Robert De Niro
David 'Noodles' Aaronson
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Once Upon a Time in America: Directed by Sergio Leone. With Robert De Niro, James Woods, Elizabeth McGovern, Treat Williams. A former Prohibition-era Jewish gangster returns to the Lower East Side of Manhattan 35 years later, where he must once again confront the ghosts and regrets of his old life.
- Sergio Leone
- 3 min
Jennifer Lynn Connelly (born December 12, 1970) is an American actress. She began her career as a child model before making her acting debut in the 1984 crime film Once Upon a Time in America.
Once Upon a Time in America (Italian: C'era una volta in America) is a 1984 epic crime film co-written and directed by Italian filmmaker Sergio Leone, and starring Robert De Niro and James Woods.
In pants so dirty they stand by themselves. "He is altogether lovable." But he'll always be a two-bit punk... so he'll never be my beloved. What a shame. [as Deborah dances to a record of "Amapola", she catches Noodles spying on her in the bathroom] Young Deborah : Get down off of there, roach!
- Sergio Leone Turned Down The Godfather to Make it.
- Leone Got (Reluctant) Input from The Real Noodles.
- Norman Mailer Wrote One of The First drafts.
- Despite The Title, Not Much of The Film Was Shot in America.
- The Parts That Were Filmed in The U.S. Were Authentic.
- Brooke Shields Almost Played Deborah Gelly.
- Nobody Has Ever Seen Leone's Complete Version.
- It Was Jennifer Connelly's First Movie.
- Even James Woods Isn't Sure What Happened to His character.
- De Niro's Method Acting Annoyed Some People, Including James Woods.
By his own account, Once Upon a Time in America was Leone's pet project, the one he devoted most of his adult life to making. He became interested in the story while he was making 1968's Once Upon a Time in the West , and was so fixated on it that when Paramount approached him a few years later to make The Godfather, he politely declined. If he'd k...
Once Upon a Time in America was based on The Hoods, a semi-autobiographical novel by Harry Grey (real name: Herschel Goldberg), who'd spent his youth engaged in some of the activities attributed to Noodles (Robert De Niro's character) and his gang. By 1968, when Leone approached him, Grey had no interest in meeting in person to discuss his work—aft...
The American author, then best known for his novel The Naked and the Dead and for his biography of Marilyn Monroe (the one that asserted she'd been killed by the FBI and CIA), took a stab at turning Leone's massive story outline into a coherent script. Leone was unimpressed. "I'm sorry to say, he only gave birth to a Mickey Mouse version," Leone la...
The bulk of the film was shot in Rome, at the famous Cinecittà Studios, where so many of Italy's best post-war movies were produced. Additional sequences were shot in such unlikely locales as Montreal, Paris, and St. Petersburg, Florida.
The 1920s Jewish neighborhood was a street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn that had been immaculately dressed to look just as it had 60 years earlier. The neighborhood was home to many real Hasidic Jews, some of whom would wander through the set in bemusement when the cameras weren't rolling. Leone was such a stickler for details that only the Hasids cou...
In 1981, the part that would eventually be played by Elizabeth McGovern was offered to 16-year-old Brooke Shields, whom Leone had seen in The Blue Lagoonand who he felt was ready for a more mature role. But a Hollywood writers' strike delayed the project, and Shields dropped out before anything came of it.
After the nine-month shoot, Leone had eight to 10 hours' worth of material. He trimmed it down to six hours, hoping to release it in two three-hour parts, but the producers were having none of that. So he reduced it to 269 minutes—four and a half hours—but it still wasn't enough. He chopped out another 40 minutes, and this 229-minute version is wha...
The actress who would later turn heads and earn awards for her roles in films like A Beautiful Mind and Requiem for a Dream was 12 years old when she was cast as the young ballerina-in-training Deborah. After a childhood career in modeling and TV commercials, it was the first real acting she had ever done. Jim Henson's Labyrinthcame along shortly t...
At the end of the film, Max—now living as a politician named Bailey—asks Noodles to kill him. Noodles declines. But right after this, he sees a man who could be Max standing near a garbage truck, who then seems to disappear into the back of it, ground up with the trash. Was it Max? Was it someone else? Did it even really happen? Woods has no idea. ...
De Niro is a famously intense and thorough actor who truly "lives" in his roles. Woods, not so much. "It's just a bunch of old s***," he later said. "If it's a great script and you're working with good people, what's the problem? I'm tired of the Actors Studio bullshit that has ruined movies for 40 years. All these guys running around pretending th...
May 8, 2021 · Once Upon A Time in America by Sergio Leone - Jennifer Connelly - Vanessa Mae - Romeo and Juliet. A.J. Lestat - WallPapersCollection. 42K views 12 years ago.
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Jun 6, 2020 · Once Upon A Time in America (1984) is also a story about friendship, loyalty, passion and crime. The narrative revolves around the lives of young gang of Jewish friends growing up in Brooklyn called: Noodles, Max, Patsy, Cockeye and little Dominic.
