Robert DeNiro opens up about his gay dad

[pnwmom]

[MaryMagdaline]

1. Beautiful

[pnwmom]

2. I thought it was very touching. I haven't been able to find

the actual documentary, unfortunately.

[burrowowl]

3. Beautiful

Loving from the son.

[pnwmom]

4. And when he was growing up, the culture was very different from today.

All the concerns his dad had about being a "homosexual" would have been shared by his family, including his son.

[pansypoo53219]

5. HBO had a doc on his father years ago. nice art.

[pnwmom]

6. I've been looking for that online and on Comcast but can't find it.

I'd love to watch it.

[pansypoo53219]

12. it was mainly about his art. look under art?

[BigmanPigman]

7. What a wonderful tribute to his dad, the artist.

[appalachiablue]

9. #8. There's lot of love there.

[appalachiablue]

8. DeNiro's HBO film on his dad I saw, and was it very deep. The

father was an accomplished artist who worked in a figurative, semi impressionist style for which he received considerable acclaim even though he never sincerely felt it. By the 1950s the popularity of more daring American abstract expressionist painters like Pollack and others made him feel overlooked and inferior as he states in the film. There's a good deal of personal exploration, love and emotional pain included in this film tribute.

As an only child young Robert helped his artist mother who worked and provided the family with income during the years that the couple was separated and in periods when his father experienced career setbacks and spells of depression. As a teen, Robert even travelled to Paris once to bring his ailing father back home. If ever there was a devoted, highly responsible and caring son, it's Robert DeNiro Jr. He tenderly preserved his father's NYC studio and artwork for posterity as mentioned in the film.

[pnwmom]

10. And the son is even more impressive when you think about how any child

feels when a father leaves the family, and leaves a single mother with monetary problems. And when you think back to the secrecy the whole family must have had to live with the entire time Robert was growing up.