Mickey Rourke - Biography

Biography:

When discussing his high-profile come-back in The Wrestler in 2008, Mickey Rourke referred often to the fact that he'd made a mess of the last 15 years of his career. He was grateful, he said, to be allowed such a surprising second chance. This was a massive simplification of his previous flight path. For a start, his days in the doldrums had lasted for well over 15 years, more like 20. And The Wrestler did not come out of the blue, Rourke having rebuilt his reputation in a series of stunning bit parts over the past decade.

Moreover, the mess he'd made of his earlier career was no ordinary mess. Having started out in two of the most notorious flops in cinema's history, Body Heat, Diner and Rumble Fish saw him rated as the next Marlon Brando. Then, choosing his roles with an extreme lack of acumen, he turned down a plethora of giant hits in favour of artier choices that often fell flat. By the early Nineties, after Nine 1/2 Weeks and Wild Orchid, he was known to millions as a soft pornographer rather than a serious dramatist - a fate that did not befall Brando after Last Tango In Paris. Always living beyond his means, he was continually forced to take poor roles in silly movies, simply to finance his lavish lifestyle. He hung around with bad people - street thugs and mobsters. He was forever hamstrung by fear, vanity, rage and an unfortunate habit of running off at the mouth, alienating those who might prove his saviours. There was violence, drugs and depression, arrests and self-destructive sabbaticals. By his own hand, Rourke converted himself from one of Hollywood's biggest stars to a cinematic zero in less than three years.

What makes Rourke especially interesting is his reasoning. Having dragged himself off the streets to study his craft for years, he did not take acting lightly. As soon as he had any kind of position he wrote and starred in his own film, the purposefully unglamorous Homeboy. He was constantly fighting to give his movies more psychological depth. There's much to dislike about the Hollywood system and he was one of the few with the cojones to speak out against it. Beyond this there was his inner turmoil, a desperate desire to prove himself as a person and as a man that led him from Hollywood luxury into the boxing ring and, eventually, back again. This street-level need to be someone, allied to an artistic temperament and a profound lack of self-confidence, made him both horribly volatile and utterly fascinating.

He was born Phillip Andre Rourke Jr in Schenectady, New York, on the 16th of September, 1952, though throughout his career, in order to maximise his job prospects, he'd claim to be four years younger.

His father, Phillip Sr, was a groundsman and janitor at a local golf and country club. A tough and proud man, and a big sports fan, he'd lift weights and exercise in his spare time, building a buff body that his son would attempt to match for the rest of his life. It was this love of sport that would see Phillip Jr dubbed Mickey, his dad naming him after the New York Yankees superstar Mickey Mantle. Mickey's mother, Ann, was a trained nurse. With ancestors hailing from County Cork, he could claim both Irish and French heritage. Two years after Mickey was born, he'd be presented with a brother, Joey. Four years later there'd be a sister, Patti.

. The Rourkes' life in Schenectady was not easy. Phillip and Ann had a tumultuous relationship that often led to violent arguments. Often little Mickey would scurry for safety down to his mum's parents' place in the basement. Ann could not take it forever. When Mickey was 7 she decided to leave her husband and seek a better life down in Miami. Young Mickey was resentful at losing his home, his friends and, especially, his father, but had no choice in the matter. His mood was worsened by his father telling him that his mother was unnecessarily splitting up their family.

It was a big move. In the east of New York state, just north of the Catskills near the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers, Schenectady was an historical northern industrial town, home of the General Electric Company and the American Locomotive Company, known as "the city that lights and hauls the world". It was also the site of a famous massacre of settlers in 1690. The director John Sayles was born and raised there (as was Deborah Van Valkenburgh from The Warriors). Kurt Vonnegut lived and worked there during the early Fifties and would set several of his works in Schenectady. From here Ann Rourke and the kids would move to the very different surround of Liberty City. Named after the Liberty Square Housing Project built in the late 1930s for Miami's low-income African-Americans, it was still a desperately poor area and mostly black. For a while Ann and the kids would live in cheap motels, then in an apartment behind a laundromat Ann ran on 79th Street.

If this change was difficult for young Mickey, his life would take a further downturn when his mother met and married Miami policeman Eugene Addis. Materially, this would be of benefit as the family would now move to the middle-class district of Miami Shores. However, Addis had five kids of his own (he and Ann would later have another daughter), Mickey thus plunging down the pecking order. Beyond this, Addis was a very strict disciplinarian and, later, Rourke would often mention in interviews the abuse he suffered at Addis's hands. Addis himself would say to a reporter that Rourke had invented his past to create a rags to riches story, that there were no problems in the family.

Yet tellingly, even at the age of 81, Addis also claimed that he could kick Rourke's ass - not the words of an ideal father. One of Addis's own sons, Gene Addis Jr, was far more believable in his summation of the past. His father could be tough, he said. At the table the kids could not speak until spoken to. Their room were regularly inspected for cleanliness, their report cards checked for decent grades. There would be trouble if Ds or Fs appeared. There was no abuse, said Gene Jr, but punishment did includes slaps. "If my hand came on the table and I'd been told to keep it off", he said "I'd get backhanded right off the table....I was scared to death, and Mickey, it wasn't his real father. That made it more terrifying".

. The result of this was that young Mickey would gain and nurture a distinctly unhelpful attitude to authority, and his schooling would suffer. As a youngster he'd be taught by nuns at a Catholic establishment, then would move on to Horace Mann Junior High in Miami Shores, and then Miami Beach Senior High School, known as Beach High and situated on Prairie Avenue, some ten blocks north of the South Beach area. Alumni would include TV icon Barbara Walters and Rourke's future co-star Ellen Barkin then, later, Andy Garcia and director Brett Ratner. Throughout his education Rourke would gradually sink into indifference. Unable or unwilling to co-operate with his teachers he'd be put into classes for slow learners. Much of his time and energy he'd put into sport, particularly baseball, a game he'd regularly gone to watch with his father. He'd be good, too, a fine but wild batsman and pitcher, though in this area as in all others he'd be held back by his attitude. For a while, though, he would be a success as a Little League coach, leading a team featuring Andy Garcia to the city championship. Rourke was a strong but empathetic teacher, Garcia would later recall, as well as being the only coach in the league to wear bell-bottom hip-huggers.

Before this, Rourke had begun a brief career in boxing, a sport that would leave a deep impression upon him, both physically and mentally. To boost the boy's self-discipline and self-respect, Gene Addis would take him down to the Boys Club Of Miami, then to the renowned 5th Street Gym at South Beach. The latter had been famously run by Chris Dundee and his brother Angelo, and Muhammad Ali regularly prepared for fights here, even during Rourke's period at the gym when he readied himself for his 1971 confrontation with Joe Frasier. Rourke would fight four times in the Police Athletic League. He dreamt of becoming a full-time pro but he simply couldn't find the requisite discipline. The roadwork, the training was too much of a bind and, after some three years, he dropped out of boxing. It was a decision that would haunt him for years. In some deep way he felt that he hadn't been man enough to face the challenge.

He'd continue to spar occasionally and would, when famous, attend boxing matches and events, but meeting the sport's champions only ever made his regret sharper. Ultimately, he would have to return to the ring.

. In the meantime, he was having a good time. Graduating from High School in 1971, he took odd jobs digging ditches and laying lino, in construction and in warehouses. He worked briefly in a cinema but got into an argument with a fellow usher who smacked him on the head with his torch. He also, as he had done for several years, worked at local hotels in the mornings, cleaning pools, laying out mats and putting up deckchairs. These jobs would finance his real loves, motorbikes and looking good with his friends. Together they'd spend hours labouring over their appearance, pumping iron and teasing their blow-dried hair. They'd don tight trousers, cut-off shirts and wild platform shoes stacked up to 8 inches, made by a local Cuban lady and coloured in pink, silver and turquoise. On the streets they looked like David Bowie's Spiders From Mars. On the 48th Street beach they were yet more lairy. Lounging around in their skimpies, they'd brag madly, each trying to outdo the rest with his tales of sexual conquest and all-round derring-do. For relaxation they'd pop Seconals and listen to The Doors, to a large extent following Jim Morrison's Dionysian lifestyle. Other times Rourke would cruise in his muscle car, a green Dodge Road Runner, or hang with his brother Joey in the coffee shops of Little Havana, togged up like a dandy and puffing on outsized cigars, just like the exiled Cubans who populated the area.

