A great deal of Mickey Rourke's behavioural problems, his wild temperament and his inability to take direction or listen to authority, can be traced back to his teenage years, growing up in a rough neighbourhood in the suburbs of Miami. Although he was born in Schenectady, New York, Rourke's mother moved him, his brother, Joey, and older sister, Patty, to Florida, where she married a retired cop called Gene Addis when Rourke was around ten years old. "I couldn't understand why we moved or what my mother saw in that asshole," explains Rourke. Although never specific about any particular incident, it's clear that Addis physically abused both Rourke and his brother. "It was horrible, and I still have nightmares about that motherf***er. Rather than feel shame, I got hard. You'd rather feel tough than insignificant. It's a pride thing."
Despite not seeing his stepfather in nearly 20 years (Addis is now divorced from Rourke's mother), when I ask what he'd do if he encountered his estranged stepfather in the street today, Rourke's anger and hatred bubbles up, albeit a little more calmly than it might have done two decades ago: "I'd do nothing. There's no point when he's an older guy, you know? I would have liked to have met him when he was 30. I'd go into the backyard and
You could call it a midlife crisis, but then this was no blip; during his late thirties, Rourke didn't just go out and buy a red Ferrari and hire a hooker for a night. No, he went out and bought 18 custom motorbikes, split up with his first wife (Debra Feuer, an actress Rourke married in 1981 and divorced in 1989), and walked out on the industry and career that had made him a household name and put millions in the bank. Meeting his future wife Carré Otis in 1990 on the set of Wild Orchid - a sleazy, semi-erotic movie in which many of the panting sex scenes are rumoured to have been genuine - is, Rourke says, "The best-worst-goddamn-thing that ever happened to me. "We met and it was thunder and lightning," he explains. By this time, Rourke was 38 and, although still a huge movie star, had decided to go back into the boxing ring and fight professionally.
Rourke had first started to box at the age of 12 in Miami, and as a teenager had trained at the famous 5th Street Gym on Miami's South Beach. "Me and Carré were incredible together, but also incredibly destructive. Living with a heroin addict is unpredictable at the best of times, although that's not taking any blame away from myself. I had my own issues, mainly to do with discipline. Of course, we thought we had everything together, but it was out of control. We had no trust."
Of course, it couldn't last. Rourke's movie career, as he focused more and more on the boxing, became sporadic and mismanaged, mainly because he wouldn't listen to anyone else other than that thing inside he calls "that little f***ing hatchet" - his stubbornness and temper. Rourke had already turned down some iconic roles: Charlie Babbit in Rain Man (1988); Jack Cates in
48 Hrs (1982); and Sgt Elias in Platoon (1986) - simply because, as Rourke says, "I woke up that day and, for no reason whatsoever, thought Oliver Stone had pissed me off. Big f***ing mistake!" He even passed on the part of boxer Butch Coolidge in Quentin Tarantino's Pulp Fiction (1994). The role eventually went to Bruce Willis.
By the mid-Nineties it was all over. He had lost Otis (in 1994, Rourke was arrested for alleged battery on the ex-model, although charges were later dropped), as well as any sort of reputable film career. His foray into boxing was also on the ropes: a year away from a title fight, Rourke was told that if he ever boxed again he could be permanently brain damaged. "It was the sparring rather than the big fights," Rourke explains. "Round after round of being smashed in the face with no practice helmet. You get numb, but it still does the damage. The doc said I'd better stop, or rather that I should have stopped a year before. "I lost my $4m mansion − I couldn't make the payments − and I just walked away from it. I waited and waited for Carré to come back to me. I didn't wait gracefully; I waited helplessly." At his lowest point, Rourke even attempted suicide. "Sure, I probably shouldn't be here. There were several times when I just... Well, if it wasn't for my religious beliefs, I would have seen it through in a heartbeat. I kept thinking if I made it look like an accident then it couldn't be a sin, right?" Rourke, a Catholic, often speaks about Father Pete - a red-wine-drinking, cigarette-smoking priest - as someone who, together with an army of therapists, pulled him out from his nadir when he was considering darker alternatives to waking up each morning.
