Robert De Niro Wins an Oscar for Raging Bull

It's December 24th, 1971, Christmas Eve in the Big Apple.

Film director Martin Scorcese hurries through the cold, wet streets of New York City.

He's running late to a party with some friends in Greenwich Village.

When he finally arrives at the building, he steps inside and shakes off the cold.

But as he makes his way up the stairs to his friend's place, Martin's mind is fixed on a screenplay he's been working on.

It's the story of three friends growing up on the mean streets of Manhattan's Little Italy, a neighborhood run by the mafia.

He wrote the leading role for Harvey Keitel, an actor who starred in Martin's last film.

But he hasn't found anyone to play the movie's main antagonist, a character named Johnny Boy.

Eventually, Martin arrives at the apartment, and the door is unlocked.

So he pushes it open and heads inside.

He looks around, grabs himself a drink, and starts to mingle.

Within minutes, though, he's greeted with a smile by another party guest, fellow filmmaker Brian De Palma.

Brian insists that he has just the actor Martin is looking for, and he's at this party.

Brian drags Martin over to an intense and painfully shy young man standing up against the wall and watching the evening unfold from a distance.

He introduces himself as Robert De Niro.

Robert is the son of two painters and has a bit of a bohemian background, looking something of a punk.

But what Martin doesn't know is how hard a worker Robert is and how he loves to become his characters, a quality that will make him one of the most electrifying actors in the business.

After some small talk, Martin and Robert realize that in their youth, they traveled in some of the same circles.

Robert smiles when he realizes that they were both at an infamous party in Little Italy, where a massive brawl took place.

Robert hints he may have even been involved in the fight.

The pair continue chatting long into the night.

Martin is a notoriously fast talker and Robert is an active listener.

So at breakneck speed, Martin tells Robert all about his latest screenplay.

And by night's end, Martin has invited Robert to audition for the new project called Mean Streets.

And in the end, the creative partnership that began this night will produce 10 films, including what many consider to be one of the greatest of all time, Raging Bull.

From this inauspicious meeting, Martin and Robert form one of the most impactful screen collaborations in history.

Together they will push the boundaries of American cinema, Martin with his vision, and Robert with his unique approach to the craft of acting.

Throughout the 1970s, Robert De Niro immerses himself in a myriad of roles, baseball players, street toughs, taxi drivers, musicians, Vietnam veterans, and stand up comedians.

But in the case of Raging Bull, arguably one of his most notable films, Robert gets into the skin of a character based on real life boxer, Jake Lamatta.

With his portrayal of the aging fighter, Robert pushes the boundaries of acting further than he ever has before.

He will train for a year, gain 60 pounds, and transform himself into his character.

And all of Robert De Niro's hard work and dedication will pay off when he wins an Academy Award for his work on Raging Bull on March 31, 1981.

From Noiser and Airship, I'm Lindsay Graham, and this is History Daily.

History is made every day.

On this podcast, every day, we tell the true stories of the people and events that shaped our world.

Today is March 31st, 1981.

Robert De Niro wins an Oscar for Raging Bull.

It's the summer of 1975, and New York City is in the middle of the worst heat wave in over a decade.

A man stands on the street corner waiting for a cab, but the stench of the streets is almost too much for him to take.

New York is in a state of crisis.

The city just declared bankruptcy and can't pay its bills.

As a result, the sanitation workers went on strike, and now the town smells like overripe garbage, fumes wafting from massive piles of uncollected trash.

The man waiting for a cab stands between two of these massive, foul garbage towers.

With one hand, he covers his nose and mouth to block out the smell, while raising his other hand to hail a cab.

He holds his breath and waits.

And finally, after a long moment, one of New York's distinctive yellow and checkerboard cabs spots him and pulls to the curb.

The man opens the door and slips inside, save from the stench.

But the cab's interior is stifling hot.

After giving his driver his destination, he asks his cabby if he can roll down the windows, and the driver does, but the foul air from outside seeps in.

Then the driver flips the flag on the meter and the cab tears down the street.

It's then that the passenger realizes there's something familiar about his driver.

He recognizes him and asks, hey, wait a minute, didn't you just win an Oscar?

From behind the wheel, Robert De Niro smiles and says yes.