Rourke would enjoy aimlessly frittering his time away on the beach for about a year. Then, out of the blue, came a new direction. Gary Cox, a classmate of Rourke's who'd also worked alongside him at the local hotels, was now attending the University of Miami. Here he'd taken on the responsibility of directing a production of Jean Genet's Deathwatch and needed actors. Calling Rourke one day, he persuaded him to take the part of Green Eyes.

Written in 1947, Genet's Deathwatch was an intense drama, lustful, homoerotic and very controversial. In it, three prison inmates would vie for position, Green Eyes being an illiterate hulk who rules through power, Georgie being an intellectual who's jealous of Green Eyes' strength, and Maurice, a pretty boy who wants protection from Green Eyes and is willing to give him sex to get it. All three big up their crimes to score points from the others, Georgie losing out as he's not a murderer, Genet using their arguments to dig at society's values. It was bleak, desperate stuff but Rourke understood it well - it was so close to the way he was with his friends. He'd already been turned on to artistic possibilities in his last terms at high school.

Dumped in a class with "stupid white boys" and Cuban kids who couldn't speak English, he was taught by an enlightened lady named Mrs Glazer who, recognizing that her charges were uninterested in ordinary learning would instead attempt to increase their understanding and vocabulary by showing them movies. Rourke had been thoroughly impressed by a double-viewing of A Place In The Sun and, in particular, by Montgomery Clift. Clift was perhaps an unlikely hero for a macho beach-bum like Rourke, but Rourke, as said, had a hitherto untapped sensitivity. Clift pointed the way, Gary Cox and Jean Genet turned the tap.

. Even then, despite being thoroughly taken with his theatrical debut, Rourke might never have taken it further. He was helped in this by his lack of alternatives. Now living with five of his friends in a tiny Miami Beach hotel called The Wild West, he was seeing the other guys graduating from petty crime to more serious larceny. Harder drugs were entering the picture, too. A career as an actor was beginning to look very attractive. Discovering that New York was the place to train, in 1972 he decided to go for it, borrowed $400 from his sister Patti and took off for the Big Apple. It was a brave move. Rash, perhaps, but it certainly revealed the impact Deathwatch had had upon him. He'd considered boxing to be worthwhile but had bottled it. Now he had another chance to make something of himself.

Tough times were ahead. Rourke had set his heart on studying with the best and this meant he had to win a place at the Actors Studio, where Clift, Brando and their glorious ilk had gone before. He crashed at cheap hotels in Greenwich Village. He worked parking cars and selling pretzels, ice cream and chestnuts from a cart in Central Park. He toiled in a warehouse where Gene Hackman had busted a gut back in the late Fifties, he was a bouncer at nightspots like Adam's Apple and the Cheetah, and a towel boy and night watchman at a brothel. Wearing a big leather glove, he worked for a man training attack dogs. Befriending an aspiring hairdresser named Guiseppe Franco he attended beauty school but hated it and lasted only an hour. He was dirt poor, living on potatoes and Hershey bars he stole from supermarkets. He'd spend nights sat in the Western Union office, waiting for cheques from his grandma. His weight collapsed to 140 pounds, his teeth were getting loose from malnutrition. And he was lonely. Shy and still naive, he had trouble chatting up girls. By his own later admission, masturbation was key.

After about a year in New York, Rourke would ask a Cuban friend from Miami, Little Eddie, to come up and stay with him. Together they lived at the Marlton, a seedy dive packed with pimps and whores, where the bathroom was peppered with peep-holes which they'd have to stuff with wet toilet paper to avoid being scrutinized while they bathed. Together they planned, together they starved.

They'd go to gay bars in midweek for the free food on offer during happy hour. Little Eddie had a dream of making it as a mobster and they'd go to mob restaurants looking to hook up with the big boys. A couple of minor jobs came their way, but they proved miserable failures. Thus they parted company, Rourke going back to bouncing and Little Eddie pursuing a life in organised crime.

. What money Rourke was earning was being spent on his career. He began to take private lessons with the famed acting coach Sandra Seacat, a forward-thinker with a spiritual and holistic approach. She would teach him how to develop a character in the context of a piece, how to employ psychology and dream life to find the truth in a role, and would score him roles in off-Broadway productions, though Rourke would usually argue with the director and be sacked before the play opened. She also had close connections with the Actors Studio, had worked with Brando and was currently helping the young likes of De Niro, Pacino, Keitel, Walken and Jessica Lange (she'd later teach Laura Dern). Gradually she built Rourke up for a shot at the Actors Studio. Yet even when she felt he was ready for an audition in front of Lee Strasberg, there was another task to fulfil. Seacat was concerned not only with what an actor might bring to a character, but with what a character might bring to the actor. For Rourke's audition she had chosen a scene from Tennessee Williams' Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. Rourke would be Brick, forever in the shadow of his illustrious father, Big Daddy. For Rourke to truly inhabit the role, she thought, he would have to confront his feelings for his own father. So, taking her advice, he got in touch with some relatives in Schenectady and discovered his father's haunts. He found him in his favourite bar, watched him for a while, saw how he'd let himself go to seed, how that once buff body had softened and bulged. Finally he plucked up the courage to introduce himself and they spent several hours talking. It was strange, but amicable. It was also the last time they'd ever meet, Phillip Sr dying soon afterwards.

Rourke would return to New York for his audition and Sandra Seacat would be proven absolutely correct. Having examined his emotions in the face of his father, Rourke played Brick brilliantly and was taken on at the Actors Studio. De Niro, Pacino, Keitel and Walken were all enjoying success on film and onstage, but still returned to the studio to keep sharp. Rourke would see them all in action, and even become friends with Walken. The training was invaluable, the connections important, but still Rourke had that problem with authority. Just as he'd warred with his teachers at school and the directors off-Broadway, now he was busting up with Lee Strasberg. Feeling that he wasn't getting what he wanted from the studio, and unable to take Strasberg's criticism, Rourke quit.

Nevertheless, seeing something special in him, Sandra Seacat persevered and gave him the prime part of Eddie Carbone in her workshop production of A View From The Bridge. So well did it go that Rourke received effusive praise from Arthur Miller himself. Still, it was just a workshop. Seacat was adamant that Rourke was wasting himself. He musn't stick around in New York theatre, spending his talent in workshops. He needed to get out there and act, to use his looks and go for films. Rourke, headstrong and opinionated but always lacking in self-confidence, was unsure. He'd given himself five years to make it in New York and it hadn't happened. He went back to Miami to rethink his future and, seeing his friends in the same place, just a little further down a bad line, he decided to follow Seacat's advice. Hollywood would be his next target.

. Moving to Los Angeles in 1978, Rourke would get himself a manager (Bob LeMond, currently hitting big with John Travolta), and an agent. Very quickly he would get his first film role. He was only an extra, but the film was a peach, 1941, the latest by the hottest director around, Steven Spielberg. As it turned out, 1941, did not live up to the expectations of those who'd wanted another Jaws or Close Encounters. A screwball comedy that saw Hollywood thrown into panic when it's threatened with attack by an off-course Japanese sub, it wasn't the financial disaster many claimed it to be, but it was a disappointing mess. It was a disappointment for Rourke, too. He'd appear in the background of several scenes - in a tank, on a mattress, bobbing around in the ocean, shouting "Torpedo!" - but he was disturbed by the chaos of it all, the effects and the madness. After five years in New York he took acting deadly seriously, and acting, it seemed, had an insignificant role to play in 1941.

