He shot to fame in 1993 in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape. Since then, his films have grossed more than $12 billion worldwide.
On November 11, the actor turns 50. Here are six things to know and love about Leonardo DiCaprio.
1. What’s in a name?
Leo’s mum, Irmelin Indenbirken, was halfway through her pregnancy in 1974 when she visited the city of Florence in Italy. She was in a museum admiring a painting by Leonardo da Vinci when she felt her baby kick for the first time. She took it as a sign and when she gave birth, she knew exactly what she was going to call her son.
When Leo started out in his acting career, however, not everyone liked his moniker. His first agent throught it was “too ethnic” and urged him to maybe change it to Lenny Williams. We can’t help but suspect that would have been a titanic mistake!
2. Deep pockets
While filming the 2006 political thriller Blood Diamond in Africa, Leo worked with 24 orphaned children. He became emotionally attached to one little girl and although he couldn’t adopt her, he made sure she was financially secure and kept in touch with her over the years.
“I’m supporting her and supporting the orphanage,” he said at the time. “I’ll be affected by that experience forever.” Leo and his co-star Kate Winslet also stepped in when the Titanic’s last remaining survivor, Millvina Dean, could no longer afford her nursing home bills. They helped pay her expenses until she died in May 2009, aged 97.
3. Oscars are gold, Raspberries are not
Despite his stellar career, Leo didn’t nab an Oscar until 2016, for his role in The Revenant. By then, he’d already scraped the bottom of the barrel by winning a Golden Raspberry “Worst Screen Couple” award for his 1999 performance in The Man in the Iron Mask. (He played both King Louis XIV of France and his imprisoned twin brother.) He was also nominated for a “Worst Actor” Razzie for 2001’s The Beach.
Leo has remained tight-lipped about his bombs, but he’s in good company. Tom Hanks, Ben Affleck, Glenn Close and Sandra Bullock have Oscars and Golden Raspberries.
4. Hair-raising
Leo mania swept the globe after the actor’s 1997 starring role in Titanic, and with it came the trend for boys and young men to get their hair cut like his character Jack Dawson. The look comprised a long fringe in the front and a short crop at the back, and no one batted an eyelid. Except in Afghanistan, where the Taliban regime had taken control. The “Leo cut” was banned and any youths seen with the hairstyle were given a full head shave. If that didn’t work, Taliban officials arrested any barber who gave a client the haircut.
5. Feud
These days, Leo and Mark Wahlberg are good pals, but 30 years ago they couldn’t stand each other. The bad blood started when Mark, wearing only his underpants, hogged the limelight during an MTV basketball match.
A couple of years later, the pair were up for roles in 1995’s The Basketball Diaries, playing best friends. “He didn’t want me for the part and I didn’t think he was right for the part,” Mark later explained. “Leonardo was like, ‘Over my dead body! Marky Mark’s not going to be in this movie.’”
The casting director eventually convinced them to audition together and Mark, 53, says, “So I come in and I do the audition, and I look at him and he kind of looks at me. Then we do a scene and they’re like, ‘Hmmmm, this dude’s pretty good, right?’ The next thing you know, boom, we’re hanging out.”
6. He has OCD
Obsessive compulsive disorder is something that Leo has had to live with since childhood. He often feels the overpowering need to step on every chewing gum stain on the footpath, the desire to walk through doorways several times and to not step on cracks. But, he says, “I’m able to say at some point, ‘Okay you’re being ridiculous. Stop stepping on every gum stain you see. Nothing bad is going to happen.’”
When he was filming Martin Scorsese’s The Aviator, playing obsessive compulsive billionaire Howard Hughes, he gave in to his OCD in order to connect with his onscreen character. “I let it all go and never listened to the other voice. I remember my make-up artist and assistant walking me to the set and going, ‘Oh, God, we’re going to need 10 minutes to get him there because he has to walk back and step on that thing, touch the door, and walk in and out again.’”
Watch Leo’s famous role in the Titanic today on Disney+.
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