He did, in fact, just win the best supporting actor for playing a young Vito Corleone in The Godfather 2, a massively successful sequel to Francis Ford Coppola's gangster epic.

So immediately, the passenger's mind races with questions.

What is an Oscar winner doing driving a cab?

For Robert, it's just part of his preparation for a new, powerful role.

He's reteaming with Martin Scorcese to play Travis Bickle, the titular character in Taxi Driver, which will become one of the most important films of the 1970s, a decade that will later be known as the Hollywood Renaissance.

Robert's character is a disillusioned GI who returns from Vietnam and comes home to a country he doesn't recognize and to a city he wants to flush down the toilet.

So to try to get inside Travis Bickle's skin, Robert is driving taxis 12 hours a day through some of New York's worst neighborhoods.

The passenger just doesn't understand.

He asks if that sort of thing is normal for an actor.

Robert just shrugs.

He doesn't care what's normal.

He cares about doing the best work possible.

After dropping off his passenger, Robert slips back into the animinity of the city, settling back into the mind-numbing work of cab driving.

In between fares, the actor thumbs through a biography of a boxer that someone sent him through his agent.

He doesn't think the book is well written, but he is intrigued by some of the images and scenes from the subject's life.

Like everything else he reads, Robert underlines everything with a pencil and writes notes to himself in the margins.

The book is called Raging Bull, My Life, a story of a boxer, Jake LaMotta, who was a great success in the ring, but a highly complicated man outside of it.

The more he reads, the more Robert falls in love with the character and spends the rest of the decade trying to convince Martin Scorcese to make the film with him.

In the end, Martin says yes.

Robert will supervise all aspects of the screenwriting process.

He will help adapt the script himself from LaMotta's book.

He will interview family members and eventually train for a year as a boxer with the very man he's going to portray.

His work on Raging Bull will earn him a second Oscar and firmly establish Robert De Niro as one of the greatest actors in history.

It's Labor Day, 1978.

In a hospital room, Robert De Niro sits by the bedside of his dear friend and collaborator, Martin Scorcese.

Martin, the firebrand director, pushed himself too far on his latest project and landed in hospital in critical condition.

But Martin's getting better, and it's clear he'll recover, but his brush with death has caused him to reflect on life.

Filmmaking is his greatest joy and his true purpose, but the way he does it is literally killing him.

So, now Martin is considering throwing in the towel and giving up the thing he loves most.

Robert De Niro knows Martin is a workaholic, but unlike the doctors, Robert doesn't think Martin needs to slow down and rest.

Instead, he thinks Martin needs another project that will inspire and reinvigorate him.

So, as he sits by Martin's side, Robert once again pitches him on Raging Bull.

It's a story Martin already knows well.

He and Robert have been circling the project for years, ever since the actor first received the book back in 1974.

But it's a film Martin has never felt passionate about.

But Robert says that Martin, of all people, should respond to the material.

Raging Bull is about a self-destructive fighter whose profession brings out the best and worst in him.

He's an ugly personality, but a ferocious boxer, one who will stop at nothing to do what he does best, even if it kills him.

Before today, Martin could never really relate to the story.

But now, sitting in the hospital, he finally makes a connection between his own life and the story of Jake Lamatta.

So this time, Martin says yes to the project.

And two weeks later, Robert and Martin are on a secluded tropical island to rewrite the latest draft of the script while Martin fully recovers.

In the mornings, Robert wakes up early, runs on the beach as part of his intensive training program.

The rest of the day, he spends working on the script with Martin.

The pair act out the scenes while their assistant transcribes their improvisations.

And once Robert and Martin are done with the script, Martin gets to work on pre-production while Robert starts crafting his character.

When he's not reshaping his body for the part, Robert spends time with the LaMotta family.

He even stays a weekend with Jake LaMotta's ex-wife Vicki, sleeping on her couch after a marathon interview session.

After his visit, Vicki gives Robert the LaMotta family photo album to further inspire his performance.

And soon pre-production is finished, and Martin is ready to shoot.

But after weeks of filming, Robert does something unexpected.

He asks Martin to shut production down for eight weeks.

As he studied Jake LaMotta, Robert came to realize that he was too thin for the role, and that LaMotta's figure was critical to portraying the ex-boxing champion in his later years.