His next few experiences were far more positive. On TV he'd appear in 1980's ABC drama City In Fear, based on the real-life case of serial killer Son Of Sam and starring David Janssen as a jaded journalist ordered by editor Robert Vaughn to hunt down the murderer and boost the paper's sales. As the film explored the relationship between the government, the media and the people, Rourke would large it up as the killer enjoying his new-found notoriety. It was a troubled project, with director Jud Taylor playing the Alan Smithee card, but the screenplay would win an Edgar Allan Poe award. Sadly Janssen would not live to see the programme aired. Next would come Act Of Love, another powerful TV drama also directed by Jud Taylor, this time based on the true-life tale of George Zygmanik. Here Rourke would play a young motorcycle enthusiast who's reduced to quadriplegia by an accident. Unable to face such a restricted life, he begs his younger brother, played by Ron Howard, then coming to the end of his stint in Happy Days, to kill him. This he does, and must then stand trial for first degree murder.

1980 would also see the release of Rourke's second movie, the first to feature him in a proper role. This was Fade To Black where uber-geek Dennis Christopher would work in a film plant by day and watch movies all night, the films taking him into a world far better than the one where he's teased by his fellow workers and persecuted by his wheelchair-bound aunt. When he thinks he's stood up by Marilyn Monroe lookalike Linda Kerridge, he snaps, killing his aunt in the time-honoured Richard Widmark fashion and embarks on a series of revenge killings, dressing up as movie characters to add spice to the slaughter. Rourke would play one of his bullying co-workers, calling Christopher a shithead, pretending to strangle him and refusing to pay up on a film trivia bet he's lost. For this, as he and a buddy cruise a funfair, stealing from coconut shies and hunting for girls, he's shot to death on a shadowy boardwalk by Christopher, done up as a weird mannequin-like Hopalong Cassidy. It was a strange film, really quite moving, a flawed portrait of a mental breakdown rather than one of the slasher pics commonplace at the time. And Rourke's talent was already shining through, his character being tough, jokey but also utterly bewildered by his own unexpected and grossly unfair demise.

. Rourke's next TV role would be another good one. This was in Rape And Marriage: The Rideout Case, based on a real 1978 Oregon court case where John Rideout became the first man indicted for sexual assault against his own wife. Rourke would play Rideout, with Linda Hamilton as the accusing wife Greta, Rourke bringing humanity to his character as he flips from easy-going vulnerability to sudden rage. He'd be picked out by reviewers for his "powerfully unconventional" performance.

The parts were coming but Rourke needed more. Still he was working as a bouncer at a transvestite club on Hollywood Boulevard. What he wanted was a meaty role in a classy production, something that would get him noticed and satisfy his desire to do good, important work. For this reason he turned down a lucrative part in a miniseries, instead taking a small role in Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. He secured this part thanks to the recommendation of his friend Christopher Walken, who'd won an Oscar for his unforgettable efforts in Cimino's last film, The Deer Hunter. Called in for an interview with Cimino he threw a clod of earth onto the director's desk, explaining that this was how he saw the film - gritty and of the land. Cimino liked his cheek and hired him.

Heaven's Gate would concern the Johnson County cattle wars of the 1880s, with Kris Kristofferson as a sheriff attempting to protect immigrant farmers from rich and violent land barons. Walken would play a hired hitman, with Rourke as his shy sidekick, Nick Ray, the character being named after the esteemed director of Rebel Without A Cause.

It should've been a classic, one of the great epic westerns, but Cimino, in seeking perfection, disregarded his budget. Costs rose steeply, to the extent that the studio, United Artists, was almost bankrupted. The film was deemed too long, too slow. It was hacked up, assaulted by critics and ignored by audiences. Within a year of beginning his Hollywood career, Rourke had appeared in two of the worst disasters in cinema history.

. Suddenly, it all changed. Rourke's next film would be a winner and he would be on his way. This was Lawrence Kasdan's Body Heat, where William Hurt would play a small-time Florida lawyer, drawn into an affair with femme fatale Kathleen Turner, persuaded to murder her husband, then double-crossed. Rourke would only appear in two scenes but would stand out as an arsonist Hurt has got off the hook. First, after singing along to Bob Seger's I Feel Like A Number, he'd try to make Hurt see sense when he asks for help in building a firebomb ("I got a serious question for you. What the fuck are you doing?") then, when taken down on another charge, he'd warn Hurt that the hounds are on his tail. Just two scenes, just two days of filming, but Rourke was so cool, so charismatic, that he got himself noticed where it mattered. Pauline Kael would note his presence.

His personal life would also take an upturn when taking a part in Hardcase, a pilot for an intended series where Beau Kayser would play, yes, a maverick cop going beyond the law to bring perps to justice. Set in New Orleans, it would see Rourke as a rough ex-con who's killed Kayser's partner. Despite being written by Stirling Silliphant, who'd earlier penned such classics as In The Heat Of The Night, Charly, The Killer Elite and The Enforcer, the show would not be picked up. However, Rourke did walk away with a new girlfriend in Debra Feuer, who'd co-starred as Kayser's colleague and love interest. She'd later say that, on first impression, she'd considered Rourke to be a bit of a nutter, rarely stepping out of character. But Rourke kept turning up at her house in a Cadillac, offering to take her out. She was in a relationship at the time, but he persisted and, when she soon split with her boyfriend, she moved directly on to Rourke. They'd marry a year later. Feuer, whose brother Ian played in goal both for West Ham United and the USA, had made her onscreen debut back in 1977 in Beyond Reason, written and directed by and starring Telly Savalas. She'd been in many popular TV shows - Fantasy Island, The Love Boat, The Dukes Of Hazzard - and in John Travolta's Moment By Moment. Now, with Rourke, she formed half of one of Hollywood's hippest up-and-coming couples. Later, she'd reveal how Rourke's tough guy image was largely a front. In fact, she said, when she met him he was hugely oversensitive, a walking mass of phobias, afraid of flying and entering the ocean for fear of sharks. He was socially inept in so many ways.

Rourke was now on a major roll, the offers flying in.

His Body Heat director Lawrence Kasdan would try to get him involved in The Big Chill, but Rourke would turn him down, feeling the movie was not really his thing. Instead, he moved on to a film where he could really stand out. This was Diner, an indie flick set in director Barry Levinson's hometown of Baltimore back in 1959. Here a gang of friends - Rourke, Steve Guttenberg, Kevin Bacon, Paul Reiser, Timothy Daly and Daniel Stern - would all hang around the titular eating-house, drinking coffee, smoking and discussing women, sport and the future, all of them being on the cusp of manhood. Rourke would be Boogie Sheftell, the star amongst them, a hairdresser with a way with the ladies and a gambling problem. Much of the drama and many of the laughs would centre around him, classic scenes seeing him push his knob through the bottom of a box of popcorn he's sharing with a date at the pictures (and then managing to explain it away), and persuading Stern's disgruntled wife Ellen Barkin to wear a blonde wig while they have bet-winning sex with Bacon secretly looking on. In many ways he was a real rotter, but also a true charmer and, when muscled by a street bookie, wholly vulnerable, even innocent. And it all could've been for nothing. MGM had thought Levinson was going to be delivering another Porky's and were mortified when they saw what would later be described as the thinking man's American Graffiti. They tried to dump it, but Levinson, confident in what he'd made, arranged a screening in New York that garnered excellent reviews. MGM came back onboard and the movie took five times its budget. After this and Body Heat, Rourke was getting hot.

