R.I.P. filmmaker and actor Robert Downey Sr.
His son, actor Robert Downey Jr., confirmed the news on Instagram
Film News Robert Downey
Robert Downey Sr.—actor and filmmaker best known for his work on Putney Swope and Greaser’s Palace—has died from Parkinson’s disease. His son, Robert Downey Jr., confirmed his death on Instagram. He was 85.
“Last night, dad passed peacefully in his sleep after years of enduring the ravages of Parkinson’s… he was a true maverick filmmaker, and remained remarkably optimistic throughout..According to my stepmoms calculations, they were happily married for just over 2000 years. Rosemary Rogers-Downey, you are a saint, and our thoughts and prayers are with you,” Robert Downey Jr. wrote.
Downey Sr. began his filmmaking career in the ’60s, focusing on making anti-establishment, absurdist films. The first film he wrote, directed, and produced was the short film Balls Bluff (1961) which was about a Civil War soldier who wakes up in Central Park in the—at the time—present-day 1960s. Downey Sr.’s first successful feature was 1966’s Chafed Elbows, a comedic still image film starring his first wife, Elsie Ann Downey. Downey Sr.’s biggest film, Putney Swope, came a few years later. The satirical film tackles the white power structure, and it is about a Black advertising exec who takes the reins of an advertising agency after the sudden death of the company’s chairman.
In a chat with Paul Thomas Anderson for Criterion, Downey Sr. recalled that “nobody wanted Putney Swope.” He added, “I mean, the other ones at least they got into Bleecker Street and people said what? ‘Nuh-uh.’”
But the filmmaker’s luck changed. “The producer, the money guy, had one more screening for some distributors and just as the film was ready to start, this guy was banging on the door of the screening room and I said ‘Fuck him, he’s late, whoever he is.’ And he kept bang, bang, bang,” explained Downey Sr. “So I went to the door and said ‘Who are you?’ and he said ‘I’m Don Rugoff’ and I said ‘So?’ and he said ‘I know I’m late but I’m sorry’ so he came in, and after the screening he came up to me and he said, ‘I don’t understand it but I like it’ and he opened it like a month later, because he owned the theaters.”
Downey Sr. also had small acting roles in The Twilight Zone (which he also directed three episodes of), Matlock, Johnny Be Good, and Boogie Nights. In the latter, Don Cheadle’s character is given the surname “Swope” as an homage to Downey Sr.’s film, and Downey Sr.’s own appearance in the film furthers the reference.
Downey Sr.’s last acting role was in 2011’s Tower Heist as Judge Ramos.
40 Comments
“the—at the time—present-day 1960s.”
Thanks for condescending to us all, you fucking asshole.
This sure is sad.
This part:“Downey Sr.’s last acting role was in 2011’s Tower Heist” ? I agree.
You can have as many cheeseburgers as you want, Robert Downey Jr.
Donner and Downey Sr.??The Reaper’s in an extra-trolly mood.
If you haven’t seen Putney Swope do yourself a favor and give it a watch. Streaming free on Tubit TV.https://tubitv.com/movies/475775/putney-swope?start=true&utm_source=google-feed&tracking=google-feed
How many syllables, Mario?!?
‘DOOOON’T DOOO IT SWOOOPE! IT’S A TERRIBLE JOOOOOB!!!
Yeah, Putney Swope is great. Dated as hell I guess, but I did just watch it again a few months ago. It’s funny and insightful and weird. I recommend it.And goddamn Parkinson’s Disease all to hell.
Noooo shit
Thanks for the recommendation.
I find more interesting things to watch on Tubi than Netflix. I don’t know if that says more about me or Netflix.
Eh. Tubi has a lot of hidden gems. Things that streaming services sometimes ignore in favor of the bigger names. It’s probably the best way to find movies from decades ago. It’s a really good service to also be free.
