As much as we enjoy acting legend Robert De Niro’s feuding with Donald Trump , De Niro has now entered a very different conflict. He and his wife, Grace Hightower, have reportedly separated and are living apart. The couple has been married for more than two decades. People reports that Robert De Niro and Grace Hightower have separated. Having married in 1997, the two of them have been together for more than twenty years. Now, they are apparently living apart. As for the reason why, People ‘s report really can’t say. All that their source reveals is that: “Sometimes things don’t work out the way you hope or want them to.” That is certainly true. De Niro is 75. Hightower is 63. The couple shares a 20-year-old son, Elliott, and a 6-year-old daughter, Helen Grace. Their daughter was born via surrogate. Notably, this is not the first time that the couple has split. In 1999, just two years after getting married and one year after their son was born, De Niro filed for divorce. The couple also engaged in a custody dispute over Elliott, who was a baby at the time. Ultimately, they reconciled, never finalizing their divorce. In 2004, they renewed their vows. De Niro has been married once before. In 1976, he married Diahnne Abbott. Together, they have a son named Raphael. De Niro also adopted Diahnne’s daughter, Drena De Niro. It is through these two that De Niro has four grandchildren. He split from Diahnne in 1988. In 1995, he had twin sons, Aaron Kendrick and Julian Henry de Niro. They were conceived via in vitro fertilization and delivered via surrogate during his relationship with Toukie Smith. Despite his generally very good political views, De Niro has not been without controversy. Part of that controversy arose from De Niro’s interest in autism, as his son Elliott is autistic. Most infamously, in 2016, many of his fans felt betrayed when he supported Vaxxed for the Tribeca Film Festival. Vaxxed is an absurd “documentary” that purportes a widely debunked theory that there’s been a cover-up over a causal link between vaccines and autism. De Niro ultimately withdrew his recommendation after discussing the film with the scientific community. (Obviously, not only do vaccines not cause autism, but even if they did, only a monster would prefer a dead neurotypical child to a living and healthy autistic kid) It came to light that Andrew Wakefield, the film’s infamous director, had been in contact with Hightower. Wakefield reportedly told the couple “your family’s life [has] been blighted by autism.” Sometimes people with special agendas target celebrities with misinformation in order to gain a platform for their ideas. Has fallout over this disagreement played a role in the downfall of this marriage? We honestly have no idea. They’ve been married since 1997, folks. All relationships, all marriages, end one way or another. Perhaps it is simply time for them to move on. Or maybe they’ll work things out again and, in a few years, they’ll renew their vows. We wish their entire family the best. View Slideshow: 19 Most Bitter Breakups in Hollywood History
The website for the Tribeca Film Festival has finally put up video from the Q&A session that followed its closing-night presentation of The King of Comedy , but, alas, it’s just an excerpt. I was hoping that the discussion — which included the film’s director Martin Scorsese and its stars, Robert De Niro , venerable comedian and filmmaker Jerry Lewis and (briefly, via pre-taped video) Sandra Bernhard — would run in its entirety, because, even after 30 years, the creative tensions that contributed to the film’s greatness were still evident. At the center of that tension was the 87-year-old Lewis, who gives a brilliant, disciplined performance in the movie as the Johnny Carson -like talk-show host Jerry Langford. Given some of the recollections that were exhumed and catty comments that were made during the Q&A, Lewis was a handful on the set. When Bernhard appeared by video, she asked Lewis, “Hey, remember when you called me fish lips ?” and then recalled that he stole back the handwritten apology he’d given her as a result. (This prompted Scorsese to start laughing into his chest.) Sandra Bernhard vs. Jerry Lewis: The Feud Three decades later, Lewis — who, in 2000, told a comedy festival audience, “I don’t like any female comedians — did not sound like time had softened his feelings for his female co-star. In response to Bernhard’s taped comments, he took his own shots, saying, “ She’s the reason for birth control ” and “ She’s a wonderful guy, really . When you get to know him.” That tension between Lewis and Bernhard, who’s also brilliant in the picture, is palpable onscreen, especially during a so-pure-it’s-hard-to-watch scene in which Bernhard’s character Masha strips down to her lingerie to express her obsession with the captive Langford (Lewis), who’s bound to a chair with so much masking tape that he looks mummified. When Langford finally gets free of his bonds, he expresses his anger in brute fashion, and Lewis’ recollection of that scene suggested that he was really feeling the moment. The comic said that he told Scorsese, “I think when [Langford] gets out of the tape, he should punch [Bernhard] right in the mouth.’ [Scorsese] said, ‘You want to do that?’ I said, ‘More than you’ll ever know.” (Bernhard told the New York Times that, initially, Lewis wanted to punch her and have her careen into a glass table adorned with lit candles, but she refused to do it. ) The Last Word Through her spokesman, Bernhard declined to respond to Lewis’ comments. And why should she? All these years later, she still gets a rise out of Lewis, which has to be at least as satisfying as having the last word. Although Scorsese, De Niro and Lewis shared a lot of laughs on stage during the Q&A, I detected an undercurrent of discomfort when the veteran comic began to resort to some hoary Vaudeville-era gags that he’s been trotting out for ages. At one point, he reached into the inside pocket of his suit jacket and pulled out a red clown nose that he wore on his schnozz for a wince-inducing length of time. He also wrapped his lips around a large water glass and clowned around like that for what felt like an eternity. Around that time, I noticed that even though Scorsese was laughing at these antics, he had shifted his body away from Lewis and could be seen shooting De Niro a few looks that said, Can you believe this guy? I can. Lewis’ unquenchable need for attention and to control the situation is show-business legend. As Bernhard told me in an interview last week, “Jerry loves to direct,” and he has directed some fine films. In the case of The King of Comedy , however, it’s a testament to Scorsese’s talents as a filmmaker that he was able to harness these potentially crazy-making dynamics and make them sing on screen. Here’s an excerpt from the Q&A. Scorsese is talking about a memorable scene in the movie where Lewis’ Langford character is stopped on the streets of New York by a woman on a pay phone who asks him to say hello to her nephew. When Lewis declines, the woman, who has been all charm up to this point, tells Langford that she hopes his gets cancer. It’s a powerful scene about the public’s demands upon celebrity, and, as Scorsese explains, it is based on an actual incident. Here’s hoping that the entire Q&A is eventually posted. WATCH: ‘The King Of Comedy’ Reunion At Tribeca Film Festival — Get Cancer More on The King of Comedy: INTERVIEW: Sandra Bernhard Says ‘It’s Too Late’ To Remake ‘The King of Comedy’ [ New York Times ] Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Spike Lee’s remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy doesn’t hit theaters until October, and that just seems way too long to wait. I’m genuinely excited to see what Lee does with the material and am envisioning a revenge (and blood)-soaked 25th Hour . The good news is that FilmDistrict has finally dropped a tiny morsel from the upcoming film. The bad news: it’s chicken scratch. The distributor has unveiled a teaser poster for the film at CinemaCon , which is taking place in Las Vegas April 15-18 . The symbolism borrows from Park’s original: they’re the scratches that the imprisoned protagonist Oh Dae-su ( Choi Min-sik ) uses to keep track of time. That character gets an American makeover in Lee’s version: He’s now Joe Doucett (Josh Brolin), and, according to the official synopsis he’s an advertising executive “who is abruptly kidnapped and held hostage for 20 years in solitary confinement. When he is inexplicably released, he embarks on an obsessive mission to discover who orchestrated his bizarre and torturous punishment only to find he is still trapped in a web of conspiracy and torment.” These clues leave me with a handful of questions, most of them having to do with other plot points from the original that are ripe for homage: 1) There are a lot of advertising executives I’d like to see locked away, but for 20 years? What did he do, devise those Kia ads with the hipster hamsters ? 2) In the original Oh Dae-su tracked down his captor via the dumplings he was fed in prison every day. If an American comfort food is substituted, what will it be? Macaroni & Cheese? 3) Will the live octopus-eating scene be referenced? (If you haven’t watched the original Oldboy , you should, but, in the meantime, I’ve posted the scene below.) 4) Will incest figure into the plot as it did in the original? If so, American audiences will squirm enough that reprising the live octopus scene won’t be necessary. 5) Does Lee’s brother Cinqué Lee have a thing about playing bellhops ? He plays one in this movie, and he played one in Jim Jarmusch’s 1989 film Mystery Train . If you crave more Oldboy info while you wait for a trailer, check out my interview with director Park in which he explains why he’s not interested in seeing Lee’s remake until it’s released. And order up some live sushi: Now that’s fresh Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