. Before Diner was even released, Rourke would be approached by Nicolas Roeg, legendary director of Walkabout and Don't Look Now, to appear in his first film since The Man Who Fell To Earth. This was Eureka! where Gene Hackman, having made a fortune digging gold in the Yukon, has bought an island in the Caribbean where he lives in total luxury. His money cannot buy him happiness, though, as his wife Jane Lapotaire is an alcoholic, his daughter Theresa Russell has married arch playboy Rutger Hauer, while his business partner has made a secret deal with mobster Joe Pesci to build a casino on the island. Rourke would appear as Pesci's lawyer, but would be underused. Indeed the whole film would be little-seen. First it would be held back for over a year, then shorn of its violence and erotica to avoid an X Rating. A shame as Roeg - thoughtful, brilliant and often controversial - was exactly the kind of director to appreciate Rourke's artistic leanings.

Nevertheless, despite this jot of ill-fortune, Rourke was still on the up. After his beautiful and ambitious One From The Heart had brought him close to financial ruin, Francis Ford Coppola had decided to consolidate his position by making two low-budget pics based on the novels of SE Hinton. First there'd be The Outsiders, for which Rourke would audition.

Coppola did not have a place for him, but liked him and hired him for the companion piece, Rumble Fish. Indeed, he liked him so much he re-wrote the part of Motorcycle Boy around him. Set in the 1950s and shot in black and white, Rumble Fish would see Matt Dillon as the leader of a gang of punks, a mixed-up kid desperate to emulate the street heroics of his mythical brother, Rourke. Rourke has left town to bring an end to mutually destructive gang wars that are now starting again. Now he returns, but he cannot aid Dillon, and so the younger kid's life begins to disintegrate. Dark, foggy, romantic and often otherworldly, Rumble Fish was, according to Coppola, "an art film for teenagers". And Rourke, ineffably cool throughout, had never looked so good.

. It proved to be a difficult shoot for Rourke. He'd begun to write to his father in order to rekindle their relationship. Phillip Sr was due to visit. However, now Phillip Sr was dying and it hit Rourke hard. As a good pupil of Sandra Seacat always would, he put his pain and confusion into his performance, and turned to his co-star, Dennis Hopper, who was playing his father in the film. Hopper, a creative bad boy who'd made his name outside the system, was just the kind of example he needed.

Next would come another excellent showcase for Rourke's talents. This was The Pope Of Greenwich Village, a chance to reunite with his Heaven's Gate director Michael Cimino. Originally, the two young brothers at the centre of the action were to be Robert De Niro and Al Pacino. Then De Niro dropped out and was replaced by Rourke. Pacino now had misgivings and was replaced by Eric Roberts, fortuitous as Rourke and Roberts made a brilliant pairing, Roberts the loose cannon always looking for a get-rich-quick scheme, and Rourke his more responsible brother, keen to support his pregnant girlfriend Daryl Hannah and dreaming of opening a restaurant in the country but forever drawn into his brother's ill-fated plans. The tale would include robbery, accidental death, mutilation and revenge, but it was really about the relationship between Rourke and Roberts and the two actors played it superbly, maintaining consistent excellence even after Cimino was removed and replaced by Stuart Rosenberg.

In the last four years Rourke's life had changed utterly, and it certainly affected him. After years of dreaming and starving in New York he was not going to miss out on the opportunities afforded to him by his newfound fame. He bought a house for his wife Debra Feuer, where she would live on her own, for himself taking a lease on a penthouse suite in New York's Mayflower Hotel, right on Central Park. He bought flash cars and motorbikes, purchased his own trailer. At warp speed he blew money on himself and his friends. With his marriage now long-distance he did not spurn the women who threw themselves at him, and had an ashamedly public relationship with the actress and supermodel Lauren Hutton.

They even gave interviews together and were together involved in a road accident when Rourke totalled his Mercedes. Feuer said that Rourke had been turned by the attention and the money, describing him as Jekyll and Hyde.

. Rourke's behaviour wasn't pleasant but it was easily understandable. He was living the life and, with the Pope Of Greenwich Village about to be released, it looked like he was going to really crack the big time, despite having turned down Beverly Hills Cop (originally intended as a vehicle for Sylvester Stallone). He was hot, really hot after Diner and Rumble Fish, Roberts had just made a splash with Star 80 and Hannah with, er, Splash. They'd made a great film, what could go wrong?

Unfortunately, a regime change was taking place at MGM and The Pope Of Greenwich Village was no longer a priority release. Some of Rourke's best work would now only be seen by a few. Still, despite having no major hits to his name, Rourke was seen as cool, the new Brando, the new James Dean. Now he'd reunite properly with Michael Cimino and headline in Year Of The Dragon, a movie scripted by Oliver Stone, riding high after penning Midnight Express and Scarface. Based on the real-life exploits of New York detective Stanley White, the film would see Rourke as a bad-ass cop assigned to Chinatown where John Lone's Joey Tai has taken over the triads and is waging war on the Italian mob. It was gritty and surprisingly low-key, with Rourke's character being unusually dislikeable - selfish, obsessive and no friend of the oriental after his experiences in Vietnam. It was brilliantly shot with excellent action sequences, but audiences stayed away. Rourke was disappointed again, and now worried that, with no hits, he'd soon no longer be able to afford his excessive lifestyle. Many projects were mooted. He spoken to Stone about playing the role later taken by Tom Berenger in Platoon (though the story was very different when Rourke was involved). There was a hope of matching him up with Eric Roberts once more in a movie about the James gang. He might also be Wyatt Earp to Roberts' Doc Holliday. There was a biopic of uncompromising baseball star Ty Cobb, another of gangster Legs Diamond, and yet another of Jerry Lee Lewis, Rourke even learning to play piano for the role. Most of these films would eventually be made, none featuring Rourke. To add to this he was sent the script for Top Gun, another huge hit that was not up his street. Over this period he'd also turn down Highlander, The Untouchables and Rain Man.

Rourke was very picky about his roles, his criteria being extremely intricate. He wanted money - that's for sure - and he also wanted to look cool, sexy and tough, in order to maintain his public image. But beyond this he wanted to play testing characters with complex inner lives. He wanted to strike a blow for all the artists out there, prove that proper films could be made, despite the money-grubbing iniquities of the Hollywood system.

And so came Nine 1/2 Weeks, one of the more misunderstood movies of our time. As the new Brando, this was Rourke's attempt to deliver a new Last Tango In Paris, an explicit and psychologically challenging masterpiece. The movie would see Kim Basinger as a young innocent working in an art gallery and dreaming of catching a good guy. Instead she's enticed by a mysterious Rourke, clearly wealthy and high-powered, who seduces her and gradually leads her into unknown social and sexual terrain. Though she's taken by the adventure and the new pleasures on offer, she comes to realise that he's giving her nothing of himself, indeed he's dangerously obsessed with order and control. She wears the clothes he gives her, dances for him, obeys his commands, submits to mild S&M, even stabs a man for him, but eventually recognises that she will find satisfaction only in freedom.

. Naturally, the film quickly became notorious. The sex scene on the dirty steps in the pouring rain ensured that on its own. It also made a lot of money, mostly in Europe where Rourke's turn as the Motorcycle Boy had won him a giant cult following. It would actually play in one Paris theatre for over two years. But, as with The Pope Of Greenwich Village and Year Of The Dragon, Rourke was bitterly disappointed with the film's reception in America. He was also furious at the cuts made by the studio to avoid an X-rating, considering the finished product to be annoyingly timid. Indeed, watching the film you can see where certain doors have been opened then swiftly closed. One scene where Rourke buys a whip and, much to the discomfort of the vendors, proceeds to violently swish it about and then strike a clearly turned-on Basinger obviously led to darker matters. Still, there was much to admire in the performances, Rourke being especially excellent as he moves from out-and-out charmer to cold manipulator. Furthermore, the final confrontation, where he tries to regain control over a departing Basinger by opening up about his past, revealed real vulnerability and was genuinely moving and interesting, particularly in his reaction when she's gone. It was easy to see why Rourke was so peeved he didn't take another film role for a year, though he did appear on David Bowie's Never Let Me Down album, sharing a rap with Bowie in the song Shining Star, an odd little number featuring "poor little bodies covered in scabs".