Well, this is the time that Kinja and I part ways. I would really like to recommend the reply by Racj82, but I can’t get to it. I can’t get to the comment from notifications, and when I click “Show Pending” my comment disappears too.io9 and Lifehacker have been daily reads for me since 2009. I started reading the A.V. Club in print in 1999. Reading The Onion cover-to-cover was a weekly tradition throughout graduate school. Unfortunately, I’ll have to look for a community somewhere else.
Thank you all for some wonderful discussions.
Anything that let’s me rekindle my childhood friendship with Gordon Shumway, is aces to me.
“We paid $25,000 for ‘pee-pee dicky’? ”We were lucky to get him that cheap!”
In his films he was billed as “Robert Downey (a Prince)“. Putney Swope has moments that are still observant and hilarious. The film is in black and white, but the faux commercials made by the advertising agency are in living color.
That Boogie Nights thing is funny considering Don Cheadle would go onto work with his son in the biggest franchise is movie history.
That’s not really funny, though.
SO DECLARES THE ARBITER
I didn’t mean “funny ha ha” but “funny peculiar.”
He did drop the occasional pearl:“No amount of money ever bought a second of time.”
Says the guy whose billions of dollars allowed him to create technology that let him travel back in time.
Parkinson’s is an unbelievably cruel disease.
It is. My dad had it for 20+ years, and it progressed so slowly (until the last few years) that you could kind of not notice just how bad it was getting—when he died, they started his funeral with a photo montage, and seeing a picture from 25 years ago, then one from 15, then 5, then the last couple of years was like looking at a completely different person.
I’m so sorry. My dad’s had a slowly progressing case for 5-6 years, but my sister and I didn’t really notice a chance until after not seeing him for more than a year. I have nothing constructive to add except thanks for sharing your experience.
Thanks, and sorry about your dad. I wish I had something upbeat to throw in in terms of how it goes, but you probably know the deal. With that said, there are a lot of things that they can do that won’t fix anything, but can slow them down quite a bit (different drug combinations, brain electrodes, etc.), which definitely improved his quality of life for most of it.
That and MS could both eat a bag of dicks.
Fun fact — in Family Man, he’s also the guy who answers the door when Jack (Nic Cage) goes to the house he thinks is his and Kates in New Jersey when his “glimpse” ends.
I’m sure they’re fine and all, but Putney Swope and Greaser’s Palace sound like made-up names for chippies in a BBC version of The Good Place.
They still could be. I’m not sure how well the references traveled, but a lot of the stores and restaurants on The Good Place were references to US chains, like the bar that sold beer in inexplicably shoe-shaped mugs named “Foot Lager” after the US shoe chain “Foot Locker”. So film references could work too.
Also definitely worth checking out is Pound, a Brechtian story where everyone is playing dogs, without any kind of costuming to express that. A preteen Downey Jr. makes a cameo as a puppy, asking a bald guy playing a Mexican Hairless “You got any hair on your balls?”
I was introduced to ‘Putney Swope’ in the mid 80’s by an old friend/mentor. I haven’t been the same since. R.I.P. RDG, Sr.
RIP
This sucks = first the Beastie Boys break up, and now RDS passes – it appears that nobody’s going to bust with the Putney Swope sequel.
I thought that was Lorne Michaels in the thumbnail.
If only Michaels and SNL would trade places with Downey Sr.
Careful, don’t cut yourself on that edge.
Wow, i didn’t even know his father was famous too.
In Johnny Be Good there is a scene at a drive-in. Downey Sr. remarks that the film is shit. The movie playing is Putney Swope. I didn’t get that one when I was 13.
Sad news, may he R.I.P.My dad is currently going through Parkinsons and Alzheimer’s/Dementia. Shit is not easy, even more so when it’s slow and gradual. In my stepmother’s case who just passed the day before Mother’s Day, her dementia was full blown very rapidly. While it still sucks, I feel it’s easier on everyone involved that way instead of slow and miserable. Fuck all these diseases.