Robert Downey Sr.

American filmmaker and actor (1936–2021)

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Lived 1936–2021, aged 85United States

United States DirectorsMovie Director

Wikipedia
30 languages
Cross-language footprint
Era
1936–2021
Aged 85
Known for
Boogie Nights
1997

Summary

Updated 2026-06-21

The man who made Putney Swope — a scorched-earth satire of Madison Avenue that became an underground touchstone — and taught his son what irreverence looked like before Hollywood got hold of him.

Biography

About

Robert John Downey Sr. was born Robert Elias Jr. on June 24, 1936, and spent the 1960s making what one scholar called "strictly take-no-prisoners affairs" — shoestring countercultural films that shoved against every polite boundary. In 1969 he released Putney Swope, a caustic takedown of the New York advertising world that became his signature. Three years later came Greaser's Palace, a surrealist Western that confirmed his taste for the absurd. The minimal budgets and outrageous satire defined an era's fringe, and the filmmaker raised a son who would carry some of that defiance into a very di…

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