Eventually, he'd be drawn back by his need for cash. But, being Rourke, he wasn't drawn back by any old project. This was Alan Parker's Angel Heart, which would see him co-star alongside his old Actors Studio hero Robert De Niro, as well as Charlotte Rampling and Lisa Bonet. Originally an intended vehicle for Robert Redford, Parker had attained the rights and asked De Niro to play the lead of Harry Angel, but he didn't have the time. Al Pacino was approached, and Jack Nicholson. Indeed, Parker wasn't keen on Rourke at all as he by now had a reputation for being a difficult customer.

Later, though, Parker would have something interesting to say about Rourke. He wasn't difficult, said Parker, just naughty. His thing was that he didn't want to be a film star. Film stars were boring like Harrison Ford. What Rourke wanted was to be more like a rock star, like David Bowie, an artistic chameleon, walking the edge and coming back with reports.

. As it turned out, Parker found that what Rourke wanted and needed most was to be pushed hard by a committed artist. Rourke was under pressure. His marriage was collapsing, he was under financial stress and was suffering huge tabloid intrusion due to the notoriety of Nine 1/2 Weeks. Always there were medical bills to pay for his brother Joey who'd been diagnosed with cancer at 17. Still, he played another blinder as the seedy, cynical detective hired by De Niro to hunt down a former lounge singer, digging into the underground of New Orleans and becoming ever more involved in a world of voodoo, psychics and murder. Again there would be controversy, particularly over Rourke's extraordinary sex scene with Bonet, hitherto known as the clean-living daughter on Bill Cosby's hugely popular family show. And what a scene it was, with blood everywhere and deep hints of incest. An X-Rating was hard to avoid, and Rourke would himself accompany Parker to meetings with the ratings board. Yet more bullshit. Yet more grist to the mill.

Rourke would move straight on into A Prayer For The Dying, adapted from the novel by Jack Higgins and directed by Mike Hodges. This would see Rourke as an IRA terrorist who wants out. Needing a fake passport and safe transport to the States, he agrees to one last job, a job that goes horribly wrong. Priest Bob Hoskins is a witness, and Rourke is ordered to kill him, but cannot, further complications being added by Hoskins' blind niece, who falls for Rourke, and the IRA and the British authorities, both out to get him. Once again Rourke would be stymied in his attempts to get real. He wanted to delve into his character's psychological torment while the producers were after shoot 'em up action. Rourke hated the final product and attacked both the film and producer Samuel Goldwyn Jr. Not only that, but in an interview with Playboy he piled into the whole of Hollywood, declaring himself disgusted by studio interference that placed money ahead of art. On the door of his trailer, known as the (Silver)Fish, was a sign saying "Executive Producers stay the fuck out". Beyond this, deliberately avoiding the company of Hollywood types, he'd begun to surround himself with "real" people - bikers, thugs, "businessmen", many of whom were leeching off his fame and wealth. He was fast alienating anyone who might want to give him a job.

While filming A Prayer For The Dying in London, Rourke was tracked down by director Barbet Schroeder who wanted him for the lead in Charles Bukowski's semi-autobiographical Barfly. At first Rourke was vehemently against the idea, having lost several family members (including his father) to alcoholism. But Schroeder persisted and Rourke finally agreed. Still all was not set fair. Just days before the shoot the production was nearly shut down when the Cannon group hit financial difficulties, Rourke's old pal Francis Ford Coppola stepping in to keep it going.

Barfly would see Rourke as a tatty, drunken but dignified writer who sleeps in a shabby room and more or less lives in the pub. One day he meets in there Faye Dunaway and the pair drink, talk and flirt, building a relationship that's threatened by the entrance of rich and beautiful Alice Krige, publisher of a magazine that's bought some of Rourke's work. It was unforgiving in its portrayal of bar-life, very real but also darkly amusing. And once again Rourke would see himself ignored in America (though Dunaway would win a Golden Globe) and feted in Europe, the film being nominated for the Palme D'Or at Cannes.

As said, Rourke was publicly scathing about the Hollywood system and at times became so depressed and paranoid he could not leave the house. However, he didn't simply sit on his arse and complain, he got on with his own project, Homeboy, based on a fellow Rourke had known back in Miami, a boxer who, unlike Rourke, had followed that path into crime. At first, Rourke planned to write, direct and star, but found this to be too much, handing the directing reins over to Michael Seresin, who'd worked as cinematographer on most of Alan Parker's films. To co-star he'd bring in his friend Christopher Walken and his soon-to-be ex-wife Debra Feuer who'd recently raised her profile with a plum role as counterfeiter Willem Dafoe's girlfriend in William Friedkin's hard-hitting To Live And Die In LA.

Homeboy would see Rourke as an aging boxer in a run-down seaside resort. Though he knows one more punch could kill him, he wants one more shot at a big purse, partly for his own pride, partly to repair his lover Feuer's carousel at the fairground. Alternatively, he could help small-time entertainer Walken steal diamonds from a jewellery store. His choices would torture him as the film explored love, shame and desire. It was dark but life-affirming stuff, an impressive effort. Yet such was his reduced clout in America it went straight to video, over a year after it had been released to the ever-faithful French.

With his life in turmoil, Rourke now took off for Italy. This would give him a break from the States and a chance to do some challenging work with Liliana Cavani who'd caused controversy in 1974 with The Night Porter, featuring Rourke's Angel Heart co-star Charlotte Rampling.

The film they'd make together would be Francesco, a new take on the life of St Francis of Assisi (Cavani had actually made an earlier attempt back in 1966). Here Rourke would star as the titular good guy, beginning as the arrogant playboy son of a rich man then, disturbed by war, becoming a flamboyant humanist zealot. Rourke would be typically intense as this religious mystic, rolling naked in the snow and battling to found the Franciscan order, while Helena Bonham Carter would act as his inspiration and fellow saint.

. Rourke's inevitable return to Hollywood would see him in Walter Hill's Johnny Handsome, a reunion with his Diner co-star Ellen Barkin. Here Rourke would play a petty crook, horribly disfigured from birth, who gets stitched up in a robbery by Barkin and Lance Henriksen. His partner's killed and he's jailed. On the inside, doctor Forest Whitaker believes Rourke's face might be the source of his criminal tendencies and gives him a new one, much to the chagrin of cop Morgan Freeman, who reckons Rourke was born bad. Upon his release he struggles to go straight with new belle Elizabeth McGovern but, hoping for revenge, gets involved with Barkin and Henriksen again, though they don't recognise him, , all the while tailed by a suspicious Freeman. It was an interesting premise but, Rourke would say, it was over-complicated. Yet again he would bomb at the box-office.

This lack of hits was getting to Rourke and he desperately needed money. His marriage to Debra Feuer was over and she was asking for half of all wealth accrued during their union. Possessed of both Catholic guilt and a generous spirit, Rourke went against the advice of his lawyers and gave her much more - the house, the car, pots of cash, pretty much everything. To re-boost his finances, he turned to Zalman King, producer and co-writer of his one big Euro-hit, Nine 1/2 Weeks, soon to produce the Red Shoe Diaries series. With King now directing, they would have another stab at intellectual erotica.

Rourke would be involved in every aspect of Wild Orchid from the start. Brooke Shields was considered for the female lead but shied away from the nudity. Supermodel Cindy Crawford then stepped in, but pulled out just before shooting began. Desperate auditions were held and a newcomer, Carre Otis was chosen. Otis, born in San Francisco in 1968, had become a model at 18 and quickly rose to the status of cover star. Her 1988 ad for Guess jeans had brought her yet more fame. She was also troubled. She'd had problems with drink and drugs from an early age and modelling had seen her relapse as such excesses generally keep you thin. Still, Rourke and King saw charisma in her and she was chosen.