This Wednesday kicks off the 2013 Tribeca Film Festival , and I got the chance to sit down with festival co-founders Robert De Niro and Jane Rosenthal to talk shop. Now while all film festivals have plenty of business going on behind the scenes, Tribeca puts it front and center with events like its Future of Film LIVE talks which focus on film distribution. According to Rosenthal, the festival is geared to reflect the hot topics of conversation in the film industry today: “We have to look at how the business is changing and how you create is different because of technology…so it’s that merging together of that dialogue.” As for De Niro, he’s looking forward to the screening and discussion of his 1982 film The King of Comedy . “I haven’t seen it for a long, long time. And talking with Marty Scorsese about it and answering whatever questions…that will be interesting.” Check out my full interview from below, as well as the festival’s website where they’ll feature live streaming of some events: Follow Grace Randolph on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
Bradley Cooper says it wasn’t a stretch to call Robert De Niro “Dad” in Silver Linings Playbook . The Hangover actor plays Pat Solitano, the bipolar son of De Niro’s extremely OCD Pat Solitano, Sr. in the film, and at the New York premiere party , Cooper told us that his prior working relationship with De Niro on Limitless , which blossomed into a friendship, made it easy to channel that familial bond with the Taxi Driver actor. At a press conference for the movie earlier that day, Cooper, who lost his actual father in 2011, told the gathered media that he had trepidations about playing the role of a Philadelphia area man struggling with bipolar disorder. “He really did champion me” to get the part, Cooper said of De Niro, adding that he decided to take the role, in part, because, “I knew that I could say ‘Dad’ and look at him and it would come from a real place.” During the party at the Royalton hotel in midtown Manhattan, I asked Cooper to elaborate upon that comment, and he replied that because of his work with De Niro on their last movie, “We sort of became great friends,” adding: “I love him.” That relationship, he explained, became “a real bonus” when it came to the onscreen dynamic of the two actors in Silver Linings Playbook . With any movie role, Cooper explained, “You need certain anchors, and when I would say say the word ‘Dad’ to him, it just felt very deep and grounded.” In the David O. Russell -directed movie, De Niro gives his most authentic performance as a father since he directed himself in the 1993 picture A Bronx Tale . He even weeps in the movie — an unscripted moment that was caught on the last take of a highly charged scene shot in the attic of the Solitano family home. Russell, who, during the press conference, repeatedly referred to the veteran actor as “Mr. De Niro,” said the emotional moment caught him completely off-guard. “I was behind him in the attic going, ‘What’s happening?'” the director recalled. Russell’s son, Matthew, who plays a nosy teen-aged neighbor with a video camera, struggled with a different emotion while shooting a confrontational scene with De Niro: nervous laughter. The director recalled at the press conference that his son said to him that acting opposite De Niro ” was like waking up in Raging Bull . ” Russell said that he chided his son for the inappropriate outburst, telling him, “You’ve got to stop laughing.” But De Niro, he added, figured out a way to work with Matthew’s anxious laughter to ratchet up tension in the scene. Silver Linings Playbook opens in limited release on Friday. Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
D’you mind if he puts his Adamantium claws around you? Twentieth Century-Fox has released the first official photo of an extremely lean and ripped Hugh Jackman in James Mangold’s film adaption of Frank Miller and Chris Claremont’s 1982 limited comic series classic, The Wolverine. The superhero’s sinewy look appears to jibe with comments that Jackman made to Empire magazine that he had Robert De Niro’s unhinged performance as Max Cady in Martin Scorsese’s 1991 remake of Cape Fear a s a benchmark for his performance. “You were terrified of that character from the moment he took his shirt off and you saw all the tats; you know he was this coiled spring that would rip your head off, no matter how nonchalant he acted. That’s who Wolverine is. I always thought of him as being lean, animalistic, not necessarily pretty. He has all this berserkery, and he’s terrifying when he loses all reason in blind rage.” Set in Japan, Logan/Wolverine becomes romantically involved with a woman whose hand in marriage is promised to another man.Lots of claw and swordplay follows as his refusal to give up the woman he loves leads to clashes with the woman’s father, her brothers and Silver Samurai. The film is set to be released July 23, 2013 Follow Frank DiGiacomo on Twitter. Follow Movieline on Twitter.
