OK, so we all loved Taxi Driver and The Deer Hunter and Goodfellas and the Godfathers and we thought he was stunning in Raging Bull and cool in Midnight Run: but what is Robert De Niro really like? John Parker has done his best to find out, but the famously elusive star eludes him; and on the rare occasions when he does manage to pin him down in person, through interviews of one kind or another - rarely first hand interviews, needless to say - De Niro emerges as something of a mumbling nonentity. Which is either the role he wishes to play in interviews or the real De Niro; take your pick. Personally, if the real De Niro is the one who has an unnerving obsession with beautiful black women and treats the nine year old who has been brought up to believe she is his daughter with breathtaking heartlessness, I could do without him. The background Parker has unearthed on the making of De Niro's films, however, both good and bad and, boy, did he make some bad films - is fascinating.