Wild Orchid would see Otis as a naive young lawyer hired by Jacqueline Bisset (who'd earlier turned down the lead in Nine 1/2 Weeks) to help negotiate a property deal in Rio. But that's only part of Bisset's plan. She's been sexually rejected by Rourke's enigmatic property tycoon and wants to know if he's frigid or simply cold towards her in particular. So she uses Otis as a lure and, sure enough, Rourke bites, though, like his character in Nine 1/2 Weeks, he's also deeply controlling, seducing Otis then pushing her into a sexual relationship with American businessman Bruce Greenwood. Thus, while experiencing her own sexual awakening, she's used in a power struggle between Bisset and Rourke.

Compared to Nine 1/2 Weeks, Wild Orchid was weak, shot like a Seventies B-movie and only mildly entertaining and erotic. It's real selling-point came from the fact that Rourke had fallen hard for Otis on-set and, it was rumoured, the sex scenes were for real. This notoriety saved the film from financial catastrophe, but did not make it a hit. Still, at least he had Otis.

Rourke would have two more shots at Hollywood success in this early stage of his career. First, he'd reunite with Michael Cimino yet again for Desperate Hours, a remake of the 1955 Humphrey Bogart hit. This would see Rourke as a super-crook who gets his lawyer Kelly Lynch to smuggle a gun into court and uses it to escape. Getting his gang together, he now needs to hide out, and does so by taking over a house in the suburbs belonging to Anthony Hopkins and Mimi Rogers. However, their plan in complicated by the fact that Hopkins, who's strayed with a younger woman and left Rogers to look after their teenage daughter and young son, now wants to return. Emotions are already at boiling-point and the intruders, with their threats of violence, make the situation explosive. Again, great premise, but no success. But at least it was better than Rourke's next offering, Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man. This was an ill-conceived buddy movie where alpha male drifters Rourke and Don Johnson pull together to save their favourite Rock'n'Roll Bar & Grill. Their plan is to rob the bank attempting to close the bar and make the payments with the money stolen. However, when they turn over an armoured car what they find is not cash but a stash of some new mega-drug that the bank's directors have been secretly dealing. Now they must take on the big boys, heavily armed thugs with hi-tech weapons.

It was incredibly macho fare, punches in the face being a form of affection. Reference was made to that other, infinitely superior, buddy movie, Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, when the pair leap from the top of a building into a swimming-pool. But, though some of the action was impressive, its attempts at easy charm were unconvincing. It was all so contrived, so silly. The reviews were properly vicious and the film tanked.

This was as much as Rourke could take.

He'd been a huge star now for several years now, he'd worked with Cimino, Parker and Coppola, but had never had a mainstream hit in the States. His every attempt to make a strong, artistic but popular movie had been wrecked, he thought, by interfering executives utterly unqualified to do the job. He desperately wanted his own project, something he could control, something no one else could ruin. A plan to star in a movie about the notorious Westies, a murderous Irish gang in Hell's Kitchen, where Rourke was to have played the psychologically disturbed enforcer and supergrass Mickey Featherstone, fell through. Nothing was going to happen in Hollywood where his reputation meant that no one would back him to the extent he required. So, in order to take control of his life, to be a real man and not a Hollywood cissy, he made the extraordinary decision to turn his back on his film career and return to the sport he had left some 20 years before - boxing.

. Rourke had continued to spar and train throughout his thespian years. Even so, his age and his lifestyle stood against him. He was surely in for a righteous pasting when he climbed into the ring with guys who did this for a living. But now his headstrong nature, his refusal to budge, all the characteristics that made him such a pain in the arse in Hollywood came to his aid. After a series of amateur bouts and a period spent training under Freddie Roach back at Miami's 5th Street Gym, he turned pro, making his debut at Fort Lauderdale in May, 1991. Nicknamed El Marielito - a reminder of his years among the Cuban exiles back in Miami - he'd go through seven pro fights, coming ever closer to the title shot he dreamed of. Sadly, it was not to be. The damage he suffered in the ring - a broken cheekbone, broken hands, broken nose, broken ribs, several concussions - was too much. Carre Otis, who he'd married in 1992 three days after a 10,000 sell-out fight in Tokyo, finally managed to convince him that his now-slurred speech was a sign of more serious problems to come, and he'd officially retire in 1994. Though disappointed, he'd made his point. All his opponents had been especially fired up, eager to crack the head of this Hollywood upstart. But he'd won each of his encounters and earned, it was reported, around $1.2 million (though clearly his purses were higher because of his name rather than his boxing exploits).

This was not the only disappointment he suffered during this period. His marriage to Otis was passionate but troubled. Drink and drugs didn't help. Even before the marriage there'd been trouble when in 1991 a handgun had accidentally gone off in Otis's purse in a Santa Fe hotel room. In July of 1994 Rourke was arrested on suspicion of assault and spousal abuse. Though the charges were dropped the rumours continued and his mug-shot appeared in papers all over the world.

He'd also be arrested outside his own club in Miami for causing a disturbance and resisting arrest after throwing misbehaving punters of the premises (the club's name would be changed from Mickey's to XTC when it was thought that his name was no longer a draw). Otis was addicted to heroin and Rourke fought to free her of the curse, but everything was messed up. Beyond this he'd been hanging with a bad crowd - Hell's Angels, leeches, thugs, even the mafia boss John Gotti who he'd met in the flash Manhattan restaurant Danoi in the late Eighties (Rourke would attend Gotti's 1991 murder trial as "a friend", and it was Gotti who asked Rourke to pull his film about the Westies, believing that it might embarrass some of his associates). He'd split from Otis, reconcile, then split again. The bank would foreclose on his Hollywood Hills home and, in July, 1994, he'd be admitted to Cedars Sinai Hospital with "suicidal thoughts" and be held for 29 hours. He'd end up living in a $700 a month studio flat in LA, being loaned money by his old hairdresser friend Guiseppe Franco. He could no longer afford to pay for his brother Joey's cancer treatment, indeed he couldn't even afford a ticket to go and see him in Miami. Otis would eventually clean up and go back to modelling. Rourke was left to pick up the pieces of his career.

. Throughout his boxing career, Rourke had taken roles here and there, to keep his hand in and to keep the money flowing. He'd rejoined Mimi Rogers in White Sands where deputy sheriff Willem Dafoe would find a dead man and a case of money in the desert, then take on the man's identity in order to solve the crime, becoming involved in an FBI sting operation that hoped to ensnare arms dealer Rourke and his mysterious associate Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. In The Last Outlaw he'd played the psychotic leader of a gang of bank robbers who, after a bloody Wild Bunch-style robbery is shot by his own men and left for dead. Joining the posse chasing the crooks he seeks his own violent revenge. Following this would come the melancholy, occasionally violent love story FTW, co-written by Rourke (under the moniker Sir Eddie Cook). Here Rourke would be an ex con rodeo rider, down-at-heel and trying to straighten out Lori Singer, a girl on the run from the law. Then there'd be Fall Time, set in the late Fifties, where a group of high school kids plan to shake up the town at graduation by pulling up outside the bank, pretending to shoot a waiting friend, throwing the supposed corpse in the boot and driving off at high speed. Instead they wind up in the midst of a real robbery and kidnap Stephen Baldwin, the accomplice and lover of arch criminal Rourke who is, it turns out, a street philosopher and sadistic torturer. None of these, naturally, were a patch on Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, a film Rourke had carelessly ignored.

Tarantino had wanted Rourke to play the washed-up boxer Butch eventually played by Bruce Willis, but Rourke, then training for a fight in Kansas City, had not responded. Another chance had passed him by.

. These were the wilderness years, where he took what work he could yet, no matter how powerful he was onscreen, he could not relaunch. He went into therapy, a path he had hitherto considered wimpy. Out came all of his abandonment and shame issues, the stuff he'd hidden behind his tough guy persona. Out came his resentment of fame and money and autograph hunters and public attention - he'd needed all these things years before and never received them. But though therapy began to calm him personally, it did nothing to change the industry's antagonism towards him. Every chance he was given, no matter how well he responded, led to nothing. His former attitude and lifestyle seemed to have destroyed any chance of ever returning to the big time.

