Age, Biography, and Wiki
Robert Downey Jr. was born on April 4, 1965, in Manhattan, New York. He is the son of actor Robert Downey Sr. and actress Elsie Ann Downey. Downey Jr.'s early life was marked by exposure to the film industry, which eventually led him to pursue a career in acting. He has a fascinating biography, having overcome personal struggles to become one of Hollywood's highest-paid stars. His Wikipedia page provides a detailed account of his life and career: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Downey_Jr..
| Occupation | Film Producer |
|---|---|
| Date of Birth | 4 April 1965 |
| Age | 60 Years |
| Birth Place | New York City, U.S. |
| Horoscope | Aries |
| Country | U.S |
Height, Weight & Measurements
Height: 173 cm (5 ft 8 in)
Weight: Approximately 70 kg (154 lbs)
These physical attributes have contributed to his versatility in various roles throughout his career.
| Height | 173 cm |
| Weight | 154 lbs |
| Body Measurements | |
| Eye Color | |
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Dating & Relationship Status
Robert Downey Jr. is married to Susan Downey (née Levin), a film producer. They tied the knot in 2005 and have two children together. His marriage has been a source of stability and support in his life, playing a significant role in his personal and professional success.
At the age of five, Downey made his acting debut in his father Robert Downey Sr.'s 1970 film Pound. He subsequently worked with the Brat Pack in the teen films Weird Science (1985) and Less than Zero (1987). Downey's portrayal of Charlie Chaplin in the 1992 biopic Chaplin garnered him a BAFTA Award for Best Actor and his first Academy Award nomination. Following a stint at the Corcoran Substance Abuse Treatment Facility on drug charges, he joined the TV series Ally McBeal in 2000 and won a Golden Globe Award for the role. Downey was fired from the show in 2001 in the wake of additional drug charges. He stayed in a court-ordered drug treatment program and has maintained his sobriety since 2003.
Robert John Downey Jr. His father, Robert Downey Sr. (né Elias), was a filmmaker, while his mother, Elsie Ann (née Ford), was an actress who appeared in Downey Sr.'s films. Downey's father was of one half Lithuanian Jewish, one quarter Hungarian Jewish, and one quarter Irish, ancestry, and Downey's mother had Scottish, German, and Swiss roots.
Downey moved often, mainly due to his father's film projects, living in places such as Woodstock, New York, London, New Mexico, California, Connecticut, and Greenwich Village. The family experienced both periods of near-poverty and wealth, depending on the success of the films. As a child, Downey was "surrounded by drugs." His father was a drug addict, and his mother was an alcoholic. His father allowed him to use drugs at a young age; he said that he gave Downey marijuana for the first time at age six and also gave Downey cocaine as a child. His father later said that he regretted it. Downey stated that he and his father did drugs together for the first time when he was eight, and that drug use became an emotional bond between him and his father: "When my dad and I would do drugs together, it was like him trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how."
During his childhood, Downey had minor roles in his father's films. He made his acting debut at the age of five, playing a sick puppy in the absurdist comedy film Pound (1970), and then, at seven, appeared in the surrealist Western film Greaser's Palace (1972). He went to Stagedoor Manor, a summer acting camp in upstate New York, when he was eleven and twelve. Downey's parents divorced in 1977, when he was twelve. He went and lived with his mother in a fifth-floor apartment in New York, as she "needed" him after the divorce, while his sister went to live with their father in California. After a few years, Downey went to live with his father and began attending Santa Monica High School, but dropped out in 1982. At the age of 17, he moved back to New York to pursue an acting career full-time. Downey worked a number of different jobs to support himself while going to auditions, including clearing tables at Central Falls restaurant, working in a shoe store, and performing as "living art" at the nightclub Area. Meanwhile, Downey got a few parts in local theater and off-Broadway productions. He got his first credited film role in the 1983 film Baby It's You; however, his scenes ended up being cut.
