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Danny DeVito Biography

(1944–)

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Actor, producer, director. Born November 17, 1944, in Neptune, New Jersey. A one-time hairdresser, his sister owned a beauty salon. DeVito studied at New York City’s American Academy of Dramatic Arts in the mid-1960s. He made his feature film debut as a bit player in the 1967 film Dreams of Glass and appeared in an Off-Off-Broadway production of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest in the early 1970s. The play led to his breakthrough film role, as he reprised his stage role in the 1975 film version, starring Jack Nicholson and directed by Milos Forman.

From 1978 to 1983, DeVito gained widespread recognition as New York cabbie Louie DiPalma in the hit sitcom Taxi. He matched that success on the big screen in the mid-1980s, with hilarious supporting turns in Romancing the Stone (1984) and its sequel Jewel of the Nile (1985), both films starred DeVito’s AADA classmate and close friend Michael Douglas, along with Kathleen Turner—as well as in Ruthless People (1986), co-starring Bette Midler. Soon, DeVito had perfected the art of making sleazy, egotistical characters strangely sympathetic, he reprised similar roles in Tin Men (1987), Twins (1988), co-starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, Other People’s Money (1991), Batman Returns (1992), The Rainmaker (1997), and L.A. Confidential (1997).

DeVito made his feature directorial debut in 1987 with Throw Momma From the Train, co-starring Billy Crystal. He also directed the black comedy The War of the Roses (1989), with co-stars Douglas and Turner, the biopic Hoffa (1994), starring Jack Nicholson, and the fantastical Matilda (1996), co-starring his wife Rhea Perlman. He had more success as a producer, with credits including Pulp Fiction (1994), Get Shorty (1995), and Out of Sight (1998).

In 1999, DeVito produced and co-starred in Man on the Moon, a biopic of his onetime Taxi co-star Andy Kaufman starring Jim Carrey. His producing projects for 2000 included Drowning Mona, another black comedy co-starring himself and Midler, and Erin Brockovich, starring Julia Roberts.

DeVito and Perlman (best known for her role on the long-running sitcom Cheers) have been together since the early 1970s; they married in 1982 and have three children, Lucy, Grace, and Jacob.