Martin agrees to pause production, and Robert flies to Europe to eat.

When he returns, Robert is unrecognizable.

He's gained a total of 60 pounds.

His breathing is strained.

His body hurts when he walks.

His clothes are tight and ill-fitting.

But Robert feels this difficult new reality helps him inhabit the character of the fading LaMotta.

It's an acting feat that almost no one has tried before, but one that will soon become far more commonplace.

After the film's release on December 19, 1980, critics and audiences are slow to warm to the movie.

Some are actively hostile toward its use of violence and foul language.

But Robert De Niro's portrayal of LaMotta is universally lauded as one of the greatest feats of acting of all time.

Robert keeps a file of well wishes and notes from his colleagues and acting peers.

In one letter, another great actor, Al Pacino, writes that the film is a monumental piece of art and Robert's performance is an inspiration.

Actress and activist Jane Fonda writes that she is overwhelmed by Robert's performance and that she has never seen anything like it.

The famous Paul Newman writes that he can't remember being humbled by an actor for many a year.

And luckily for Robert De Niro, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences agreed.

Soon Robert will be nominated for an Academy Award for Best Actor, an honor that once again earns him his place in the pantheon of cinema's finest talents.

Subs by www.zeoranger.co.uk It's March 31st, 1981.

Robert De Niro sits in the audience at the 53rd Annual Academy Awards.

This is not Robert's first Oscar ceremony.

In 1973, Robert received a nomination for Best Supporting Actor for his role in Francis Ford Coppola's The Godfather Part II, and he won that category.

Tonight, Robert hopes to win his second Oscar for Best Actor in Martin Scorcese's Raging Bull.

The film itself is nominated in a myriad of categories, but it's Robert's acting that has wowed critics and audiences alike, prompting many cinephiles to dub Raging Bull one of the best American films of all time.

Now, a bearded and much thinner Robert De Niro sits beside his wife and watches as last year's Best Actress winner Sally Field takes the podium.

Since 1927, when these awards first began, there have been 264 performances nominated as the Best Actor of the Year.

The five performances this year will stand with the finest.

As Jake LaMotta, a man whose violent career was only part of a violent life and whose success in and out of the ring were balanced by spectacular failures, in the film, Raging Bull, Robert De Niro.

Robert watches as Sally Field announces the rest of the nominees, Robert Duvall, John Hurt, Jack Lemmon, and finally Peter O'Toole.

All are phenomenal performers, but only one person can be the winner.

Robert hopes his hard work, dedication, and total immersion into the life of Jake LaMotta will be enough to earn him the highest honor in film acting.

Sally Field slowly opens the envelope and reads the card enclosed.

The winner is Robert De Niro, Raging Bull.

The auditorium erupts in applause, as Robert walks to the stage to accept his award.

He is modest as he starts, and in no way resembles the volatile boxer he spent years preparing to play.

In this moment, the audience catches a glimpse of the shy young man that Martin Scorcese first met on that fateful night in 1974.

As he addresses the room, Robert thanks everyone who worked on the film, and expresses his gratitude to the LaMotta family.

But then he turns his attention to his longtime friend and collaborator.

Martin Scorcese did not win the Best Director Award that was presented earlier in the evening.

But Robert wants to make sure that everyone watching appreciates Martin's talent.

It's all about Martin Scorcese, who...

He gave me and all the other actors and everyone on the film all the love and trust that anyone could give anyone, and it's just wonderful as a director.

Robert De Niro's award is not only a validation of his performance in Raging Bull, but it's a testament to a decade's worth of hard work, developing his craft and capturing the humanity of eccentric characters, an effort that culminated when Robert De Niro won the Academy Award for Changing Acting As We Know It on this day, March 31st, 1981.

Next, on History Daily, April 3rd, 1996, Ted Kaczynski is arrested by FBI agents and accused of being the elusive Unabomber.

From Noiser and Airship, this is History Daily, hosted, edited, and executive produced by me, Lindsay Graham.

Audio editing by Mohammed Shahzeb.

Sound design by Molly Bach.

Music by Lindsay Graham.

This episode is written and researched by R.

Colin Tate.

Executive producers are Stephen Walters for Airship and Pascal Hughes for Noiser.