Mickey Rourke was born to box, but ended up being nominated for an Oscar. And it is that one knows how his career begins, but not how it will end. Along the way there is a history of victories, defeats, boxing scams, fights in Oviedo, roles with great directors, comic book heroes and villains, fluctuating political ideas and many, many dogs. We haven’t heard from him in a while, so let’s ask ourselves… What happened to Mickey Rourke?
1, 2, 3… KO!
Philip Andre Rourke Jr was born on September 16, 1952 in Shenectady, a city in the state of New York, fruit of love between an Irishman and a Scottish woman. His roots are important: in 1989 he donated what he earned from the film ‘Francesco’ to campaign for the United States to take in an IRA member (although he didn’t get it). He had to live through the divorce of his parents (he, in particular, left without a trace) and a move to Miami. It was not a trauma: there he was able to start doing what he liked most in the world. Act? Of course not: boxing.
At twelve, which is said soon, Phil Rourke (he did not yet have a stage name) wrestled his first amateur boxing match, winning handily. He was so good that he was even trained by the number one in the world at the time, Luis Manuel Rodríguez, nicknamed “El Feo” (frankly, it wasn’t such a big deal). The problem is that in 1973, after 27 victories, he had had so many concussions that doctors they recommended that he take time away from the ring. Luckily, he immediately found his next obsession, the reason why we are talking about him today: acting.
First it was a play at the University of Miami, but he fell so in love with the profession that the next steps were perfect for him almost without thinking: ask his sister for $ 400, move to New York, study acting with the then theater actress Sandra Seacat… And, finally, entering the Actor’s Studio after a test that left Elia Kazan himself stunned. His level as an actor was such that the Los Angeles Times defined him as “a young Hollywood lion, an actor with the melancholic intensity of Marlon Brando and the electricity of James Dean“. Almost nothing.
I am not Michael Rourke, I am Asturian
Some of you may have recognized the song I’m referring to: Mickey Rourke’s fame took off so from 1979, when he debuted at the helm of Steven Spielberg in ‘1941’, that even Zapato Veloz, an extremely hardcore group, dedicated a great 90s song to him (“I dressed as an executive and all those girls believed that I was the diva, that fashionable actor who has everyone in suspense”). It is not for less: he starred in films by Francis Ford Coppola (‘Ruler Law’), Barry Levinson (‘Diner’), Lawrence Kasdan (‘Fire in the Body’) and even Michael Cimino (‘The Year of the Dragon’ ). And so, came his greatest success… and his curse.
we’ve all heard a thousand rumors about ‘9 and a half weeks’, some funnier and others less, but he led Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger to the stardom of erotic myths, who would say years later that he was like “kissing an ashtray.” But while the second was able to lift his run (for a while, at least), Rourke was slowly losing his wake. And the fault was, well, Rourke himself.
His bad choice of films is anthological: throughout his career, the actor has rejected, beware, ‘Rain man’ (in fact Dustin Hoffman called him personally, and in the end Tom Cruise accepted it), ‘Platoon’, ‘The untouchables from Elliot Ness’ and ‘Pulp fiction’, among others. It’s, added to his fame as dangerous and destructive on the sets, resulted in a sudden impoverishment of his career. you have to add his fondness for cosmetic surgery, his presence in gossip magazinesand a tendency to accept anything to survive.
Rourke wrote his first screenplay, about a boxer who came and went, ‘Homeboy’, and he devoted himself to starring in erotic thrillers as unfortunate as ‘Wild Orchid’ or infraction of action that is now claimed, such as ‘Two tough guys on wheels’. It was 1991, and his career did not seem to be going back. And so, she decided, like the character in the movie that she scripted, return to the ring at 40 years old, but this time as a professional trained by one of the Hell’s Angels. Between 1991 (his first fight took place, by the way, in Oviedo, when boxing was hot on Spanish television) and 1994 he won six fights and drew two, but in return his face was forever disfigured. Goodbye cosmetic surgery.
