FROM The Godfather II to GoodFellas, Robert De Niro has earned his place among Hollywood royalty.
So why on earth is the double Oscar-winner and seven-time nominee making bread ads and glad-handing fans for a fee?
This week at conference venues in Leeds and Birmingham, the 75-year-old movie veteran hosted Alan Partridge-style “An Audience With” evenings — regaling fans with tales from his career and posing for pictures with paying punters.
It cost upwards of £145 a ticket to watch De Niro being interviewed by Life On Mars actor Dean Andrews, followed by a three-course meal.
Pricier VIP tickets gave fans the chance to ask the legendary actor a question during a Q&A session.
Picture and autograph packages gave you a ten-second photo opportunity with the great man, and let you take home a signed photo and a “limited edition signed lanyard”.
De Niro squeezed these shows into a whistlestop tour of Britain during which he also filmed a TV ad for Warburtons bread, a deal said to have netted him six figures.
He was also seen at an Italian restaurant in Halifax and popping into an M1 service station for coffee.
Fans will be delighted that such a big name does such down-to-earth things — even so, the itinerary reads more like that of a jobbing actor doing panto than a Hollywood icon.
Yet it is such advertising deals, and his lucrative restaurant and property empire, that are bringing in the most dough these days.
And De Niro – known for his intense “method acting” approach to roles — seems content to have let his film career slip.
Although his name will be for ever linked with classics including Taxi Driver, Heat, The Deer Hunter and Raging Bull, his CV over the past ten years has been peppered with daft rom coms and lacklustre flops.
Crude comedy Dirty Grandpa was branded the worst film of 2016, review site Rotten Tomatoes sniping: “Like a Werther’s Original dropped down a sewer drain Dirty Grandpa represents the careless fumbling of a classic talent that once brought pleasure to millions.”
Other fairly recent off-the-wall roles include appearing with rapper 50 Cent in Freelancers, a straight-to-DVD thriller, and playing a blind psychic in flop horror Red Lights.
Admitting the decline of his subject’s film career, De Niro’s biographer Shawn Levy told The Sun: “In his heyday De Niro played roles more deeply than any actor since Brando.
“He worked with some of the best directors of all time — Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Brian de Palma. Now he will say yes to a film with a first-time director whose last job was making an MTV video.
“Over the past 15 years he’s been very busy making movies — just nothing you’d want to watch.”
At a White House dinner attended by De Niro in 2014, US comedian Joe McHale poked fun at his career nosedive, saying: “I don’t do a De Niro impression, but I do an impression of his agent. Ready? Here it is. ‘Ring ring . . . He’ll do it!’”
It is rumoured that not even De Niro watches some of his movies and has been hazy about their plots.
His last film to attract acclaim was Silver Linings Playbook in 2012, for which he was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Oscar.
Shawn said: “He was also in one scene of American Hustle which he absolutely dominated.
“But then he went on to churn out out seven movies back-to-back, all terrible.”
Many see the 2000 Ben Stiller comedy Meet The Parents as the turning point in his career.
Shawn said: “It was the first De Niro movie to gross more than $150million (£117.4million).
“It seems amazing that an actor of his stature had never attained these kind of numbers before.
“But while many of his most famous movies, like King Of Comedy and Raging Bull, were considered masterpieces, they were commercial flops. It was also the first time he had a profit share in a movie because the company he founded, Tribeca Productions, was behind it.
“Collectively the movies and its sequel grossed more than $1.5billion (£1.1billion) worldwide, so you can see why it was all quite intoxicating.
“It seemed after that movie and its sequels, the bar of what kind of roles he would accept just got lowered.”
The suggestion that De Niro was sleepwalking through recent roles hit home on 2011 flop New Year’s Eve.
Co-star Hilary Swank said he actually nodded off during an emotional bedside scene, saying: “He kinda shuts his eyes and I’m thinking, ‘Wow, he’s giving it to me. We’re connected here.’ The next thing I know, he’s just [jolts awake] like, ‘Anyone got that coffee?’ I’m like, God, he was sleeping!”
