MICKEY ROURKE
Born: September 1953
Where: New York, USA

Charismatic tough guy Rourke is the perfect example of art imitating life and vice versa.  The man who had Hollywood at his feet learnt the hard way not to bite the hand that feeds him, being shunned for 15 years before slowly earning his place back at the table.

And true to Hollywood form, this comeback kid has provided a happy ending with his stellar performance as the titular lycra clad lug in Darren Aranofsky's The Wrestler, which has him back on award winning, Oscar-worthy form, and reminding us just what an exciting talent he used to be.

Raised in a black suburb of Miami, where "I had to be fast and fight," he showed early promise for both baseball and boxing but, lacking discipline, quit both in favor of "hanging out" and getting in trouble.

Catching the acting bug, he journeyed to NYC and studied with Sandra Seacat, appearing without distinction in some off-off-Broadway plays and leaving others during rehearsals over disagreements with directors.

His luck changed when he landed in LA and began getting small film roles (1941, Heaven's Gate) and prominent parts in TV movies.

Acclaimed work in two features by emerging young directors, as a professional arsonist in Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat (1981) and a debt-ridden hairdresser/lothario in Barry Levinson's Diner (1982), led to Rourke's first leading roles in features.

His Motorcycle Boy in Francis Ford Coppola's Rumble Fish was sort of a James Dean gone to seed and his first starring role in The Pope of Greenwich Village also cast him in this light as a young hood.

Rourke emerged as a rough-edged anti-hero in movies like Michael Cimino's Year of the Dragon, Adrian Lyne's 9 1/2 Weeks opposite Kim Basinger and 1987's Barfly, delivering his most engaging performance since Diner.

Proving that fact can be stranger than fiction, Rourke became the darling of Europe, particularly France, where he was practically hailed as the second-coming of Jerry Lewis thanks to Year of the Dragon and 9 1/2 Weeks.  What the Gallic critics made of 1997's Another 9 1/2 Weeks is another story.

Angel Heart, a murky, erotic thriller best described as occult film noir, starring Rourke as a two-bit private detective, received a similarly enthusiastic response across the Channel.

In the USA, however, Rourke's career went into decline as his self-destructive tendencies came to the fore with director Alan Parker declaring "Working with Mickey is a nightmare. He is very dangerous on the set because you never know what he is going to do."

He went on to court controversy by saying he donated part of his salary from 1989's Francesco (in which he portrayed St. Francis of Assisi) to the IRA.  He had played a repentant IRA hitman two years previously in A Prayer for the Dying.

With his acting career on the ropes, he returned to boxing, saying later "I had to go back to boxing because I was self-destructing. I had no respect for myself being an actor. So I went back to a profession which really humbled me."

Realising his career would be over unless he could make the industry take him seriously again, Rourke retired from boxing to hit the comeback trail.

He finally lifted himself to play the sleazy villain of Double Team, alongside Jean-Claude Van Damme and Dennis Rodman.

He also appeared in John Grisham's The Rainmaker under the guidance of Francis Ford Coppola, Vincent Gallo's directorial debut, Buffalo 66 and filmed a part for the prestigious The Thin Red Line, but was one of many actors whose role was cut from the finished movie.

Next up was the well-received The Pledge and Once Upon A Time In Mexico with Johnny Depp and Antonio Banderas.

2002 saw him land the role of drug-producing "cook" in the independent movie Spun with Britanny Murphy.

Rourke made a triumphant return as Marv the street fighter seeking to avenge his broad's untimely demise in Once Upon A Time In Mexico director Robert Rodriguez's Sin City, going on to win a role opposite Kiera Knightley in Domino, before cementing his comeback with a career best performance as The Wrestler.