Mickey Rourke, that face that symbolizes the descent from the top of Hollywood

Like his professional career divided between success and oblivion, acting and boxing, the face of Mickey Rourke it has become the symbol of those two opposite lives. First that of a rising actor of the 80s, who came to be compared to Marlon Brando for the magnetism of his early work. An interpreter who left a mark with his physical attractiveness and talent, drawing the attention of Francis Ford Coppola, Alan Parker and other filmmakers. And then as that man with a face beaten by cosmetic surgeries, who at 70 years of age we recognize more for the adoration of his dogs and facial reconstructions, than for the fiery and electrifying presence that he used to transmit with his films almost four decades ago.

A face that, based on the blows of life, ended up becoming the tangible reflection of the cruel descent from the top of Hollywood.

WEST HOLLYWOOD, CALIFORNIA – JUNE 17: Actor Mickey Rourke attends the Even Summer White Affair THEATER at Skybar on June 17, 2022 in West Hollywood, California. (Photo by Paul Archuleta/Getty Images)

Mickey Rourke He was 12 years old when he won his first boxing match, developing an amateur career that he would abandon after several victories, failures and concussions in 1973. Acting came into his life by pure chance when a friend offered him a role in a play he was directing. . At that time he fell in love with the profession, making his film debut with a small role in 1941 (1979) by Steven Spielberg. Success would not be long in coming, reaping applause with films like fire in the body (1981, Lawrence Kasdan), diner (1982, Barry Levinson) or The street law (Francis Ford Coppola, 1983).

However, while these titles garnered critical acclaim, they weren’t iconic hits that catapulted him as a figure of his era. Actually, the tape that managed to elevate him to the Olympus of the stars was Nine weeks and a half (1986, Adrian Lyne) the erotic drama that made him an instant sex symbol and made us never hear from him again ‘You can leave your hat on’ without associating it with Kim Basinger’s striptease. And while the aforementioned titles deserve to be remembered above the erotic classic, Nine weeks and a half It is the film that we all remember as synonymous with that attractive actor. That thirtysomething with a seductive profile who had Hollywood at his feet.

I thought the party would never end.” said to Daily Mail in 2009 around that time. “I could stay in any hotel, buy whatever I wanted and take all my people to dinner” he remembered. Among those anecdotes from the past there is one that assures that he once bought six Cadillac cars in cash and then gave them away. So. No more.

American actor Mickey Rourke on the set of 'Nine and a Half Weeks' directed by Adrian Lyne. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

American actor Mickey Rourke on the set of ‘Nine and a Half Weeks’ directed by Adrian Lyne. (Photo by Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)

However, the party did end. Between the absence of commercial success in the following years, the stories that branded him as difficult (director Alan Parker said that working with him was a nightmare) and ill-advised decisions (he turned down roles in films now considered classics such as Top Gun, Rain Man, Pulp Fiction Y The silence of the lambs), he heard the boxing call again. It was in 1991 when he closed the acting bar for a while to return to the ring because he was “self-destructing” Y “he had no respect for himself as an actor.” (Film Journal).

Nevertheless, one wonders if he measured the consequences he would end up facing.

During this second stage as a boxer he broke his nose twice, broke his ribs, broke his tongue and had a compressed cheekbone. He even suffered short-term memory loss. As a result of the injuries and surgeries he underwent to reconstruct his face, he ended up changing the image we knew as a movie star, leading to a radical change that still generates headlines with each public reappearance he makes.

GUIDE | The steps you have to follow to be able to see an Instagram post that is not available due to your privacy preferences

In 2009 he told Online Mail that he had undergone five surgeries to correct his nose and one to reconstruct his shattered cheekbone. But as the years passed, her face mutated, changed and looked more unrecognizable, evidencing an aesthetic process that continued over time and ended up becoming the topic of conversation associated with her name.

And he only paid the consequences. which he defined Guardian What “the humiliation” that lived “for five, six, seven, eight, nine, fifteen years” and that it produced itself. I lost everything, the wife, the house, my friends, my name in the industry. explained during the promotion of the film that he put him back in the Hollywood spotlight with his only Oscar nomination, The fighter.

“I was paying $500 a month for an apartment with my dogs. Nobody knew how bad financially he was. A friend used to give me a couple of hundred dollars to buy me something to eat. He called my ex-wife crying like a baby and trying to get her back. He was desperate. And alone. And this went on for years.” He said about those years after his second stage in the ring.

That path of decisions, professional changes and operations could be described as his own path of self-destruction that, years later, has his face as evidence of everything he experienced.. In his words, the reconstructive surgeries she underwent during the 2000s were “to fix the mess on my face from boxing.” assuring that he went to the surgeon “wrong”.

This professional decline, away from the status of the male lead that he enjoyed in the 80s, led him to come face to face with Darren Aronofsky and the almost autobiographical film that made us return to see him bathed in glory by the industry. Of course I’m talking about The fighter (2008), the story of a ring fighter with so many similarities to the life of Mickey Rourke that it helped give us the best performance of his career, through a plot of redemption that came to life in the form of applause, praise and artistic recognition.

However, despite the success of the film, it has not enjoyed a similar platform at the cinematographic level and in recent years it fills more headlines because of what he says and how it looks, than for his work in film. Unfortunately, so many surgeries make it more difficult for his talent to shine as before. And if in the aforementioned film the character provided him with a personal bridge with which to reach the heart of the audience with a story of redemption that touched him closely, the surgical excess that he attributes to having put himself in the hands of the wrong surgeon could have reduced your opportunities. Or at least it is one of the conclusions that we can draw when we see the absence of massive releases, large productions or large-scale bets in his most recent filmography.

Regardless, he is still active in Hollywood. And just as he went through the American version of Mask Singer in 2020, he also signs for the new Roman Polanski film, The Palace. However, his face has become the living memory of the descent of someone who reached the top of Hollywood, but with whom life has not been as benevolent as we would like.. At 70 years old, he lives surrounded by his beloved dogs and, as he confessed to Piers Morgan in 2022, he has been alone for seven years.

More stories that may interest you:

We would like to thank the writer of this write-up for this awesome web content

Mickey Rourke, that face that symbolizes the descent from the top of Hollywood