Robert Downey Junior says goodbye to his father in an emotional post

Robert Downey Sr. was an underground film director who developed his career in the late sixties and early seventies in New York, He died yesterday at the age of 85 after a long fight against Parkinson’s. Among its titles, it can be highlighted Putney Swope, the 1969 film that told the story of an African-American activist who is given free rein in an advertising agency. The film has the recognition of being chosen for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2016. As an actor, he also had small roles in films such as Magnolia O Boogie Nights. Also interpreter Robert Downey Junior says goodbye to his father in an emotional Instagram post.

The Iron-man and Sherlock Holmes actor published a photo of his father in black and white, with a text that paid tribute to him: “DEP Bob D. Sr. 1936-2021… Last night, Dad passed away peacefully in his sleep after years of enduring the ravages of Parkinson’s. He was a true hipster filmmaker and he remained remarkably optimistic throughout. By my stepmother’s calculations, they were happily married for a little over 2000 years. Rosemary Rogers-Downey you’re a saint and our thoughts and prayers are with you ”.

Father and son, they worked together on Hugo Pool, along with other artists of the stature of Sean Penn, Alyssa Milano and Patrick Dempsey. Robert Downey Sr. was a director who for most of his career, but especially in the beginning, managed very small budgets to tell his stories. Putney Swope put him in the eye of that movement of New York filmmakers that began to emerge in the 70s, making Downey Junior a lesser-known Jim Jarmusch of sorts. However, his style was not able to find an audience that was not yet ready for the director’s wild vision.

Robert Downey Junior says goodbye to a father, with whom had a complicated relationship in the past. The Oscar-nominated actor had a difficult stage in which he was a drug addict and although it may seem that it was something derived from fame and success, the reality is that his father also used these substances. As the actor himself admits, he tried his first marijuana joint at the age of 6, offered by his father. “When my dad and I used drugs together, it was like he was trying to express his love for me in the only way he knew how.”Junior declared in an interview in the late 1980s. However, they both managed to rehabilitate and strengthen their relationship years later.