Irmalin DiCaprio was cassualy admiring one of Leonardo Davinchies great master peices of art when she recived a swift kick from her unborn child. She took it as a sign and thus on November 11, 1974 Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born in Los Angeles, California. He discribes his family (german mother Irmalin and Italian father George) like this: "We're not the hippie family who eats organics and the children meditate and go to the school for the arts, but we're no apple pie and republican." "Whatever I did would be something They'd already done. I mean, my dad would welcome it if I got a nose ring." However, no more that one year after Leo's birth his parents got divorced. Perhaps because they led very diferent lives (his dad, a comic artist and his mom, a legal secretary manager before she begain to manage Leo's affairs.)
"We were in the poor house. I would walk to the playground and see, like, a guy open up his trench coat with a thousand syringes. I saw some major homosexual activity when I was 5. To this day it's an imprint in my mind." Leo grew up in Los Angeles, CA, near Echo Park "The heart of scumbag L.A." His first dream was to be a oceanographer but "I got attention by being funny at school, pretending to be retarded, and jumping around with a deformed hand." His mom managed to get him onto the show "Romper Room" when he was 5. "It was my favorate show. But they couldn't control me. I would run up and smack the camera and jump around and do little flips and routines."leo says.
Leo remebers one day his step bro, Adam was in a Golden Grahams commercial. He asked his dad"how much did Adam get for the commercial?" And his dad replied, "'bout, $50,000" Leo was in awe. For years he thougt his brother was better than him. Then, he finnaly got what he thought would be his big break at age 10. A studio had called in 5 boys just to see what they looked like. He remembers them taking one look at him with his punk hair do and saying "you can go" Leo was devistated. On the way back, in the car he cried and cried and said to his dad, I want to be an actor, but not if it's like this!" His dad put his arm around his shoulder and said "don't worry, you'll get your chance. Relax" And he stoped crying.
He later was in several t.v. shows and series such as "How to deal witha parent who takes drugs", "Mickey Mouse safety club" "Lassie", "Outsiders", "Rosanne", and "Parenthood". In 1991 he was in critters 3, but the movie bomed. Then, at age 16, he landed the part as luke, a homless boy on the hit T.V. series, "Growing Pains". But his big break was at age 18 as the character Tobias Wolff in the movie "This boys life" co-starring Robert DiNiro. Although the move was not a box office hit, it earned Leo recognition. New York film critics named him runner up for best supporting actor and the Chicago film critics named him most promising actor.
But by far his best role to date is in "What's eating Gilbert Grape?" where he potraited a mentaly retarded boy. This won him Best supporting actor nominations from both the Acadamy Awards and the Golden Globes. He went on to star in both "The Basketball diaries" and "Total eclips"both of which bomed at the box office. Next it was the "Quick and the Dead" in which he co-stared with Sharon Stone.
And then more recently there was "William Shakspeares Romeo and Juliet" in which he played Romeo to Clair Danes(Juliet) This was Leo's most sucessfull role to date and in November of 1996, skyrocketed to the number 1 spot in the box office.
And most recently of all, the criticly acclaimed "Marvin's room" in which leo costared with Meryl Streep and Dianne Keaton. Watch out this summer on the 4th. of July for the BlockBuster "Titanic" where Leo co-stars with Kate Winslet. Be sure to see this one. It's gonna be BIG!!!
Leonardo likes pasta, rapmusic,'69 mustangs, the song "Sittin' on the dock of the bay", the colour green, animalsand playing pool. He hates meat and James Dean wanna-bes. He fears people will see him as "flowery". Drives a silver BMW coupe, and has a Rottweiler named Baby. He's a real dare devil and is curently dating model Kristine Zang.
Leonardo DiCaprio
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