Return to the Hollywood canvas
The truth is that, beyond his poor choice of roles, Rourke did everything possible to lift his career in the return to Hollywood: He worked again with Coppola in ‘Self-defense’, Steve Buscemi (‘Animal Factory’), Sean Penn (‘The Oath’) and even Sylvester Stallone in his remake (now hated by himself) of ‘Get carter’. But his face was no longer selling tickets, the public was forgetting about him and, increasingly, he was an old glory. After participating as the villain of ‘Double team’, along with Dennis Rodman and Jean-Claude Van Damme, it was time to do what he never thought he would do: at 45 years old, go back to ‘9 and a half weeks’.
‘9 and a Half Weeks II’ was shot in 1997 and kicked off a new stage in his career: that of direct-to-video movies. The actor and boxer had tried, but nothing would get him out of the quagmire he was in…until eight years later. At the turn of the millennium, Frank Miller and Robert Rodríguez saw in his cracked face, his deep features and his life-worn voice the perfect person to play Marv in ‘Sin City’. And as we already know from these articles, Nothing likes Hollywood more than a proper return.
And that the actor did everything possible to win enemies, first defending the Iraq war and George Bush, and later expressing his admiration for Vladimir Putin. In case you are curious, although he has always been a Republican, in the last elections he turned around and supported Joe Biden. The reason? Take down an old enemy, Donald Trump, whom he considers a “thug” and, well, something else. Get ready to read some statements that will make you avoid facing Mickey Rourke.
The biggest scum on the planet is that fucking worm, Donald Trump. fuck him Fuck the horse he rides. I think his wife is one of the biggest fortune seekers. I mean, how much can you want to sleep next to that fat, flabby piece of shit and cum? Donald Trump can be screwed. He is not a tough guy. He’s a bully and a slut, and he can eat my dick. I’ll find him in his hotel room any fucking day of the week and I’ll smash a bat over his head. Kiss my fucking ass, you bastard, pimp, cocksucker.
prizes and dogs
Regardless of his political ideas, Mickey Rourke won awards in abundance for ‘Sin city’, and the cinema wanted him again in leading roles. The younger actors clamored for his return, and after a few supporting films, in 2008 the role of his life arrived at the hands of Darren Aronofsky, as a character who paradoxically longed for the same thing as him: to get into a ring to fight. ‘The fighter’ It marked Rourke’s first (and, for now, only) Oscar nomination. Sean Penn took it for ‘I am Harvey Milk’, but his was the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Independent Spirit… The future looked promising for Rourke, and he took advantage of it. In his way.
By the way, the Golden Globe he dedicated it to neither more nor less than his dogsBecause when his career ended and his first wife left him, the only thing that kept him going and avoiding suicide were his pets. In fact, he loves them so much that when his dearest Beau Jack died, Rourke gave him mouth-to-mouth for 45 minutes. That is devotion.
From whips to lashes
After ‘The Fighter’, Marvel’s casting department, little appreciated for its continued perfection, contacted Mickey Rourke to be the villain of ‘Iron man 2’, Whiplash. We’ll probably never see him in the MCU again because he, well, he would blow himself up, but in superhero movies you never know, and would give headlines at large. And from here, ‘Immortals’, ‘The mercenaries’ (in a dwarf role, but incredible), the sequel to ‘Sin city’… And the return to the ether.
In 2014, at the age of 62, Mickey Rourke decided to try his luck again in his biggest hobby: boxing. It was just a fight against a 29-year-old boy, whom he beat in the second round… although shortly after it was learned that everything had been more than rigged. Since then, nothing: Rourke has dedicated himself to independent and direct-to-video cinema, as well as a surprise appearance in ‘Mask Singer’. But If Mickey Rourke knows anything, it’s going up and down like a Ferris wheel.
After almost ten years without caressing the mainstream, the latest by Roman Polanski, ‘The palace’, has yet to be released. In one Man whose career has consisted of constant comings and goings (both from cinema and from boxing) we can never say that it has come to an end. At least not as long as I still have dogs.