The Iron Man himself
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Robert Downey Jr
We\'ve come to a conclusion, almost every girl has had a crush on Robert Downey Jr at some point in her lifetime, or at least the handbag.com office all have. He\'s been through many ‘transformations\' from budding actor, to hell-bent bad boy, before becoming a genuine Hollywood icon and we\'ve been crushing on him throughout his journey. With Iron Man 2 out in cinemas this week, what better time to make Robert Downey Jr our crush of the week?
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Early life
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Early life
Born in Greenwich Village, New York, on 4 April 1965, Robert Downey Jr is the son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr. His first movie role was in his father\'s experimental film Pound (1970) where a 5-year-old Downey joined the cast of humans depicting everyday life in a dog pound in the role of Puppy. When he was 20 Robert joined Saturday Night Live (1985) for one season, moved to Hollywood appeared in teen classic Weird Science. In 1987, Robert landed the lead role in James Toback\'s film The Pick-Up Artist against Molly Ringwald. In 1992, he played Charles Chaplin in Sir Richard Attenborough\'s film Chaplin and received an Academy Award nomination.
Bad habits
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Bad habits
While on-screen Robert Downey Jr was going from strength-to-strength, off-screen was an entirely different story. Downey\'s first major drug-related arrest came in 1996, when he was taken in for possession of heroin, cocaine, and an unloaded .357-calliber magnum. The actor was given three years probation and ordered to undergo mandatory drug testing. A year later Downey skipped a court-ordered drug test and as a result spent nearly four months in jail. Then, in 1999 he skipped another drug test and spent nearly a year in a state prison in Corcoran, California. Dr. Manijeh Nikakhtar, a psychiatrist who received a letter from Downey while he was in prison, said, "He\'s not a criminal. He\'s a victim of drugs." Four months after his release from prison in August 2000, Downey was arrested again for drugs offenses. In April 2001, he was arrested yet again after police found him wandering down a Los Angles alleyway. After this arrest, Ally McBeal executives ordered last minute re-shoots and re-writes to rid him from the series.
Downey told Oprah in 2004, that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he\'d be facing more prison time, he finally thought, "‘You know what? I don\'t think I can continue doing this.\' And I reached out for help and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in a kind of half-assed way, and you\'ll get it, and you won\'t take advantage of it. It\'s not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems... what\'s hard is to decide to actually do it."
Success
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Success
Having battled his drug demons, Downey\'s career comeback kick started when Mel Gibson, a close friend of Robert\'s since they starred in Air America together, agreed to pay the actor\'s insurance bond for the 2003 film Singing Detective. Downey then went on to star in Gothika with Halle Berry, A Guide To Recognising Your Saints, Good Night, and Good Luck, and A Scanner Darkly. In November 2004, he released his debut album The Futurist. After his career highs and lows it\'s hard to believe that Downey had never starred in a Blockbuster before, but all that changed with Iron Man. In 2007 he was cast as Tony Stark and Iron Man opposite Gwyneth Paltrow and the rest, as they say, was history.
Picture: Entertainment Weekly.
Iron Man 2
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Iron Man 2
Iron Man 2, possibly one of the most anticipated releases this year, opens in cinemas this week. Robert Downey Jr returns as Tony Stark, the billionaire genius with a superhero suit made of iron, Gwyneth Paltrow appears as his sexy secretary-come-love-interest Pepper Potts, Mickey Rourke is evil Ivan Vanko, Iron Man\'s newest enemy, Scarlett Johansson dons a leather cat suit to play the mysterious Natasha Romanoff while Samuel L.Jackson plays super-spy Nick Fury.
Relationships
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Relationships
While filming Firstborn, Robert Downey Jr met Sarah Jessica Parker. Sarah asked Robert out, and the pair moved in together in New York having only been dating eight weeks. The couple parted ways seven years later. "I was so selfish," Robert admitted to Parade magazine. "I like to drink, and I had a drug problem, and that didn\'t jibe with Sarah Jessica, because it is the furthest thing from what she is. She provided me a home and understanding. She tried to help me. She was so miffed when I didn\'t get my act together."
See Robert and Sarah and nine other stylish couple we wished had stayed together.
Shortly after the break-up, Robert met and married his first wife Deborah Falconer after only dating for 42 days. The couple had a son, Indio, now 16. Deborah left Downey in 2001 after his stints in prison and rehab. The couple finalised their divorce on April 26, 2004.
While on the set of Gothika in 2003, Downey met producer Susan Levin. The pair quietly stuck up a romance during the filming. Susan reportedly worried that the romance wouldn\'t last past filming because, "he\'s an actor, I have a real job." But their relationship lasted past the director calling cut and Downey proposed to Susan the night before her 30th birthday. The couple married ion August 27 2005, in a ceremony where they were serenaded by Sting and Billie Joel.
Picture: The Observer Magazine.
4 random facts
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Random facts:
Ranked 60 in Time Magazine\'s 100 Most Influential People In The World (2008).
He once worked as a piece of living art in a SoHo nightclub in New York City.
He kept a lot of the authentic vintage clothing he wore in Chaplin (1992).
Childhood friend of Richard Hall (aka Moby).
Picture: Men\'s Vogue
Robert Downey Jr quotes
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Robert Downey Jr quotes
"I\'ve always felt like such an outsider in this industry. Because I\'m so insane, I guess."
"The higher the stakes, the happier I am, the better I will be."
"I\'m not used to feeling like I belong where I am."
[On his addiction to drugs] "It\'s like I have a loaded gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal."
[On why he did Danger Zone (1996) "Five hundred grand for two weeks."
[On Restoration (1995)] "I just thought [Hugh Grant) was a dick, that\'s all. And I still do. You know, and that could be something that has to do with me, or it could just be that not everyone in this industry is someone I\'d care to hang out with."
"I don\'t want to go all Michael Jackson on you, but I never really had a childhood."