Chimpanzees are the putative subject of Chimpanzee , another in a line of Disney documentaries with big, blunt titles ( Oceans , Earth , Nature ) and very specific stories to tell. This time out, narrator Tim Allen tells us, our tale promises “drama, sadness, and joy in a world you and I may never set eyes on.” That world is the Ivory Coast rainforest, and we’re pretty much looking at it just then, but it becomes clear early on in the beauteous but outrageously martial Chimpanzee that things might not be what they seem. Because although our eyes tell us that the Ivory Coast is filled with wondrous life forms (my favorite might be the time-lapse sequence of a day-glo fungus), this world feels a lot like our own, where babies are nurtured by their moms, everyone has a name, and every happily functioning community has a mortal enemy one copse over. The center of Chimpanzee is Oscar, a just-born chimp with much to learn and about ten years to learn it. Oscar’s coo-factor was helpfully confirmed by the woman beside me, who turned to her young daughter and let out a helpless “awww” every time Oscar did something adorable, which is often, or every time Tim Allen said something shameless (“He may not be the most popular boy with everyone,” goes one such line, “but his mother’s love is something he can count on”), which is slightly less often. An early monkey business montage set to pop music sets a tone calibrated to charm children and their moms, but then Chimpanzee takes its subjects to war, and things get kind of weird. Freddy is the alpha male in Oscar’s group of a few dozen chimps, and we are told there is another gang not far away led by an aging don named Scar. Well, “gang” is one of the words used to describe them. The others are: mob, forces, rivals, ranks, enemy, team, and troops. Scar and his whatever you want to call them really got the short end of this combat narrative: According to the uncredited script, those other apes are greedy heathens who have hoovered up all the food in their territory and are mounting an “invasion” in order to continue feeding their insatiable lust for… nuts. Poor sweet Oscar and his doting mother are in danger, although the monkey they help tear to shreds in a coordinated attack might tell you that the group’s survival skills are pretty sharp. Inter-chimp and territorial fighting are facts of nature, but the extreme anthropomorphism of Chimpanzee makes what is natural feel bizarre. Excitedly setting up good guys and bad guys seems more about reinforcing our world than exploring theirs. Calling their work nature filmmaking rather than documentary, directors Alastair Fothergill and Mark Linfield had a story and specific shots in mind when they set out on what turned out to be a four-year shoot. Their access to the chimps has the hidden world feeling of the best nature films, but rather than observational the human presence feels invasive. For a nature film Chimpanzee cuts too many corners in the name of entertainment. Although Jane Goodall, a consultant on the film, has claimed that Oscar’s mother was killed by a leopard, in the film her disappearance is clearly connected to an attack by Scar and his goons. But our team starts looking pretty shabby as well: In the wake of her death the rest of the chimps turn their back on little orphaned Oscar, leaving him to starve and shunning him when he comes near. Then the extraordinary plot twist advertised at the beginning of the film takes shape, and there is a brief respite from all the military metaphor as Oscar and his new and unlikely adoptive parent bond. Many of the images speak for themselves, to the extent that with a little more creative editing and narrative restraint Chimpanzee could work as a silent film. Oscar learns how to crack nuts and chew fruit, and long shots of a handful of apes moving stealthily across the forest floor having a chilling, forbidding beauty. The few times when Allen does keep quiet, ironically, are the only times you really want him to chime in – say to explain the soufflé-topped mushrooms that crumple in a puff of amber dust when so much as a droplet of water hits them. There are only a few glimpses of life beyond the chimp family, but each one is mesmerizing and elusive, perhaps as they should be. Soon enough we’re back to the battle royale, when “Scar attacks,” “final pushes” are begun, “Freddy’s team can’t escape,” and “there can only be one victor.” I hope it doesn’t spoil anything to say that “teamwork beats brute force,” although the distinction between the two looked pretty thin to me. Anyway, the chimps fade from soldiers back into cartoon figures who seem to dance to our music, casting an impenetrable eye at the camera as we clap for more. Follow Michelle Orange on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