Downey began building upon his theater roles, making his debut on stage in 1983 at the Geva Theatre Center in Alms for the Middle Class for a three-week run. He also performed in the short-lived off-Broadway musical American Passion at the Joyce Theater in 1983, produced by Norman Lear. In 1984, Downey got a part in the film Firstborn, where he met Sarah Jessica Parker, and the pair started dating. In 1985, he was part of the new, younger cast hired for Saturday Night Live. Downey has said that Anthony Michael Hall, whom he had met and become friends with on the set of his Weird Science, helped him get the audition. However, he and most of the new crew were dropped and replaced following a year of poor ratings and criticism of the new cast's comedic talents. Rolling Stone magazine named Downey the worst SNL cast member in its entire run, stating that the "Downey Fail sums up everything that makes SNL great."
From 1996 through 2001, Downey was arrested several times on charges related to drugs, including cocaine, heroin, and marijuana. He went through drug treatment programs and spent time in county jail and prison. He explained in 1999 to a judge: "It's like I have a shotgun in my mouth, and I've got my finger on the trigger, and I like the taste of the gun metal." He said he had been addicted to drugs since the age of eight due to the fact that his father had been giving them to him.
After five years of substance abuse, arrests, rehabilitation, and relapse, Downey was ready to work toward a full recovery from drugs and return to his career. In discussing his failed attempts to control his addictive behavior in the past, Downey told Oprah Winfrey in November 2004 that "when someone says, 'I really wonder if maybe I should go to rehab?' Well, uh, you're a wreck, you just lost your job, and your wife left you. Uh, you might want to give it a shot." He added that after his last arrest in April 2001, when he knew he would likely be facing another stint in prison or another form of incarceration such as court-ordered rehab, "I said, 'You know what? I don't think I can continue doing this.' And I reached out for help, and I ran with it. You can reach out for help in kind of a half-assed way and you'll get it and you won't take advantage of it. It's not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems ... what's hard is to decide to do it."
On June 14, 2010, Downey and his wife Susan opened their own production company called Team Downey. Their first project was The Judge. In 2024, Downey launched a coffee company named Happy with Craig Dubitsky.
Downey started dating actress Sarah Jessica Parker in 1984 after meeting her on the set of Firstborn. They were both 18 and moved in together after eight weeks of dating. The couple separated eight years later, in 1991, due to his drug addiction.
In 2003, Downey met producer Susan Levin, an executive vice president of production at Joel Silver's film company, Silver Pictures, on the set of Gothika. Though Susan twice turned down his romantic advances, she and Downey did quietly strike up a romance during production. Despite Susan's worries that the romance would not last after the completion of shooting given that "he's an actor; I have a real job," the couple's relationship continued after production wrapped on Gothika, and Downey proposed to Susan on the night before her thirty-first birthday. In August 2005, the couple were married in a Jewish ceremony at Amagansett, New York. A tattoo on one of his biceps reads "Suzie Q" in tribute to her.
Downey says he has been drug-free since July 2003 and credits his wife with helping him overcome his drug and alcohol habits, along with his family, therapy, meditation, twelve-step recovery programs, yoga, and the practice of Wing Chun kung fu, the martial art he learned from Eric Oram, who is also a fight consultant in several of Downey's movies. Oram was Downey's personal fight coordinator in Avengers: Age of Ultron and Captain America: Civil War. In December 2015, Downey was chosen as one of 91 people to be pardoned by the Governor of California, Jerry Brown, for his prior drug offenses. The pardon does not erase Downey's criminal record, but it does allow him to serve on a jury. Oram wrote a letter in support of Downey's pardon to Governor Brown. When asked on The Oprah Winfrey Show how he was able to make his sobriety stick this time, Downey said, "It's really not that difficult to overcome these seemingly ghastly problems. What's hard is to decide to do it."
| Parents | |
| Husband | Deborah Falconer (m. May 29, 1992-April 26, 2004) Susan Levin (m. August 2005) |
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Net Worth and Salary
As of 2025, Robert Downey Jr.'s net worth is estimated to be around $300 million. This substantial fortune is largely attributed to his lucrative roles in the MCU, particularly as Tony Stark/Iron Man, where he negotiated one of the most profitable contracts in film history. His backend deals, bonuses, and investments outside of acting have significantly contributed to his wealth.
