016
Don't really know that much more about De Niro after reading this.
April 14, 2025
I had very mixed feelings towards this book, I believe it started much stronger than it finished, as I was very interested in the start of De Niros career, and the evolution of cinema during these times, with De Palma, Scorsese and Al Pacino all being mentioned in long and interesting enough ways. However, my first negative thoughts towards this book started when the author began to insert his own (negative) opinions of De Niros acting and character into the writing. He calls De Niro ‘the greatest screen actor of our time’, but only really positively speaks of a couple of his films up until 1980’s Raging Bull, after which he begins to slate De Niros performances, film choices and entire career. Very strange. There was a plethora of varying information in the book, some incredibly interesting and relevant, others less relevant and less interesting. Many films are spoken about in great detail, which don’t even have De Niro in, and many films with and without the actor starring in have their plots broken down and detailed, including spoilers for any climaxes and twists for the films. I found this to be a very strange way of writing it and speaking of his films, as I would be more interested in the behind the scenes (he did speak about some films BTS with great detail), and De Niros performance and commitment. The most disappointing part for me was the ending. The book was published in 2003, so I expected to feel like I was missing a lot of information on De Niro after it’s publication, but I was not expecting the book to abruptly end midway through a paragraph on a broken down film production between Dicaprio and De Niro. It was a dismaying ending, with no real conclusion, summary, or takehome ideas from all the information presented in the book.
Whilst I would recommend this book if you’re interested in De Niro and 50s-90s American cinema, I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t - as the way it is written and presented would probably not appeal to you if you’re simply looking for a good book / biography.
Whilst I would recommend this book if you’re interested in De Niro and 50s-90s American cinema, I wouldn’t recommend it if you aren’t - as the way it is written and presented would probably not appeal to you if you’re simply looking for a good book / biography.
May 14, 2023
Apparently the first full-length biography of Robert De Niro, John Parker traces the actors life from his childhood in New York’s Mafia land to his present status as one of Hollywood’s top actors.
First published in 1995 when even the most casual observer could see De Niro was appearing in all manner of pap to fund his Tribeca Centre, Parker isn’t backward in coming forward about how De Niro’s reputation might be a little over-egged and suffering from some poor choices of film. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him, this does feel as though Parker went into the piece without being a big fan and then got progressively more annoyed with his subject. Of course, choosing to write about an actor who is notorious for keeping his private life private would seem like an uphill task from the start and even though he “draws on exclusive conversations with many of De Niro’s friends and colleagues”, they’re either way in the past or fairly bland, as if no-one wanted to get on the actors bad side. Parker makes a good go of things but I think some of the problem may be him - I didn’t like his biographies of Jack Nicholson or George Lucas either - and his cut-and-paste style, though there is the occasional comedic gem (page 167, Parker states one of the characters within De Niro’s personality is the “secretive seeker of manly pleasures achieved by his penchant for exotic, dusky skinned companions”). I’m not sure how anyone could write a thorough biography of an actor so dedicated to separating his public and private life, but this one certainly misses the mark.
First published in 1995 when even the most casual observer could see De Niro was appearing in all manner of pap to fund his Tribeca Centre, Parker isn’t backward in coming forward about how De Niro’s reputation might be a little over-egged and suffering from some poor choices of film. Whilst I wouldn’t necessarily agree with him, this does feel as though Parker went into the piece without being a big fan and then got progressively more annoyed with his subject. Of course, choosing to write about an actor who is notorious for keeping his private life private would seem like an uphill task from the start and even though he “draws on exclusive conversations with many of De Niro’s friends and colleagues”, they’re either way in the past or fairly bland, as if no-one wanted to get on the actors bad side. Parker makes a good go of things but I think some of the problem may be him - I didn’t like his biographies of Jack Nicholson or George Lucas either - and his cut-and-paste style, though there is the occasional comedic gem (page 167, Parker states one of the characters within De Niro’s personality is the “secretive seeker of manly pleasures achieved by his penchant for exotic, dusky skinned companions”). I’m not sure how anyone could write a thorough biography of an actor so dedicated to separating his public and private life, but this one certainly misses the mark.
September 4, 2019
Really good biography of Robert De Nero. Showcases us his highest highs and his lowest lows. Nicely written by John Baxter. Gives us a real glimpse of what he was like as a person off camera as well as the level of depth he takes with his acting. A true method actor at heart and the level of attention to detail he takes with his characters makes you realise why he is so successful. Intrigued by his portfolio of 1000s of pictures dressed as different characters. Highly recommended for any film buff.
December 30, 2023
This was a difficult one to finish. I picked it up thinking it would be about the life of the screen icon Robert De Niro, but sadly it was mostly his screen life.
The detail was all about the films, the budgets, the production team, and the success (or not) of the films. There was very little to be learned of De Niro but plenty about the workings of Hollywood. I like to watch films. I like a good performance. I like cinema but I’m not fanatic enough to enjoy the detail this book went into.
Give me more of De Niro’s life and less of the Hollywood process!
The detail was all about the films, the budgets, the production team, and the success (or not) of the films. There was very little to be learned of De Niro but plenty about the workings of Hollywood. I like to watch films. I like a good performance. I like cinema but I’m not fanatic enough to enjoy the detail this book went into.
Give me more of De Niro’s life and less of the Hollywood process!
November 21, 2020
Started off very good but bizarrely from about 2/3 of the way through turned into what felt like any opportunity to bash De Niro and almost say he is overrated as an actor. Full of negative comments about his acting performance in films and basically just says he was in it for a quick quid. Maybe half true of some later movies but I really don't think many people have the right to basically bad mouth Robert De Niro, which is what this book ends up doing
February 12, 2024
It seems like the author got so caught up doing the research he grew to hate the subject. It also felt rushed towards the end. De Niro's story is pretty fascinating though, a consumate NY tale - the story of his parents in particular is like something out of a movie itself.
December 16, 2019
Very dull and difficult to read. The author does not seem to like Robert De Niro which does not help. the book also finishes at 2004 so misses out on all the later career.
January 4, 2025
Brutal. Gotta always be written by the artist or nothing. Couldn't get through the first 15 pages. I like Bobby D. So I'll have to find a better one to read.
April 17, 2011
I enjoyed it as it was very well researched and interesting. It did annoy me a bit the way John Baxter down played Deniro a bit...i.e. made him out to be far less billiant than what he really is and as a result also didn't rate his perfomance in various of the movies he was in appropriately...especially the more recent of his movies.
July 27, 2016
Biographies by their very nature contain a lot of personal opinion in them, but this author seems too snidey to me. Good early on when writing about De Niro's parents and early days, but not so good on De Niro the actor. To me he seems more intelligent than the author makes out, and Baxter concentrates on tittle tattle too much later on. Can't really recommend it.
May 21, 2012
Decent biography though a bit over critical. I mean the guy doesn't even like King Of Comedy?!
February 19, 2013
Starts out with a bang just like DeNiro but he stopped making good movies before the book was finished so it sags at the end.
January 29, 2016
Great actor to read about, he has been in so many good films. Just last night Midnight Run was on the tv, fantastic.
Displaying 1 - 21 of 21 reviews