While S.S.Titanic sank on screen in the mega success movie of 1998 its male lead zoomed out of the calamitous waters to ‘shine bright shine light’ surfing the skies.

Even though he had appeared earlier in some worthy movies and roles including an ‘Oscar’ nomination for What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) he was somewhat not so well known and not yet a big star until he made a splash in his hit disaster movie, Titanic. That new sensation of Hollywood is Leonardo DiCaprio.

Interestingly some of his hit movies are remakes of ‘Golden Oldie’ Hollywood classics, like Romeo and Juliet and The Man in the Iron Mask.

Even his splash- movie Titanic was the second version of the historic sinking of the celebrated but ill fated - ship way back in 1912. The first version was made in 1958 under the title A Night To Remember which was produced in England. It was based on the best-selling book by Walter Lord of the same title and scripted by the noted crime writer Eric Ambler.

The unprecedented success of Titanic generated ' an avalanche of adulation and adoration around the world drenching the star that some critics compared it to the Beatlemania of 1960’s. With this single movie Leonardo climbed the bandwagon of fame and name as a top-slot Hollywood star.

His next film Man In The Iron Mask which has been made several times since the Silent Film period, was also highly successful and established him as also an actor. Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio was born on November 11, 1974, in Los Angeles. That makes him a true blue Angelino! (One who belongs to Los Angeles is called Angelino.) His father George of Italian descent was a comic distributor while his mother Irmalin, of German origin was a legal secretary who later became her son’s manager. How did he get that unusual name? According to his mother, she chose that name when he kicked her from the inside when she was a pregnant mother and viewing a Leonardo Da Vinci work in Europe!

His parents separated when he was barely one year old and he grew up under the love, care, and secured comfort of his hard working mother (He lives with his mother in L. A.) Aware of the boy's mimicking talents his mother took him for auditions, and as teenager he appeared in a TV commercial which was successful.

Soon he was appearing in minor roles in television, and a role in the phenomenally successful TV series Lassie Come Home (the series recently completed 50 years of continuous success establishing a record in American television) with which he attracted the attention with his boyish looks and impish charm.

He also studied acting in a school and appeared on stage often took gain experience and pick up performing skills. His first major break in movies came in 1993 when he was chosen for the lead role in This Boy's Life among as many as four hundred aspiring applicants. A movie about child abuse, Leonardo had the thrill of acting along with Robert De Niro who inspired him to do his best. Indeed he considers De Niro as his source of inspiration in his career.

The inspiration obviously worked well for Leonardo for he received an Oscar nomination for his impressive role in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape(1993). Based on a novel about a dysfunctional family in a sleepy small town where nothing ever happens, the movie had Johnny Depp as the elder brother and sole bread- winner of the family. The sisters are mentally disturbed while the mother is very fat and the younger brother (Leonardo) is a brain- damaged retarded boy. His performance in a difficult role was so impressive and stood out against Depp that he was nominated for an Oscar when he was just nineteen.

Leonardo began to climb up the ladder of fortune too when he received the princely fee of one million dollars for his role Basket- ball Diaries(1995). In this controversial movie Leonardo plays a rebellious teenager in a Catholic school who becomes a drug addict, male prostitute, and a thief. It portrays the junkie life in New York and Leonardo was brought in as replacement after the lead actor and singer-star River Phoenix (1971-1993) died of a heroin and cocaine overdose, and collapsed in front of a Hollywood nightclub.

In 1996 Leonardo played Romeo in the up dated and modernized version of the immortal play which was called William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The action takes place in the modern day on the Verona beach in Italy, and instead of swords the protagonists use guns!

The classic tragedy of Shakespeare has been filmed thrice earlier with the 1936 George Cukor version being considered as a classic and the finest of them all, even though the lead players Norma Shearer (Juliet) and Leslie Howard (Romeo) were rather elderly and certainly not teenagers as in the Bard of Avon’s famous play.

The modern version was a stunning box-office success and elevated the ‘modern day’ Romeo further the up the ladder and he received the ‘Best Actor’ Award at the Berlin Film Festival in 1997. Though the purists and Shakespearean scholars thought it was almost blasphemy to take such liberties, moviegoers in the world brushed away such cobwebs!

Then came Titanic and Leonardo became the toast of the youth in his greatest moment of triumph when he was still in his twenties.

After the success of The Man In The Iron Mask in 1998, rather surprisingly there was a gap of two years in his career. No movies came out and then in 2000 he began to make movies in a burst of acting activity.

His movies of the recent years include The Beach (2000), in which he appears bare- chested which sent the pulses of teenage girls and young women soaring high! Catch Me If You Can (2003), a Steven Spielberg movie is based on a true life story of a con man, and Leonardo defrauds his way to con women and men with equally ease to keep him in dollars!

Gangs Of New York (2003), was Martin Scorsese’s movie about the origins of New York in the Civil War era when it was not yet a city that it would become later, and as a critic said “a furnace where a city might be forged.", Alexander The Great (2004) and others.

Leonardo was twice voted as one of the fifty Most Beautiful People in the world by People Magazine in 1997 and 1998. He is a talented actor who loves to imitate the people he meets and said in an interview, "The best thing about acting is that I get to lose myself in another character and actually get paid for it. It's a great outlet. As for myself, I am not sure who I am. It seems that I change every day."

It is no surprise that Leonardo was chosen as the Hollywood Actor of the Year recently.

If by a miracle of science, Leonardo da Vinci could see his 20th century namesake he would feel happy and probably come up with a classic painting, 'The DiCaprio Smile!’

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