While he was successful in the boxing ring, his animalistic behavior destroyed his life outside. Was Jake LaMotta an abuser?ĭespite his suspension, Jake finally wins the middleweight championship against Marcel Cerdan in 1949. … According to Head Stuff, De Niro rocketed up to 215 pounds which resulted in the actor suffering from breathing difficulties. Robert De Niro gained 60 pounds to emulate Jake La Motta’s decline in Raging Bull. Did Robert De Niro actually gain weight for Raging Bull? One day, Jake interrogates Vickie and asks whether or not did she have sex with Joey and slaps her, and she answers no and rushes to the bathroom and locks the door, and Jake promptly breaks down the door and slaps her some more, and she finally admits she had sex with his brother and the whole neighborhood. He eventually pursues a relationship with her, even though he is already married. Some time thereafter, Jake spots a fifteen-year-old girl named Vickie at an open-air swimming pool in his Bronx neighborhood. Interestingly, Robert DeNiro won two of those bouts. He even fought three genuine boxing matches in Brooklyn, New York.

Originally published in Issue 53 of The Rake, David Smiedt writes that Raging Bull, the 1980 classic, made Moriarty an overnight success, but Hollywood has not been kind to her since. Who played Raging Bull’s wife?Ĭathy Moriarty was perfectly cast as the doe-eyed wife whose cheekbones were no defence against Jake LaMotta’s temper. The other group was Italian Americans like Rocky Marciano, Willie Pep, Carmen Basilio, and (at the tail end of his career) Jake LaMotta. There were black champions like Sugar Ray Robinson (who figures so prominently in Raging Bull), Archie Moore, Kid Gavilan, Floyd Patterson, and so many others. … This glut actually helped Scorsese convince United Artists to let him shoot Raging Bull in black-and-white, as it would make his boxing movie stand out visually from the others. Rocky started a trend, as movies that win Best Picture often do.

I wasn’t sure if he would sit still long enough, so we agreed that Mike would bring along his daughter, McKenzie, as back up.Īccordingly, Why was Raging Bull made in black and white? Who played the baby in Raging Bull? Robert De Niro: “I wanted to use my two-year-old son, Raphael, as my child in the film.

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