Apr 4, 1965

New York, New York

Robert John Downey Jr. was born in Greenwich Village, New York City. He's the son of underground filmmaker Robert Downey Sr.. His first part in a movie was in his father's "Pound" (1970), where 5-year-old Downey played a puppy. When he was 20 years old, he joined "Saturday Night Live" (1975) for one season. After that, he went to Hollywood. In 1987, he got the leading role in director James Toback's film "The Pick-up Artist" (1987), where he was up against Molly Ringwald. The same year, he playe... ... (read more...) d drug addict Julian Wells in the movie "Less Than Zero" (1987). In 1992, he played Charles Chaplin in Sir Richard Attenborough's film "Chaplin" (1992). For his astonishing performance, he received an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor. In the year 2000, guest starred in the comedy series "Ally McBeal" (1997), where he portrayed the attorney Larry Paul, who became Ally's love interest. For that performance, he won the Golden Globe for "best supporting actor in a comedy series". On "Ally McBeal" (1997), Downey got to show he can sing as well as act when he sang Joni Mitchell's "River", "Chances Are" as a duet with Vonda Shepard, and also "Every Breath You Take" together with Sting. He released one song of his own, "Snakes", on the "Ally McBeal" (1997) album "For Once In My Life", and a full album of his work titled "The Futurist" in 2005.