Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio is an American actor and film producer, who achieved international stardom with the star-crossed romances Romeo + Juliet (1996) and Titanic (1997).
Gatekeepers News reports that DiCaprio, known for his biographical and period films, is the recipient of numerous accolades.
Early Life
Born on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles, California, DiCaprio is the only child of Irmelin (née Indenbirken), a legal secretary, and George DiCaprio, an underground comix artist and distributor. His mother is German and his father is of Italian and German descent.
His parents named him Leonardo because his pregnant mother first felt him kick while she was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in the Uffizi museum in Florence, Italy.
DiCaprio has said his career choice as a child was to become a marine biologist or an actor. However, he was known for impersonating characters and imitating people, and seeing their reaction to his acting.
Early Career
At the beginning of his career, he had difficulty finding an agent. However, when he eventually found one, the agent suggested DiCaprio change his name to Lenny Williams to appeal to American audiences, which he declined to do. DiCaprio remained jobless for a year and a half, even after 100 auditions. Although he decided to give up acting, his father persuaded him to persevere with it. Motivated by his father and financial security, he continued to audition; he finally secured roles in about 20 commercials.
By the early 1990s, he began acting regularly on television, starting with a role in the pilot of The Outsiders (1990) and one episode of the soap opera Santa Barbara (1990), in which he played a teenage alcoholic. His work that year earned him two nominations at the 12th Youth in Film Awards—Best Young Actor in a Daytime Series for Santa Barbara and Best Young Actor Starring in a New Television Series for Parenthood.
In 1993, DiCaprio played the developmentally disabled brother of Johnny Depp’s character in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, earning him a National Board of Review Award, as well as nominations for a Golden Globe Award and an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor, making him the seventh-youngest Oscar nominee in the category at 19.
In 1996, DiCaprio starred opposite Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann’s Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernisation of William Shakespeare’s romantic tragedy, which retained the original Shakespearean dialogue. The film grossed $147 million worldwide, and earned DiCaprio a Silver Bear for Best Actor at the 1997 Berlin International Film Festival.
In 1997, DiCaprio starred opposite Kate Winslet in James Cameron’s Titanic as members of different social classes who fall in love aboard RMS Titanic during its ill-fated maiden voyage. The film was the most expensive in history at the time, and eventually earning more than $2.1 billion in box-office receipts worldwide.
Other movies he has starred in include: in Catch Me If You Can (2002) and Gangs of New York (2002); the biopic The Aviator (2004), the political thriller Blood Diamond (2006), the crime drama The Departed (2006), and the romantic drama Revolutionary Road (2008), amongst others.
He is recipient of several accolades including an Academy Award, a British Academy Film Award and three Golden Globe Awards. As of 2019, his films have grossed over $7.2 billion worldwide, and he has been placed eight times in annual rankings of the world’s highest-paid actors.
Personal Life
His personal life is the subject of widespread media attention. DiCaprio rarely grants interviews and is reticent to discuss his private life but he has been the focus of various references detailing his involvement with women aged 25 or younger, for which he has faced criticism.
Net Worth
Leonardo DiCaprio’s net worth is estimated to be $300 Million.
