For Lorna
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1: Scumsville
Chapter 2: Introducing Lenny Williams
Chapter 3: Early Rejections
Chapter 4: Catching the Eye
Chapter 5: Making a Killing
Chapter 6: Following the River
Chapter 7: A Double Tragedy
Chapter 8: A Modern Day Romeo
Chapter 9: Leo Rising… and Falling
Chapter 10: Creating a Monster
Chapter 11: The Launch of ‘Leo-Mania’
Chapter 12: Losing It
Chapter 13: Trouble in Paradise
Chapter 14: The Leo Tamer
Chapter 15: Owning December
Chapter 16: Becoming The Aviator
Chapter 17: The Parted
Chapter 18: Best Bar None
Chapter 19: Going Green
Chapter 20: Under Fire
Chapter 21: Barometer of Truth
Chapter 22: Are They, Aren’t They?
Chapter 23: Dream Man
Chapter 24: Looking Lively
Chapter 25: The Most Powerful Man in America
Chapter 26: The Modeliser
Epilogue
Filmography
Plates
Copyright
Leonardo DiCaprio remembers the exact moment when Titanic transformed his life.
It came at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. James Cameron’s disaster epic was on its way to becoming the biggest movie in history and DiCaprio, then 23, had a young girl stuck to his leg. The delusional fan, overcome with emotion at finally being able to clap not just eyes on the heartthrob she had only dreamt about, rugby-tackled the actor and clung on for dear life.
Amid the chaos and the throng, Leonardo had a moment of clarity and the absurdity of the situation struck home.
‘I looked her in the eye,’ he would later recall, ‘and said, “Whatever illusions of grandeur you have about me, they’re not true. I will sit here and I will talk to you. You don’t need to cling; you don’t need to dig your nails into my leg. It doesn’t need to be this!”’
But the girl, who was no more than 14, had other ideas. It was as if she believed that by hanging on there, he somehow wouldn’t notice – and she wasn’t about to give up such an opportunity without a fight.
DiCaprio said: ‘She just pressed her head against my leg. I said, “What are you doing, sweetheart?” And she kept clutching. There was just a sort of obsessed look in her eye. She wasn’t looking at me, though, just my leg. I looked at her and I sort of grabbed her face and said, “Hi, it’s OK, no, you can… you can get off my leg. It’s fine.” She kept saying, “No, no, no, no!” and I had to gently pry her hands off.’
If Leonardo had been in any doubt up until that point that ‘Leo-Mania’ had gripped the world – the most hysterical fan reaction since the Beatles – it was truly confirmed at that moment. Until Titanic became the highest-grossing film in Hollywood history, he was pretty much able to live in blissful obscurity. Quietly, he’d acquired a reputation for risky, challenging roles and already had an Oscar nomination under his belt for his performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, but neither of these factors had sent the girls screaming to his feet. Yet within months of the movie hitting the big screen his life was changed forever.
He topped a list of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the World – an accolade that made him groan: ‘You want to be remembered for your work rather than being hunk of the month.’
Soon it became clear there was nowhere in the world he could go without someone knowing his name. On an environmental pilgrimage in December 2003 to the deepest Amazonian rainforest to meet the Alto Xingu Indians of Brazil, with his then-girlfriend, the supermodel Gisele Bündchen, he was astounded when a tribesman instantly recognised him and began chattering excitedly about the ‘man from Titanic’.
‘It certainly follows me,’ he admitted after that encounter. ‘I’m not exaggerating. I’ve been to the Amazon, and people with no clothes on know about that film.’ Indeed, a few years later he was spotted in a dusty provincial village in Mozambique while filming Blood Diamond.
Leonardo has been a tabloid editor’s dream celebrity. After Titanic it was widely accepted he had gone off the rails somewhat, and in June 1998, New York magazine ran a highly damaging expose on Leo’s partying, which didn’t put him in a good light. For the first time he started attracting attention for womanising and drinking. He made odd movie choices, industry experts insisted, when he might have been making millions, filling multiplexes as the romantic lead. Instead films like The Man In The Iron Mask and The Beach only made just over $150 million each – respectable hits by any other actor’s standards but flops when judged next to the $1.8 billion raked in by James Cameron’s epic.
At the same time as his fee per movie jumped from $2 million to $20 million, he was scorned for dating some of the world’s most glamorous women. Even the ones he wasn’t romantically involved with made for explosive headlines. Over the years he’s been linked to some of Hollywood’s hottest leading ladies: Demi Moore, Alicia Silverstone, Claire Danes, Liv Tyler, Sara Gilbert, Natasha Henstridge and Juliette Lewis, not to mention models like Bridget Hall, Kristen Zang, Bijou Phillips, Naomi Campbell, Amber Valletta, Helena Christensen, Kate Moss and Eva Herzigova.
Yes, after the success of Titanic life was tough for Leonardo DiCaprio! His exploits prompt a comparison with the English football legend George Best and the famous story of the hotel bellboy who, on entering the notorious womaniser’s room and finding him sprawled on the bed, with his winnings from the casino and the current Miss World laid out next to him, was moved to remark: ‘George, where did it all go wrong?’
Yet, joking aside, the attention heaped on Leonardo after 1997 often made him wonder if perhaps he’d made the right move in turning down the lead role in Boogie Nights – a part that eventually went to Mark Wahlberg – in favour of Titanic. Bathing in his post-Titanic success, DiCaprio soon became a night-life junkie.
‘Everything happened so quickly, I began to feel engulfed by it,’ he explained, and indeed, it took him practically a decade to recover and find himself again. As Leonardo himself remarked: ‘I was 22 or 23 years old, and it was completely surreal. It was insane. Nobody could have predicted it, or the effect it would have in so many countries. I shudder when I hear myself complain about it and so many people have so many more real and monumental problems but it was a bizarre, bizarre scenario.
‘After Titanic I was focusing on things that had nothing to do with the art. All the business with agents and publicists and managers, that can be extremely frustrating and ultimately a waste of time. There’s no real control over how the media or the public perceives you – I know who I am, my friends know who I am. And, hey, I’m not complaining about my life: I’m doing something that I love and that’s a precious gift.’
After encounters like the one in Paris with the young fan, Leonardo has grown to accept the level of