From his amazing feature film performances to his roles as producer and director to his many notable guest appearances, De Niro started his career as early as 1965 and has since dominated the world of Hollywood. Untouchable will take you inside the life of this astonishing actor to provide a revealing and sometimes startling account of an intensely private man. Dougan provides information on actual life events that seemed to have had a profound effect on De Niro emotionally, and discusses De Niro's working and personal relationships with personalities such as Martin Scorcese, Jack Nicholson, Jodie Foster, and Sharon Stone. With an updated epilogue and filmography, this new edition will also include De Niro's entrepreneurial and behind-the-scenes role in co-founding Tribeca Productions in 1988 and the works he has since produced and directed. Although De Niro continues his work as an actor, it is his vision for Tribeca to be the axis of the film industry and the heart of New York City's film community that currently takes up most of his time. 24 black-and-white photos are included.
When I first picked this biography up I wondered why it was named Untouchable. Obviously Robert DeNiro was in the movie The Untouchables but that's not exactly his most well known movie. But just a couple pages in, it became very clear why the author chose this title.
Untouchable is about the life and career of legendary actor Robert DeNiro. The author Andy Dougan strives to give us a glimpse at the inner world of DeNiro but given the actor's notorious preference for privacy it was a hard task. I've seen a lot of DeNiro's films but I didn't even realize just how little I knew about his life. The author seems to be a bit bothered by just how secretive DeNiro is. While I love to know famous people business, I'm also okay not knowing anything about my favorite actors.
So was the author successful in his mission to explore the inner of Robert DeNiro?
Yes and No.
Since I didn't know anything about him, I learned alot. Obviously this book is old( my version is 26 years old) so this book probably doesn't represent the nearly 80 year old DeNiro but it was still an interesting read and it made me want to watch some of his movies that I hadn't seen( Raging Bull, Mean Streets, The Deer Hunter, The King of Comedy).
But on the other hand, I felt like the author relied too much on tabloid gossip. I still don't know much about his upbringing. I'm going to cut the author some slack though because I feel like it would be incredibly hard to get inside DeNiro's bubble.
Would I recommend this book?
Yes. If you want to know about Robert DeNiro's early career and his process as an actor than I think this book would work for you. If you're a DeNiro superfan than I don't think you'll get much out of this.
A good biography includes information about the person of subject that readers dont already know and this book just doesnt deliver. It's your typical chronological ordered biography, with next to no personal information. I could and should have went wikipedia and got all this information read and behind me in 10 minutes. Disappointing being as De Niro is my all-time favorite actor.