Next would come Exit In Red, an erotic thriller where he'd play an Beverly Hills psychiatrist accused of harassment and moving to Palm Springs. Here he starts a new life with lawyer Carre Otis but, addicted to sex, begins an affair with rich, married Annabel Schofield and is framed when Schofield and her other lover kill her husband. He'd move on to Bullet, the last film to star Tupac Shakur. Here Rourke would again co-write and involve himself in music supervision. In the film, he'd play a junkie released from the Big House after some eight years and immediately slipping back into the criminal underworld. When he turns over a courier for drug lord Shakur he's in big trouble. As said, Shakur would not make another movie. Indeed, he would be gunned down before Bullet was released, a blow to Rourke who'd come to like the man, believing they shared both artistic leanings and an undeserved reputation. As his death unfortunately proved, Shakur was "real" and Rourke had always gravitated towards that, be it in the form of the IRA, the Hell's Angels or the mafia.

In his search for work and a pay-day, Rourke would now find himself in the absurd Euro-flick Double Team, where counter-terrorist Jean-Claude Van Damme would get together with basketball star Dennis Rodman to take on bad guy Rourke, a bad guy made even badder by the death of his son in an Antwerp shoot-out. Indeed, so bad is Rourke that he kidnaps Van Damme's son and puts him in the Colisseum with landmines - and a tiger. More failure would follow with Another Nine 1/2 Weeks, continuing on from the original, with Rourke character now suicidal after the loss of Kim Basinger, winding up in Paris and getting into kinky trouble with fashion designer Angie Everhart. There was torrid sex in unusual places, lesbianism and orgiastic beatnik parties, but it was uninspired stuff. It was a sign of Rourke's fall that Basinger herself declined to reprise her role - preferring instead to win an Oscar for LA Confidential.

Rourke's next release was interesting, in that it proved without doubt that, despite his trials and all the dodgy movies, Rourke was still eminently capable of brilliance. This was The Rainmaker, a John Grisham adaptation by his old buddy Francis Ford Coppola. Here Matt Damon would play a young idealistic lawyer who signs on with a firm run by a fabulously sleazy Rourke, an unashamedly ambulance chaser with jazzy suits, white hair and a goatee. Rourke immediately sends Damon off to the hospital with dogsbody Danny DeVito to rustle up some trade, but quickly they form their own business when Rourke's dealings catch up with him and he's pursued by the Feds, Damon going on to confront the might of insurance company lawyer Jon Voight. Rourke was great in this small role, a role that would have been even smaller had not test audiences loved him so much that Coppola wrote some extra for him.

. Following this, Rourke would join the fine ensemble gathered by Vincent Gallo for Buffalo '66. Here Gallo would return to his odd family after time in prison, pretend to be in a loving relationship with dancer Christina Ricci and plot the murder of an American Football player, a man whose missed kick at the Superbowl saw Gallo lose a big bet. The bet was with a wholly seedy and aggressive Rourke who agreed to let Gallo off his debt if he took the fall for a friend of his and went to jail. If he didn't take the fall, well, he'd still owe the money and his parents would be killed. Next would come Point Blank where Rourke would be a former Texas Ranger and mercenary whose convict brother is reluctantly drawn into a corporate mastermind's plan to take over a mall and hold shoppers hostage. To save him Rourke would come on like a cross between Jackie Chan and Bruce Willis, kicking, punching, back-flipping and even using perfume as a deadly weapon. It was occasionally stirring, but always very silly. More serious but just as weak would be the TV movie Thicker Than Blood where Dan Futterman would be a recent graduate who decides against a career in law, choosing instead to teach under-privileged kids at an inner city mission school. Rourke would play a gruff Spencer Tracy-type priest warning Futterman not to form emotional bonds with his pupils. Rourke's final film of 1998 would be Thursday, where Thomas Jane would play an LA drugs dealer who leaves the life and reinvents himself as a Houston architect, not telling his new wife about his shady past. Then his former partner Aaron Eckhart shows up, followed by a raft of crazies after his stash. There be a Rasta assassin, a femme fatale, a crazed torturer and Rourke, a rogue cop who claims Eckhart owes him money. It was fast-paced, dirty and a little wild, but it in no way made up for Rourke's scenes as a veteran soldier in Terrence Malick's Thin Red Line hitting the cutting-room floor.

1999 would see no further break for Rourke.

He'd appear in Shergar as a tough and sinister IRA operative who steals the famous racehorse and hides him on David Warner's farm. Denied ransom he plots to kill the horse, but an orphaned farmboy runs off with it, as history became nicer in the rewriting. Next there'd be Out In Fifty where Scott Leet would be let out of jail after accidentally killing a woman, then fall for the wife of a guy who gives him a job. All the while he's pushed by Rourke's version of the Bad Lieutenant, a hard-drinking, drug-taking cop whose wife it was that Leet killed and who is obsessed with putting the ex con back behind bars. The year would end with the Belgian-made Shades, where a producer attempted to make a movie about a serial killer then in jail, hiring big-shot American star Andrew Howard and former hot-shot director Rourke. The media go after them for glamorising the killer and ignoring the victims - then the killer escapes.

. Though he was struggling, there were still mavericks out there willing to give Rourke a hand. One of these was Steve Buscemi, with whom he'd appeared in The Last Outlaw. Buscemi was putting together Animal Factory, written by Edward Bunker, where young Edward Furlong would befriended and protected in jail by Rourke's White sands co-star Willem Dafoe. Rourke would produce an extraordinary cameo as Furlong's transvestite cellmate, with cropped hair, lipstick, eyeshadow and a red bra. Drawing on the characters he met while bouncing in New York and LA, he'd explain about Dafoe in a soft, camp southern accent, deliver a moving monologue about his dream of turning into a butterfly and flying between the prison bars, and tell Furlong to "come down here and eat my pussy!" Everyone knew Rourke could be good. But this was really, really good.

Rourke's next benefactor would be Sylvester Stallone who'd now cast him in his dark, violent remake of Get Carter. Here Stallone would return to Seattle for his brother's funeral, only to find that the death was not, as he'd been told, accidental. To win favour with his sister-in-law Miranda Richardson and niece Rachel Leigh Cook, he goes hunting the killers and discovers a hardcore porn ring run by a repulsive but immensely hard Rourke who matches him stare for stare, threat for threat. Then there'd be another stand-out cameo in Sean Penn's The Pledge, where Jack Nicholson would play a veteran policeman on the day of his retirement who swears to catch the killer of a little girl. Rourke's Thursday co-star Aaron Eckhart would play a gung-ho cop who thinks Nicholson's losing his mind, while Rourke himself would play the father of another girl who's gone missing. When Nicholson visits him he's lost in thought, but quickly the memories flood back, his feelings of frustration, loss and shame overwhelming him. Rourke was in the film only for a couple of minutes but lent it a serious emotional weight it did not have before he appeared. Penn had wanted intensity.

that's why he hired Nicholson, Helen Mirren, Vanessa Redgrave, Benicio Del Toro - and Rourke.

. Gradually, these powerful cameos were getting Rourke noticed. Yet still he'd have to endure several more years of iffy roles. As well as The Pledge, 2001 would bring They Crawl where a lad would stumble upon a clandestine military experiment to use cockroaches as weapons, Rourke appearing for approximately two minutes as a loony white supremacist conspiracy theorist being questioned about a spate of odd killings. Next he'd join his Johnny Handsome co-star Forest Whitaker in The Follow, one of a series of BMW adverts starring Clive Owen. Here Rourke would pop up as a movie star who hires Owen to tail his wife, Adriana Lima, who he suspects of infidelity. After this would come the odd, flawed Picture Claire, where tough French Canadian Juliette Lewis would try to find an ex-boyfriend in Toronto and get drawn into a dodgy diamond deal involving Rourke's double-crossing thug and his sexy associate Gina Gershon. It was all small-time stuff, so Rourke had high hopes for In The Cut, being workshopped by Sandra Seacat. Unfortunately, the film's star, Nicole Kidman, would decide against Rourke, then drop out herself, leaving Meg Ryan and Mark Ruffalo to take the leads.

