MICKEY ROURKE: HIGH & LOW by CHRISTOPHER HEARD
At the height of his fame during the 1980s, Mickey Rourke was Hollywood’s most exciting screen idol. Both a sex symbol and a critically acclaimed actor, his future was seemingly assured. Then Rourke gained a reputation as an uncontrollable maverick. His disdain for playing the Hollywood game was well known, but marital difficulties, the unexorcised demons of his past and heavy drinking threatened to end his career.
In the early 1990s, Rourke turned his back on Hollywood to pursue a brief but intense career as a professional boxer. Then began a decade-long struggle to regain his former professional status, making straight-to-video potboilers. After his comeback as Marv, the lovelorn brute in the hugely successful Sin City, Mickey Rourke is now enjoying a career renaissance as directors like Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino re-establish him as one of the coolest actors around.
From Rourke’s childhood in Miami’s tough Liberty City to his forthcoming role as a hitman in Killshot, Mickey Rourke: High and Low presents a unique account of his often turbulent life and career. Featuring interviews with Rourke himself, plus colleagues such as the legendary Francis Ford Coppola.
CHAPTER TITLES AND SUBJECTS:
PREFACE
The author’s first glimpse of Mickey Rourke, in Body Heat (1981), and his extensive interview with him over twenty years later.
(I) MIAMI VIA SCHENECTADY
Early life, from New York State to Miami. Estrangement from his father.
(II) NEW YORK ON A DIME
Arrival in New York; the Actors Studio; stage debut; relocation to LA.
(III) ACTING
Movie debut in Spielberg’s 1941; TV movies; marriage to Debra Feuer.
(IV) MICKEY AND MICHAEL
Working for director Michael Cimino, in ill-fated epic Heaven’s Gate.
(V) MICKEY AT THE MOVIES
Breakthrough roles in Body Heat, Diner, Rumble Fish. His father’s death.
(VI) ICONIC MEASURES
Cult status, controversy and Hollywood adultery in the mid-1980s.
(VII) SUPERSTARDOM IN NINE AND A HALF WEEKS
Hitting the peak of stardom in a soft-focus S&M story with Kim Basinger.
(VIII) FALLEN ANGEL
From Angel Heart to Johnny Handsome – from cult movies to obscurities.
(IX) CARRE
Meeting Carre Otis on Wild Orchid; their tempestuous marriage.
(X) LOSING HIS WAY
Mickey’s inflated bad-boy reputation; his sinking star in the early 1990s.
(XI) THE GOLDEN RING
Leaving Hollywood for boxing; Rourke’s career as a super-middleweight.
(XII) WHERE DO YOU GO FROM HERE?
Fighting his way back to Hollywood; plastic surgery and video fodder.
(XIII) BRUISER
Coppola offers Mickey The Rainmaker; end of the Rourke-Otis marriage.
(XIV) DON'T CALL IT A COMEBACK...
Appearing in B-movies for filmmakers who want to meet Mickey Rourke.
(XV) MICKEY NORTH
Mickey interviewed onset in Canada; working with Robert Rodriguez.
(XVI) THE LAST CHANCE
Mickey Rourke’s career renaissance: Man on Fire; the Sin City franchise.
FILMOGRAPHY
