A decade-long downward spiral of drug abuse

Robert Downey Jnr’s latest drug-related arrest yesterday could spell the end of a career that once promised to be among the most glittering in Hollywood.

The 35-year-old actor, who received an Oscar nomination for his performance in the 1992 film Chaplin, has now been dropped from the cast of the hit show Ally McBeal and faces a five-year prison sentence.

His fall from grace has been a decade-long downward spiral of drug abuse, custody and failed rehabilitation.

The son of an underground film director, Downey claims to have always had an addictive personality.

He first experienced drugs when, as a curious eight-year-old, his father gave him a joint.

After deciding on a career on screen, Downey landed his first major film role in the 1987 film Less Than Zero, in which he played a hopeless drug user in eighties’ California.

In 1993 he met his wife, Deborah Falconer, and the couple had a son named Indio.

But despite his happy home life, Downey’s fascination for drugs remained undiminished and over the next two years he battled to keep his addiction under control.

This took its toll on the marriage and in 1996 he and Deborah separated, agreeing to share custody of their son.

He took the marriage break-up badly and later that year, when stopped for speeding, police found heroin, cocaine and a Magnum .357 handgun in the car.

Weeks later, in one of the most disturbing incidents he was involved in, a tormented Downey entered a house in Malibu he thought to be his own and was found asleep in a child’s bed.

He was charged with being under the influence of drugs and sent to a detox unit, but failure to comply with the conditions resulted in a three-year probation sentence.

Initially the threat of prison seemed to work, with Downey voluntarily submitting to random drug tests and staying clean for a spell.

But before long his discipline began to slip and in 1999 he was sentenced to three years in prison for persistent violation of his probation.

He suffered violent beatings and abuse while in the tough Californian State Prison but after less than a year his lawyers managed to negotiate his early release.

On release from prison he started to rebuild his career, landing a part in the hit series Ally McBeal for which he won a Golden Globe.

But last November, just four months after his release, Downey was again arrested in a Hollywood hotel room after police found cocaine and diazepam.

He appeared in court in January to deny the charges and faces a trial later in the year.

While a recent Californian law encourages courts to treat addicts as victims rather than criminals, this latest arrest will not aid his chances of receiving treatment rather than a prison sentence.