Robert de Niro's waiting - and so is the mayor

Robert De Niro said “serious communications problems” led him to miss two appearances in Italy.

“Everyone went into this with the best of intentions, but somewhere along the line serious communications problems created unfortunate misunderstanding,” De Niro said in a statement.

“It was a complicated situation and I’m not sure how it was handled at their end, but it certainly wasn’t handled properly at mine.

“I was a guest in their country, and the last thing I would want to do is to offend anyone,” De Niro said. “I love Italy.”

The Italian-American actor was to receive the Golden Ambrosius award, which takes its name from Milan’s patron saint Ambrose, from Milan’s mayor on Thursday. De Niro’s publicist said the actor didn’t receive the award because he arrived late and the officials didn’t wait for him.

“It got complicated,” publicist Stan Rosenfield said. “Bob was 45 minutes late getting there or 40 minutes late and they didn’t wait.”

Milan’s Mayor Gabriele Albertini, who said he waited 40 minutes in vain at that city’s Manzoni Theatre for De Niro, attributed the actor’s failure to pick up the award to “an incredible display of bad manners.”

Yesterday, De Niro did not come to a scheduled Rome appearance where he was to promote an Italian showcase at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York that he co-founded in 2002. Italian officials had suggested that the controversy in Milan led him to cancel his Rome event.

“De Niro was embittered by the controversy and believed it opportune not to eclipse the important agreement with the province of Rome,” Province President Enrico Gasbarra said.

De Niro has been stung by accusations that his Mafia-thug roles have smeared the image of Italian-Americans. The Order Sons of Italy in America wrote to the Italian government, urging it to cancel its plan to award the actor honorary citizenship.

The government has rejected that request, but has not said when it will confer the honour.