Downey got his first post-rehabilitation acting job in August 2001, lip-syncing in the video for Elton John's single "I Want Love". Video director Sam Taylor-Wood shot 16 takes of the video and used the last one because, according to John, Downey looked completely relaxed and "the way he underplays it is fantastic." Downey was able to return to the big screen after Mel Gibson, who had been a close friend to Downey since both had co-starred in Air America, paid Downey's insurance bond for the 2003 film The Singing Detective (directed by his Back to School co-star Keith Gordon). Gibson's gamble paved the way for Downey's comeback, and Downey returned to mainstream films in the mid-2000s with Gothika, for which producer Joel Silver withheld 40% of Downey's salary until after production wrapped as insurance against his addictive behavior. Similar clauses became standard in his contracts throughout the 2000s. Silver, who was getting closer to Downey as he dated his assistant Susan Levin (later Susan Downey), also got the actor the leading role in the comedy thriller Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, the directorial debut of screenwriter Shane Black.
In 2023, Downey portrayed antagonistic bureaucrat Lewis Strauss in Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer. He took a pay cut to work on the film, earning $4 million in lieu of his usual $10–20 million upfront salary. Downey would later describe Oppenheimer as "the best film" in which he has appeared to date. The biopic and Downey's performance received critical acclaim. For the role, he won the Golden Globe Award, BAFTA Award, Screen Actors Guild Award, Critics' Choice Award, and Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Also in 2023, Downey hosted the television series Downey's Dream Cars, where he and his team converted some of Downey's cars from gas to electric.
Business Ventures
- Production Company: Downey Jr. co-founded Team Downey, a production company that has produced several films and TV series, adding to his wealth through production profits.
- Investments: He invests in real estate and other business ventures, further diversifying his income streams.
Despite all of the critical success Downey had experienced throughout his career, he had not appeared in a "blockbuster" film. That changed in 2008, when Downey starred in two critically and commercially successful films, Iron Man and Tropic Thunder. In the article Ben Stiller wrote for Downey's entry in the 2008 edition of The Time 100, he offered an observation on Downey's commercially successful summer at the box office:
Released in the United States on August 13, 2008, Tropic Thunder received good reviews, with 83% of reviews positive and an average normalized score of 71, according to the review aggregator websites Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic, respectively. It earned US$26 million in its North American opening weekend and retained the number one position for its first three weekends of release. The film grossed $180 million in theaters before its release on home video on November 18, 2008. Downey was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his portrayal of Lazarus.
In January 2020, during the promotion of his film Dolittle, Downey announced that he had made the decision to adopt a vegan diet in response to the debate about the climate crisis, stating that "I'm a one-man carbon footprint nightmare colossus" and believing he can do his part to contribute. Downey previously announced the opening of Footprint Coalition, an organization he launched to reduce carbon footprints around the world using advanced technology. The Footprint Coalition promotes technologies that protect the environment, such as French insect-farming startup Ynsect, the bio-based alternative to plastic manufacturer RWDC, and bamboo toilet paper manufacturer Cloud Paper.
Downey has appeared in over 70 films over the course of his career. According to Rotten Tomatoes, Downey's most commercially successful films include Tropic Thunder, Oppenheimer, the Sherlock Holmes film series, and several Marvel Studios films, including Captain America: Civil War and the Iron Man and Avengers series. Downey's films have grossed over $14 billion worldwide, making him the third highest-grossing actor of all time, according to The Numbers. He was named Hollywood's highest-paid actor by Forbes from 2013 to 2015. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, three Golden Globe Awards, three Screen Actors Guild Awards, and a Daytime Emmy Award, as well as nominations for two Primetime Emmy Awards.
Social Network
Robert Downey Jr. is active on social media platforms like Instagram and Twitter, where he engages with fans and occasionally shares updates about his projects.