The biggest step that Rourke took at this time was to take on a new agent, David Unger. Unger's job was to gain attention for his client and demanded that Rourke take the pictures that he recommended. The first of these was Spun, directed by Swedish pop video merchant Jonas Akerlund. Rourke wasn't keen, but went along with Unger's assertion that it would grab headlines at film festivals. It was certainly eye-catching, a manic, bawdy comedy where young Jason Schwartzman would hook up with dealer John Leguizamo and go on a major crystal meth binge, the movie madly flitting between the antics of Schwartzman, Leguizamo and crazy chemist Rourke, at one point decked in a white jacket, white hat and white boots, marching through a sex shop declaring "Hoho! You know I take the pussy seriously". He's so low he doesn't mind that young Brittany Murphy is just sleeping with him for the drugs. Grimy and loopy, the film would at last see Rourke reunited with his Pope Of Greenwich Village co-star Eric Roberts.

Rourke's next cameo would be in Bob Dylan's Masked And Anonymous. Here, in an unknown country, during a civil war, dodgy promoters John Goodman And Jessica Lange would attempt to put on a benefit show set to star Dylan's enigmatic hobo superstar. Rourke would play an ambitious politico hoping to seize power when the currently dying dictator is gone. Of all the star names in the film - Jeff Bridges, Penelope Cruz, Ed Harris, Val Kilmer et al - he'd be the only one who actually acted alongside him, Dylan simply being his usual blank canvas for the rest of the film. Of course Dylan worried terribly about this, and would call Rourke for tips on how he should perform.

David Unger's work was bearing fruit, as were Rourke's own efforts over the past several years. He wasn't yet getting starring roles, but his cameos were now proper supporting parts and the movies were all big budget. Rourke's next appearance would be in Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon A Time In Mexico, the latest in his El Mariachi series, each starring Antonio Banderas. Here a military coup is taking place in Mexico, backed by evil drugs baron Willem Dafoe. CIA man Johnny Depp disapproves and hires Banderas to bring about a second regime change, with everyone cheating, double-crossing and shooting at everyone else. There'd be several strong showings, one of them being by Rourke as his former co-star Dafoe's associate, a fugitive criminal hiding out in Mexico and never letting go of his little white chihuahua. Next would come Man On Fire, directed by Tony Scott, whose Top Gun Rourke had rejected some 18 years before. Here Denzel Washington would play a former operative who cannot forgive himself for his failings in the past. Hired by Rourke's old buddy Christopher Walken to protect a Mexican industrialist and his family, he's driven to murderous extremes when their little girl, Dakota Fanning, is kidnapped. Rourke would show as the family lawyer, advising them on how to deal with the kidnappers and quite possibly being involved himself. It would be a strong picture, but undermined by its silly decision to turn Washington into a man of steel.

. Now would come a big step forward when Rourke reunited with Robert Rodriguez for Sin City, a multi-stranded story based on the dark graphic novels of Frank Miller. Many of Rourke's former co-stars would feature - Benicio Del Toro, Brittany Murphy, Clive Owen, even Rutger Hauer - with Rourke playing Marv, a strange, hulking creature who wakes up beside a dead whore, knows he'll take the rap and so goes out into the bleak, black and white criminal underground to find out what actually happened. His weird face and physique would make him appear an invincible monster, but his heart was agonizingly broken. Though he was not the lead in any of them, Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Man On Fire and Sin City were all impressive hits, a first-time hat-trick for Rourke. His fortunes were certainly changing. This good news would unfortunately be balanced by the death of his brother Joey, finally taken by cancer.

For his next picture he'd stick with Tony Scott. This was the real-life story Domino, where Keira Knightley would play the titular daughter of actor Laurence Harvey, a privileged and well-educated girl who, seeking excitement, became an LA bounty hunter. Enrolling on a bounty hunter course run by bail-bondsman Delroy Lindo, she then joins his top two hunters, Rourke and Edgar Ramirez. They, of course, mock her, doubt her and then accept her. Christopher Walken would turn up yet again, this time as a slimy producer who gets the team involved in a TV reality show.

Sadly, the film would flop, as would Rourke's next outing, Stormbreaker, based on the Alex Rider novels of Anthony Horowitz, where the young spy would find himself up against Rourke's Blofeld-like criminal genius, planning to annihilate teenagers by giving them computers infected with a deadly virus. In his pin-stripes, loud waistcoat and goatee, Rourke certainly hammed it up sufficiently, but audiences seemed to prefer Daniel Craig's Bond to this bumfluffed variety. Rourke would then show that he'd not entirely knuckled down to responsible living when he was stopped by police while driving a Vespa in south Florida and failed a sobriety test.

2008 would see Rourke's rehabilitation complete. For over ten years he'd been keeping his gob shut and working hard. He'd been backed by Francis Ford Coppola, Sean Penn, Tony Scott and Robert Rodriguez and let none of them down. Now he'd be taken up by Darren Aranofsky, perhaps the most exciting young director of his time, to star in The Wrestler, the tale of a former star grappler called Randy The Ram, now suffering in the sport's outback. In a near-documentary style, Aronofsky would follow him from humiliation to humiliation as he's forced to sleep in his car, rejected by his estranged daughter, Evan Rachel Wood, and his would-be lover, lapdancer Marisa Tomei, and bullied by his sarky little boss at the supermarket where he works. Finally, a heart attack brings him to his knees and his very identity is on the line. Inbetween we'd see the painful details of his existence, the loneliness of the trailer life, the tedium of the poorly-attended meet-and-greet, the bad pay-days, the drug deals needed to keep him operative, the cruel cuts and bruises received in the ring from crowd-pleasing glass and barbed-wire props. And we'd see the little peaks of delight and he tries to make it work, playing with the local kids, charming Wood and Tomei, hanging with the guys after another successful show. It was a pitiless movie as it pushed and goaded The Ram to his choice between brief glory and everlasting drudgery., but it was tremendously moving, utterly engaging, sometimes shocking, and Rourke was an immense figure, utterly believable in such a harsh physical role. This parable of a fallen star, wading through rivers of shit in the eternal hope of another shot at the big-time was, of course, easy for him to relate to. It came as little surprise when he won a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and an Oscar nomination. Rourke was back and, without the added pressures of sex symbol superstardom, he was better than before.

The next stage of Rourke's career would begin with Killshot, where his former Thursday co-star Thomas Jane and Diane Lane would witness a crime and enter the Federal Witness Protection Programme. Rourke would play a guilt-wracked killer sent after them, accompanied by psycho apprentice Joseph Gordon-Levitt. Following this would come The Informers, based on the novel by Bret Easton Ellis.

This would cover the decadence and destitution of Los Angeles in the mid-Eighties, following a raft of different characters as they indulge in drink, drugs and casual affairs, everyone seeking the quickest path to self-gratification. Rourke would add to the sleaze by playing the uncle of doorman Brad Renfro, turning up at Renfro's flat with a teenage girl and a plan to score a few thousand from kidnapping a kid. Also on the bill, playing an adulterous Billy Bob Thornton's equally faithless wife, would be Rourke's former partner in excess, Kim Basinger. After this would come 13, entering an underground world of gambling, where rich men bet on the lives of others.

. It's been a long and weird road for Mickey Rourke. He went higher than most, but was warped by the altitude. He then plunged deeper than he deserved but survived. Now, at last, he can be seen as he always wanted to be seen, as he struggled for years in New York to be seen - as an actor of style, substance and courage.

Dominic Wills