Philip Andre Rourke Jr. was born on September 19, 1956, in Schenectady, New York. He has a younger sister named Patty, a younger half-brother named Joey and six step-siblings. The family moved to Miami Beach when he was a teenager and he attended Miami Beach Senior High School. Rourke grew up in a tough area known as Liberty City. He took his first acting lesson while still in school, but was much more drawn to the world of boxing. Using the moniker of “El Marielito”, Rourke developed a 20-4 amateur boxing record of 17 knockouts fighting out of Miami Beach’s Fifth Street Gym and the Elizabeth Varick Gym in Coconut Grove. He became professional in 1991 but retired in 1995.
The sullen-looking leading man has since returned to his original avocation: boxing. His talent as an actor is formidable and his movie debut was a tiny (but attention-grabbing) part as an arsonist in “Body Heat” in 1981 opposite William Hurt. In 1982, he appeared in “Diner” in the role of a hapless hairdresser. The year 1984 brought stardom with his fine performance in “The Pope of Greenwich Village” opposite Eric Roberts. He is the perfect anti-hero, no less exemplified in his portrayal of detective Stanley White in “Year of The Dragon (1985).
His choice of films took a different turn from the offbeat as in “Nine Weeks” (1986) to “Barfly” (1987) and finally to the genuinely weird film, “Angel Heart.” His behavior in the 1990s became erratic and he was arrested for spousal abuse in 1994. He spiraled badly, his unkempt appearance prompting Kim Basinger to refer to him as “a human ashtray.”
Rourke has been married and divorced twice and has no children. He is known to have at least seven tattoos including a tiger head, a bull’s skull and a shamrock. He has returned to boxing but still works in films sporadically.
You are one of a kind, Mickey Rourke. Bad or good? What do YOU think?