Leonardo DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, in a suburb of Los Angeles in a hippie family. The boy was named after the legendary artist Leonardo da Vinci, whose works his mother visited during her pregnancy.
The lack of higher education did not prevent the actor from becoming truly successful in his profession. The movie “This Guy’s Life”, together with Robert De Niro himself, became a pass to the big cinema for the actor. The star has never been married, he has no children. Recently, he has shifted his focus from acting to the problem of preserving the environment.
Childhood of Leonardo DiCaprio and the start of his acting career
When a child was born in a family of American hippies, no one could have predicted that in the future he would become a famous actor. Although at birth he was given a very beautiful and famous name – his parents named their son in honor of the renowned Italian artist of the Renaissance Leonardo da Vinci.
Even though the boy’s parents broke up when he was just one year old, his mother managed not only to provide for her son financially but also to pay due attention to his upbringing. In this, she was greatly helped by her mother-grandmother Leonardo, an emigrant from Russia, who lived at that time in Germany.
His dad, although he did not live with him, did not leave Leo to fend for himself. Observing his son’s good acting skills, his father helped him get into a children’s TV show – his performance in it became a kind of DiCaprio’s acting debut. It was there that the boy realized that he wanted to connect his life with the acting profession. At school, he took acting courses, and also starred in various TV commercials, and received small roles in theatrical productions. Already at the age of 15, Leo had his agent, who was engaged in his promotion in American show business. Moreover, he insisted on changing the guy’s name and surname to a more American version – Lenny Williams. In his opinion, such a combination should have sounded better than Leonardo DiCaprio.
Films with DiCaprio began to appear on screens in the early 90s – he received his first small episode in the Santa Barbara TV series. Real success came to him after filming with Robert De Niro in the film “This Boy’s Life”. Participation in the famous film “What’s Eating Gilbert Grape?” brought the aspiring actor his first Oscar nomination.
The best films with Leonardo DiCaprio in his youth are Romeo + Juliet and Titanic. Roles in these 2 films brought him worldwide fame, an Oscar nomination, and the love of viewers in different countries. Because of them, the young actor was stuck for a long time in the role of an infantile romantic character, far from real masculinity and brutality.
The next few years of DiCaprio’s career were quite difficult – his roles in less iconic films did not bring the desired success, and film critics stubbornly considered him an actor in one role. But, fortunately, the actor managed to successfully overcome the difficult period, and already in 2002 his filmography was replenished with more successful films – “Catch Me If You Can” and “Gangs of New York”. They were favorably received by critics and fans of the actor’s work.
The best movie with Leonardo DiCaprio appeared on screens in the period from 2004 to 2010, he starred in several successful films, in which he established himself as an excellent versatile dramatic actor. As a result of his work in Martin Scorsese’s film “The Aviator”, he was awarded the Knight’s Degree of the Order of Arts and Letters in France.
Every year, both the actor himself and his inner circle expected that the actor was about to receive his Oscar statuette. And it finally happened in 2016. The actor won Best Actor in a Leading Role for his role as Hugh Glass in the acclaimed drama film Survivor. DiCaprio was applauded by the entire audience – he finally earned critical acclaim from the American Film Academy.
What’s funny is that the actor lost his statuette on the same day. After a noisy celebration of her victory at the Oscars, along with her colleagues, she was safely forgotten in the restaurant, where the dinner was held.
Leonardo DiCaprio and charity
In addition to filming Hollywood films, the actor also runs a charitable foundation, which he created in 1998. The work of the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation is dedicated to the problems of protecting the untouched corners of our planet and improving the relationship between nature and man in general.
Due to his popularity, the actor managed to attract the attention of a wide range of the public to these problems and has already managed to implement more than 35 innovative projects in 40 countries of the world. All of them are concerned with the issues of preserving rare biological species and vulnerable ecosystems on the planet, as well as the need for more rational use of various types of natural resources. Thanks to his efforts in the field of environmental protection in 2014, DiCaprio was named UN Ambassador for the World on Climate Issues.
Last year, Leonardo, along with fellow actor Will Smith, responded to the problem of fires in the Amazon. Together they created a model of branded sneakers, the proceeds of which were sent to Brazilian charities. In addition, the actor sent more than $ 5 million to a fund dedicated to the protection of the biodiversity of the Amazon.