In 1987, Downey played Julian Wells, a drug-addicted rich boy whose life rapidly spirals out of his control, in the film version of the Bret Easton Ellis novel Less than Zero. His performance, described by Janet Maslin in The New York Times as "desperately moving," was widely praised, though Downey has said that for him "the role was like the ghost of Christmas Future" since his drug habit resulted in his becoming an "exaggeration of the character" in real life. Soon after completing the film, Downey went into rehab for the first time; the episode would be followed by a number of interventions and stints in rehab over the next decade prior to his 1996 arrest. Zero drove Downey into films with bigger budgets and names, such as Chances Are (1989) with Cybill Shepherd and Ryan O'Neal, Air America (1990) with Mel Gibson, and Soapdish (1991) with Sally Field, Kevin Kline, Cathy Moriarty, and Whoopi Goldberg.
In April 2001, while Downey was on parole, a Los Angeles police officer found him wandering barefoot in Culver City. He was arrested on suspicion of being under the influence of drugs but was released a few hours later, even though tests showed he had cocaine in his system. After this last arrest, Ally McBeal executives ordered last-minute rewrites and reshoots and fired Downey, despite the fact that Downey's character had resuscitated Ally McBeal's ratings. The Culver City arrest also cost him a role in the high-profile film America's Sweethearts, and the subsequent incarceration prompted Gibson to cancel his Hamlet production. In July 2001, Downey pleaded no contest to the Palm Springs charges, avoiding jail time. Instead, he was sent into drug rehabilitation and received three years of probation, benefiting from California Proposition 36, which had been passed the year before with the aim of helping nonviolent drug offenders overcome their addictions instead of sending them to jail. Downey spent a year at the court-ordered drug-treatment facility. By this time, Downey was homeless, too much of an insurance liability to be employable, and on the verge of bankruptcy.
Downey signed on with publisher HarperCollins to write a memoir, which in 2006 was already being billed as a "candid look at the highs and lows of his life and career." In 2008, however, Downey returned his advance to the publishers and canceled the book without further comment. In 2007, Downey appeared in David Fincher's mystery thriller Zodiac, which was based on a true story. He played the role of San Francisco Chronicle journalist Paul Avery, who was reporting on the Zodiac Killer case.
In 2007, Downey was cast as the title character in the film Iron Man, with director Jon Favreau explaining the choice by stating, "Downey wasn't the most obvious choice, but he understood what makes the character tick. He found a lot of his own life experience in 'Tony Stark'." Favreau insisted on having Downey, as he repeatedly claimed that Downey would be to Iron Man what Johnny Depp is to the Pirates of the Caribbean series: a lead actor who could both elevate the quality of the film and increase the public's interest in it. For the role, Downey had to gain more than 20 pounds (9 kilograms) of muscle in five months to look like he "had the power to forge iron."
In 2012, Downey reprised the role of Tony Stark in The Avengers. The film received positive reviews and was highly successful at the box office, becoming the third highest-grossing film of all time both in the United States and worldwide. His film, the David Dobkin-directed dramedy The Judge, a project co-produced by his production company Team Downey, was the opening film at the 2014 Toronto International Film Festival. Downey played Tony Stark again in Iron Man 3 (2013), Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Captain America: Civil War (2016), Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018), and Avengers: Endgame (2019). Three of his scenes from The Avengers and Avengers: Endgame were used as archive footage in the first episode of the Disney+ series Loki. Downey hosted The Age of A.I., a YouTube documentary series released in 2019.
Education
Downey Jr. attended the Stagedoor Manor Performing Arts Training Center and later studied at the Sarah Lawrence College but did not graduate. His early exposure to acting and his family's influence in the industry helped shape his career path.
In 1999, after being clean during the shooting of Wonder Boys, Downey relapsed. During this time, he was struggling with legal bills and had lost his house in Malibu. After Downey missed another required drug test in 1999, he was arrested again. Despite Downey's lawyer, Robert Shapiro, assembling the same team of lawyers that had successfully defended O. J. Simpson during his criminal trial for murder, Downey was sentenced to a three-year prison term at the California Substance Abuse Treatment Facility and State Prison in Corcoran, California. At the time of the arrest, all of Downey's film projects had wrapped and were close to release. He had been hired to provide the voice of the devil on the NBC animated television series God, the Devil and Bob, but was fired when he failed to attend rehearsals.
