dyed blond, and beyond that a thick pile of photos of him in various suits, coats, and hats, with dark glasses, cigars, a pistol, and so on and so on, often two or four to a page, many, many pages’ worth. “He had a portfolio in which he appeared as an 80-year-old man and in costumes of all kinds,” recalled the famed casting director Marion Dougherty of his first appearances on her desk. “I had never in my life seen anything like that.”
He was projecting an image of himself as a chameleonic sort of actor, not a leading man but somebody who could play a variety of offbeat types. And he had a healthy attitude toward the entire process. “I didn’t have a problem with rejection,” he said, “because when you go into an audition you’re rejected already. There are hundreds of other actors. You’re behind the eight ball when you go in.”
He did, though, have a particular name he liked to drop when appearing at a casting session—not Stella Adler’s, but that of his dad. “I’m Bob De Niro,” he’d say, introducing himself. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my father.” (Sometimes he’d even bring clippings of his dad’s reviews or images of his work.) The New York arts world was relatively small, after all; one never could say for sure who might have heard of whom.
A ND SO HE WENT on auditions, some successful, some not. He also expanded his studies, attending Raphael Kelly’s speech class at the Shakespeare Studio and studying a bit with the acting teacher Luther James. In late 1964 he landed a walk-on part in a film called
Three Rooms in Manhattan
, directed by, of all people, the French master Marcel Carné, famed for
Les Enfants du Paradis
,
Le Quai des Brumes
, and other milestones of the pre–Nouvelle Vague French cinema. The story, about an older man obsessed to the point of criminality with a young woman, was adapted from a Georges Simenon novel; a few years earlier, René Clément had come close to filming it with Henry Fonda and Simone Signoret, and there had been previous rumors thatFederico Fellini would make it with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. Carné, who had Maurice Ronet and Annie Girardot as his leads, was apparently quite the volcano on the set, excoriating the union crew for its slow pace and bridling against the efforts to give the film a slick American feel. (As it happened, the film never received a proper release in the United States, not even in New York.)
None of that likely mattered to De Niro. Visible in two separate sequences set in restaurants in the first half hour of the film, he got a couple of days’ work and, in addition to the pay, some valuable insight into the business. “I remember a bunch of other young actors,” he said, “hanging around, moaning and bitching, all made up, with pieces of tissue in their collars; it was the kind of thing you always hear about actors—where they’re just silly or vain, complaining back and forth, walking around primping, not wanting to get the make-up on their shirts.… I didn’t want to be around those people at all. I just walked in and walked out. I
was
nervous, though, just to say the line ‘Gimme a drink.’ ” *2
Without an American release, it was as if the film had never been made, but that would be a glorious fate compared to what happened to his next film. In 1965, attending an audition that was advertised at Stella Adler’s Conservatory, he was cast in one of the two lead roles in a movie written and directed by the Argentine playwright and filmmaker Norman C. Chaitin. Chaitin had enjoyed a little bit of critical and underworld success with
The Small Hours
, an independent film, made on a minuscule budget, about the life of a Manhattan ad executive who goes bohemian on a visit downtown (“The dolls and guys of Greenwich Village and the real gone pads where they get their kicks,” read the movie poster for the film when it was rereleased in 1969 as
Flaming Desire
).
Chaitin’s new film was an
He was projecting an image of himself as a chameleonic sort of actor, not a leading man but somebody who could play a variety of offbeat types. And he had a healthy attitude toward the entire process. “I didn’t have a problem with rejection,” he said, “because when you go into an audition you’re rejected already. There are hundreds of other actors. You’re behind the eight ball when you go in.”
He did, though, have a particular name he liked to drop when appearing at a casting session—not Stella Adler’s, but that of his dad. “I’m Bob De Niro,” he’d say, introducing himself. “I’m sure you’ve heard of my father.” (Sometimes he’d even bring clippings of his dad’s reviews or images of his work.) The New York arts world was relatively small, after all; one never could say for sure who might have heard of whom.
A ND SO HE WENT on auditions, some successful, some not. He also expanded his studies, attending Raphael Kelly’s speech class at the Shakespeare Studio and studying a bit with the acting teacher Luther James. In late 1964 he landed a walk-on part in a film called
Three Rooms in Manhattan
, directed by, of all people, the French master Marcel Carné, famed for
Les Enfants du Paradis
,
Le Quai des Brumes
, and other milestones of the pre–Nouvelle Vague French cinema. The story, about an older man obsessed to the point of criminality with a young woman, was adapted from a Georges Simenon novel; a few years earlier, René Clément had come close to filming it with Henry Fonda and Simone Signoret, and there had been previous rumors thatFederico Fellini would make it with Marcello Mastroianni and Jeanne Moreau. Carné, who had Maurice Ronet and Annie Girardot as his leads, was apparently quite the volcano on the set, excoriating the union crew for its slow pace and bridling against the efforts to give the film a slick American feel. (As it happened, the film never received a proper release in the United States, not even in New York.)
None of that likely mattered to De Niro. Visible in two separate sequences set in restaurants in the first half hour of the film, he got a couple of days’ work and, in addition to the pay, some valuable insight into the business. “I remember a bunch of other young actors,” he said, “hanging around, moaning and bitching, all made up, with pieces of tissue in their collars; it was the kind of thing you always hear about actors—where they’re just silly or vain, complaining back and forth, walking around primping, not wanting to get the make-up on their shirts.… I didn’t want to be around those people at all. I just walked in and walked out. I
was
nervous, though, just to say the line ‘Gimme a drink.’ ” *2
Without an American release, it was as if the film had never been made, but that would be a glorious fate compared to what happened to his next film. In 1965, attending an audition that was advertised at Stella Adler’s Conservatory, he was cast in one of the two lead roles in a movie written and directed by the Argentine playwright and filmmaker Norman C. Chaitin. Chaitin had enjoyed a little bit of critical and underworld success with
The Small Hours
, an independent film, made on a minuscule budget, about the life of a Manhattan ad executive who goes bohemian on a visit downtown (“The dolls and guys of Greenwich Village and the real gone pads where they get their kicks,” read the movie poster for the film when it was rereleased in 1969 as
Flaming Desire
).
Chaitin’s new film was an
Similar Books
