I can’t think of another actor who has endured as many lofty highs and rock-bottom lows as Mickey Rourke. Sure, a lot of stars shine brightly at first and then, like their celestial counterparts, either slowly fade away or go out with a proverbial bang. In his surprisingly long and resilient career, Rourke has instead ping-ponged between the extremes of leading-man status and slumming it—and I’m not even referring to his personal life marred with violence, drugs, allegations of spousal abuse and disfiguring plastic surgery that made his once-handsome mug look like mottled clay. In the wild, natural selection might have weeded Rourke out years ago. We put down horses for less. But in Hollywood everyone loves a comeback story, and Rourke is the industry’s Barbaro, currently fighting back with a real chance of winning an Oscar for The Wrestler (pictured above). How the hell did this happen?
RISE
Raised in the tough Liberty City district of Miami, Rourke took up self-defense training and boxing at an early age. He won his first boxing match at age 12 and embarked on a short-lived amateur boxing career before segueing into acting with a small role in Steven Spielberg’s
1941. It was his breakout role as an arsonist in
Body Heat that really put him on the radar. He won two awards for his supporting role in the 1982 cult classic
Diner and got acclaim for
Rumble Fish, The Pope of Greenwich Village and the Oliver Stone-penned
Year of the Dragon. In 1986’s kinky
Nine ½ Weeks (above), Rourke played a variety of twisted sexual games with Kim Basinger. The libidinous tale was largely panned but became a box-office hit and elevated Rourke
to sex-symbol status. He followed it up with the controversial
Angel Heart, a dark thriller starring Robert De Niro and Lisa Bonet, which featured an explicit sex scene between Rourke and the “Cosby Show” darling. More critical praise came for his role in 1987’s
Barfly (left) as Henry Chinaski, the literary alter ego of Charles Bukowski. Rourke nailed the role—perhaps too well—of a booze-soaked bar fighter who pairs up with a “distressed goddess” (Faye Dunaway) and hangs around with lowlifes in L.A. dive bars instead of striving to reach his full potential as a creative force. Was it life imitating art, or art imitating life?
FALL
It didn’t take long for Hollywood’s romance with Rourke to sour. The actor’s political views came under fire when it was reported that he donated part of his salary from the 1989 film Francesco to the Provisional Irish Republican Army. Rourke shied away from that controversy even though he has an IRA symbol tattooed on his arm. 
Teaming up with “Miami Vice” star Don Johnson for the biker borefest Harley Davidson and the Marlboro Man (left) proved disastrous when it tanked at the box office, as did Desperate Hours, for which Rourke earned his first Worst Actor Razzie nomination. Rourke, a devout Roman Catholic, must have also made a few angels cry with the sleazy soft-core porntastic Wild Orchid, about which stories abounded that he had actual sex on-screen with then-girlfriend Carré Otis (Otis denies such claims, telling me in a June 2000 Playboy interview, "I’d like to dispel [that rumor]. We were totally making out. But did anything more severe happen? No."). Rourke married Otis in 1992; shortly thereafter she got addicted to heroin and ballooned to 170 pounds. The terrible twosome made tabloid headlines that suggested allegations of violence and, 
in 1994, the LAPD arrested Rourke for spousal abuse (yes, that’s his booking shot). The charges were dropped after he and Otis reconciled, but the pair still divorced in 1998 after starring together in one last stinker, Exit in Red. From 1991 to 1995 Rourke (wisely?) retreated from leading roles to become a professional boxer, sparring with world champions like James Toney and Tommy Morrison. He retired after seven bouts, having endured severe face injuries that required a number of operations to “fix” his mangled face (you be the judge if it worked). 
At the end of the ‘90s, he’d turned down the Bruce Willis role in Pulp Fiction, starred opposite Jean-Claude Van Damme in the abysmal Double Team, had his entire role in The Thin Red Line end up on the cutting room floor, and seemingly dealt the final death blow to his leading-man status with Another 9 ½ Weeks. In the embarrassing sequel to his previous hit, Rourke is seen mostly in the shadows like some kind of shuffling Phantom of the Opera figure who mutters the name of Kim Basinger’s character and little else. Angie Everhart came onboard in the film for Rourke’s bedroom games, but the result was more scary than sexy. The only thing more frightening than Rourke’s physical appearance at this point was this career “nadir.”
REDEMPTION
Like a mauled canine licking his wounds after a disastrous dogfight, Rourke crept out of the spotlight in the early ‘00s, choosing to stick to smaller parts. 
Then, in 2002, his tragically funny character The Cook in the meth opus Spun (left) showed a glimmer of what the beaten actor could still bring to roles that required damaged goods. Robert Rodriguez must have seen this when he cast Rourke in a bit part in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and then gave the actor what ended up being his comeback role, the pill-popping beast Marv in the 2005 adaptation of Frank Miller’s Sin City (right). 
The role of the tough guy with the disfigured face and longing heart won Rourke five best supporting actor awards and surprised even his harshest critics. Total Film magazine even named him "Man of Year." Rourke followed up Sin City with a memorable role as a bounty hunter opposite Keira Knightley in Tony Scott’s Domino. Now, Rourke is earning more praise than ever for his role as washed-up wrester Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler (below). 
The film has already won the Golden Lion Award for Best Film at the Venice Film Festival and Rourke has been nominated for Best Actor at the Independent Spirit Awards. The best could be yet to come for Rourke who, after nearly three turbulent decades in movies, has a real chance of getting his first Oscar nomination. "All that I have been through has made me a better, more interesting actor," Mickey has said. "My best work is still ahead of me."
Robert DeSalvo is the associate editor of Playboy magazine, where he oversees the movie and DVD sections in addition to interviewing celebrities, filmmakers and Playmates and writing a weekly blog on Playboy.com. The L.A.-based writer has written for Movieline, Contents, The Holland Herald and others.
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