Robert Downey Sr

16 films · 1961 to 2005

Born 24 June 1936, Manhattan · Died 7 July 2021

Robert John Downey Sr. was an American film director, screenwriter, and actor. He was known for writing and directing the underground films Putney Swope (1969), a satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world, and Greaser's Palace (1972), a surrealist Western. According to film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon, Downey's films during the 1960s were "strictly take-no-prisoners affairs, with minimal budgets and outrageous satire, effectively pushing forward the countercultural agenda of the day." He was the father of actor Robert Downey Jr..

Biography adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA.

Defining films

Critical context

Long, long, long ago and very far away, in Manhattan in the 1960s, I knew Robert Downey Sr. as a friend and colleague, and we are still in touch today. At the time, we were all part of what was then euphemistically called the ‘Underground Cinema’, a loose conglomeration of filmmakers and artists who centered around The Filmmakers’ Cooperative and the Filmmakers’ Cinematheque, which moved from location to location, continually offering screenings of decidedly outré films, for something like $2 a…

Source: Senses of Cinema, Great Directors