$260,000,000
Leonardo DiCaprio
Net Worth
Born in (City)
California
Born in (Country)
US
Date of Birth
11th December, 1974
Date of Death
-
Mother
Irmelin Indenbirken
Father
George DiCaprio
About
Leonardo DiCaprio (Nov11, 1974) is an American actor known for his edgy, unconventional roles mainly in biopics, drama, crime, romance and period films. He has emerged in the 1990s as one of the Hollywood’s leading performers. He is also a renowned producer, philanthropist, and environmentalist. He started in television before moving on to film, scoring an Oscar nomination for his role in What’s eating gilbert grape (1993). In 1997, DiCaprio starred in James Cameron’s epic drama Titanic, which made him a super star. The actor has also paired up with iconic director Martin Scorsese for several projects, including The Aviator (2004) and the Departed (2006). His more recent films include Inception (2010), Django unchained (2012), The Wolf of Wall Street (2013) and The Revenant (2015), winning his first Oscar for the latter.
Early Life
DiCaprio was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy when he first kicked. His parents separated when he was one year old; they initially agreed to live next door to each other so as not to deprive DiCaprio of his father's presence in his life. However, DiCaprio and his mother later moved around to multiple Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park and Los Feliz, while the latter worked several jobs. He attended Seeds Elementary School and later went to John Marshall High School a few blocks away after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years. DiCaprio has said he hated public school and often asked his mother to take him to auditions instead to improve their financial situation. He dropped out of high school following his third year, eventually earning his general equivalency diploma (GED). DiCaprio has said his career choice as a child was to become a marine biologist or an actor, but he eventually favored the latter, as he was fond of impersonating characters and imitating people. When he was two, he went on stage at a performance festival and danced spontaneously; the cheerful response from the crowd started his interest in performing. When his older stepbrother earned $50,000 for a television commercial, DiCaprio, fascinated with this, decided to become an actor. In 1979, DiCaprio was removed, at age five, from the set of the children's television series Romper Room for being disruptive. He began appearing in several commercials at age 14 for Matchbox cars by Mattel, which he considered his first role, and later for Kraft Foods, Bubble Yum, and Apple Jacks. In 1989, he played the role of Glen in two episodes of the television show The New Lassie.
Road to Success
Born in Los Angeles, California, U.S, he was the only child of Irmelin and George DiCaprio. His parents divorced when he was a toddler. DiCaprio was raised by his mother most of his childhood. Despite that he was close with his father who was a comic book artist and distributor. With his parents urging, he explored his creative side, developing an early interest in acting. He first acted at age five, performing on the children’s television show Romper Room and as a teenager, he made numerous commercials and educational films. In 1990 he began appearing on a series of television shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne and in 1991 he was cast in a recurring role on Growing Pains. That year DiCaprio also made his big-screen debut in Critter 3, a low budget horror film. DiCaprio’s breakthrough came in 1992 when he beat out 400 other actors to act opposite Robert de Niro in The Boy’s Life (1993). DiCaprio earned rave reviews, and for his next film, what’s eating Gilbert Grape, he received an Academy Award Nomination for best supporting actor for his realistic portrayal of a teenager with intellectual disability. Several independent movies followed, including The Basketball Diaries (1995), and Total Eclipse (1995), which focused on poet Arthur Rimbaud’s homosexual relationship with Paul Verlaine. He used to say backstage “I loved imitating people, I loved joking around with my parents and creating different characters. I liked doing my own little homemade skits”.
Challenges
Most of DiCaprio’s challenges and struggles come from his childhood. He grew up pretty poor, especially since he only lived with his mother, Irmelin Indenbirken. His neighborhood had a lot of bad things going on like drugs and gangs, and strangely enough this helped him and inspired him to be an actor. At the age of 15 he asked his mother if he could go to different auditions, and so his career began. However, after the success of Titanic, Leonardo couldn't land roles in a while and the movies that he was in at the time (The Man in the Iron Mask and The Beach) were doing poorly. Luckily soon after that Leonardo starred in Catch me If You Can and Gangs of New York, both of which brought him back “into business” and were very popular movies.
Failures
The 11th Hour was penned by Leila Conners and Nadia Conners. The film starred Leonardo DiCaprio, Kenny Ausubel, and Thom Hartmann in the lead roles. The 11th Hour was a film based on societies' social issue and documentaries released on August 17, 2007. The film, penned by Leila Conners and Nadia Conners is a story revolving around the state of the global environment containing visionary and practical solutions for restoring the planet's ecosystems. The film was produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Chuck Castleberry, Leila Conners, and Brian Gerber which did not do great at the box office and managed to collect only $985,207. Richard Jewell was a film directed by Clint Eastwood. The movie stars Paul Walter Hauser, Sam Rockwell, and Brandon Stanley in the lead roles of the film, Richard Jewell. The story of the film revolves around an American security guard Richard Jewell who saves many lives from an exploding bomb at the 1996 Olympics. But later he is criticized by journalists and the press who deceptively reported that he was a terrorist. The film was produced by Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Davisson, and Clint Eastwood. The story of the film was penned by Billy Ray, but the film couldn't make it at the box office with an amount and collected only over $43,745,542 against a budget of $45million.
Achievements
He won 1 Oscar for Best Supporting Actor for the movie “The Fighter” in 2011. He was nominated for 4 Oscars.|‘Titanic’ received 14 Academy Award nominations out of which the film won 11.|Leonardo’s popularity skyrocketed and he entered the People magazine’s list of “50 Most Beautiful People” in 1997 and 1998.|He won the Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work in ‘The Departed’.|He won a nomination for the VH1 Do Something Award in 2010 for his contribution in the field of environmental issues.|He was appointed as the United Nations representative on climate change in the year 2014.|Leonardo Dicaprio won an Academy Award for the best actor in 2016 for the movie, The Revenant.|He won 2 Golden Globe Awards for best actor and best supporting actor respectively.
Quotes
- Kill them with success and bury them with a smile.
- Don’t think for a moment that I’m really like any of the characters I’ve played. I’m not. That’s why it’s called ‘acting’.