De Niro - institute is lookin' at him

The American Film Institute has honoured Robert De Niro with its 31st Life Achievement Award.

The 59-year-old star of Taxi Driver and GoodFellas accepted the prize at Hollywood’s Kodak Theatre last night.

“I don’t want to take anything for granted and I’m glad I have this opportunity to let you know how honoured I am to work with you and be included in this wonderful tradition,” he said.

“I know I’m getting sentimental, but that’s what this is all about.”

Many of his colleagues – from Jodie Foster, who was only 12 when she played a prostitute in Taxi Driver, to filmmaker Martin Scorsese – described him as an intensely quiet man who has remained humble and generous.

James Woods, who starred opposite De Niro in director Sergio Leone’s 1984 crime epic Once Upon a Time in America, said the actor suggested Woods wear a set of perfect, bright white teeth to demonstrate the ageing character’s wealth and vanity.

The producers balked at the cost, so De Niro paid for them himself.

“Bob De Niro personally paid so that I could have something that would make my character just a little bit better,” Woods told the crowd.

“I went up to him and said, ‘Bob, why did you do that?’ He said, ‘You know what, if you’re not great, I can’t be great. So let’s all be great together.”’

De Niro won a supporting-actor Oscar in 1975 for playing young gangster Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II and a best-actor Oscar in 1981 for his portrayal of a broken-down boxer in Raging Bull.

He is best known for playing men with fiery tempers who try to bury their explosive instincts beneath hardened, controlled facades.

He had Oscar nominations for The Deer Hunter, Awakenings, Cape Fear and Taxi Driver, in which his disturbed vigilante stares down his own mirror reflection and repeatedly taunts, “You talkin’ to me?”

But in recent years, he has softened his image with comedy roles in Meet the Parents and The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle.

In Analyse This and the sequel, Analyse That, he played an emotionally damaged gangster in therapy opposite Billy Crystal.

Previous winners of the award include Jack Lemmon, Alfred Hitchcock, Bette Davis, Elizabeth Taylor, Sidney Poitier and Clint Eastwood.