So why has a star worth around £125million picked so many duds?
One industry insider said: “I have a one-word answer: Alimony. When you have alimony to pay, you do projects you wouldn’t think you’d do.”
Biographer Shawn added: “He is wealthy but he has a lot of overheads. Having six children, the youngest of whom is just six, by three different women, isn’t cheap.
“He is involved in all their lives, plus those of his four grandchildren and runs three homes.”
Now another divorce is looming. This week De Niro announced his separation from Grace Hightower.
He divorced his first wife, actress Diahnne Abbott, in 1988. She is the mother of his oldest son Raphael, 41. He also adopted her daughter Drena from a previous relationship.
In 1995 along came twins Aaron and Julian from a long-term relationship with model Toukie Smith.
Then in 1997 he married Grace and their son Elliot was born the following year. Thirteen years later along came daughter Helen Grace.
De Niro, an only child, takes his family responsibilities seriously and strives to stay close to his children, who all live in New York.
He said: “I like my kids to be all around. I don’t like them to be off here and there unless they really have a reason or a job that pulls them there. I think the Italian thing is really good because the communities stay together and there are other countries and other cultures that have this. They stay together.”
In recent years De Niro’s biggest successes have nothing to with films. He co-founded Japanese restaurant Nobu and opened other posh restaurants and a luxury hotel in the Manhattan neighbourhood of Tribeca.
Such is the size of his real estate portfolio in that area there is now a block nicknamed “Bobby’s Row”.
He also co-founded the Tribeca film festival in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to boost downtown regeneration efforts. Some feel his true passion lies with these projects.
Shawn said: “I spent months poring over De Niro’s old research and production files.
“At the height of his career he paid incredible attention to detail in preparing for his roles. There’d often be more of his handwritten notes on the page than words in the script.
“But by the mid 2000s there’d be perhaps be one dog-eared page with a single annotation. It was as if he just stopped paying attention.
“De Niro’s real interests nowadays seem to be in restaurants and real estate.”
Even so, it would be a mistake to write-off Bob’s movie career just yet. Next year he plays real-life hitman Frank Sheeran in Martin Scorsese’s hotly anticipated gangster film The Irishman. Out on Netflix, it stars Joe Pesci, Al Pacino and Harvey Keitel.
To paraphrase his famous creation, Taxi Driver’s Travis Bickle: You still lookin’ at him? You should be . . .
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The Goodfellas
1974: GODFATHER II
Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his portrayal of a young Vito Corleone.
1976: TAXI DRIVER
Disturbed Travis Bickle is perhaps his most iconic creation thanks to the line: “You talkin’ to me?”
1978: DEER HUNTER
Oscar nominated for playing ex-soldier Michael in war epic.
1980: RAGING BULL
Best Actor Oscar for his portrayal of self-destructive boxer Jake LaMotta.
1990: GOODFELLAS
Another memorable turn as a gangster in Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed mob epic.
1991: CAPE FEAR
De Niro’s turn as a psychopathic rapist earned him an Oscar nomination.
…And The Fockers
2000: ADVENTURES OF ROCKY & BULLWINKLE
Plays baddie in live action adaptation of a cartoon about a moose and squirrel.
2008: RIGHTEOUS KILL
He and Al Pacino play veteran NYPD cops in a film so bad it isn’t screened for critics.
2010: LITTLE FOCKERS
His domineering dad act wears thin in third installment of Meet The Parents series.
2012: RED LIGHTS
Bob’s outing as blind psychic Simon Silver in paranormal activity shenanigans is panned.
2013: GRUDGE MATCH
Raging Bull it ain’t. De Niro stars alongside Sylvester Stallone as a pair of ageing boxers who have one last bout.
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News Pictures As Robert De Niro does bread ads and pricey Q&A’s — we ask what’s wrong with the acting legend?
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