Steve Pratt looks at the biography which Robert Downey Jr couldn’t bring himself to write as Iron Man 2 explodes on to the cinema screens this weekend.

IT MUST be weird, author Ben Falk muses in a new book about actor Robert Downey Jr, being 43 – having been in the business since the age of five – and getting a phone call telling you for the first time your film has grossed half a billion dollars at the box office. “It must be even stranger to get another call from the film company telling you to expect delivery of a top-of-the-range Bentley to say thank you for helping to make them rich,” he writes.

“And all this for a role that required you to audition for the first time in 16 years. Life’s funny sometimes...”

Other times it has been pretty terrible for Downey Jr when he’s made headlines for all the wrong reasons. Falk’s tome isn’t called The Fall And Rise Of The Comeback Kid for nothing. Rarely has a Hollywood star overcome obstacles as drink, drugs and prison to become hot box office property.

The week that the sequel to Iron Man – the half a billion dollar box office bonanza mentioned at the start – opens is a good time to reflect on Downey Jr’s bumpy career.

After hitting rock bottom he’s raised himself up, come clean about his problems, found happiness with producer wife Susan and established a couple of profitable movie franchises in comic book hero Iron Man and a “rebooted” Sherlock Holmes.

Downey Jr was going to write his autobiography, then changed his mind and returned the advance. Falk’s book fills the gap. He doesn’t claim to be a friend of the actor, more of a passing acquaintance at film press junkets.

As the actor has lived his life in the full glare of the media spotlight, fresh scandal in unlikely to emerge. But Falk does a thorough job in chronicling the fall and rise with the help of friends and colleagues.

The book also offers an insight into how Downey Jr came to play Marvel Comics hero Iron Man, alias Tony Stark – multimillionaire capitalist arms manufacturer and inventor with an eye for a pretty girl.

Downey Jr is the lastest in a line of actors rather than movie stars who’ve been put into superhero roles, think Hugh Jackman in X-Men and Tobey Maguire in Spider-Man.

The idea of an Iron Man film had been around since a low budget movie was proposed in 1990, although he had appeared in cartoon form on TV nearly a decade before. The rights reverted back to Marvel in 2005 and the following year they announced the movie would be their first effort as an independent studio, reports Falk. Former actor and writer Jon Favreau was hired to direct. But who would play Iron Man? Downey Jr thought it should be him, reckoning Tony Stark’s back story had echoes of his life.

“I turned 40. I said, ‘if I’m going to do something like this I’m running out of time’. The more I thought about it the more appropriate it seemed... but I couldn’t stop thinking about it. There’s a real sense of honour and honour’s something I’ve come to know a little bit about.”

He’d been a fan of comics as a kid, tending to go for more out-there ones like Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, but he also enjoyed the more traditional Sgt Rock, says Falk.

Favreau thought he was a great option.

“We didn’t want to just go with the safe choice,” he said. “The best and worst of Robert’s life have been in the public eye.

He had to find an inner balance to overcome obstacles that went far beyond his career. That’s Tony Stark. Robert brings a depth that goes beyond a comic book character who is having trouble in high school, or can’t get the girl.”

For the first time since his Oscarnominated performance in Chaplin, he agreed to go in for a screen test. He had three weeks to prepare for his one-hour audition, practising his lines and working out hard.

“I felt that if I was ever going to do a movie like Iron Man, I had to do it quickly before it became embarrassing being the guy in tights with a flabby body,” he said.

By the end of the 60 minutes, Favreau knew he had his man for the $180m movie.

When the film opened with a $100m opening weekend, Downey Jr’s comeback was complete. He finally had a hit film, finding a mass market audience after years of working in the industry.

With success has come a changed attitude. He said in 2008 that he had “become more Harrison Ford about the whole thing” and separated his life and his career.

“I get a kick out of being in the public eye and it feels like my real life because I spend so much time in it,” he said.

“But I have this aesthetic distance now too, because I know about the dangers... I know how unhealthy my self-love and my desire to be in the spotlight have been. It’s all about becoming rooted in the mundane, in the day-to-day stuff. Life is 70 per cent maintenance. I’m learning the business of building a life.”

■ The Fall And Rise Of The Comeback Kid by Ben Falk (Portico, £16.99) is available to buy on Amazon now and in shops from May 4.

■ Iron Man 2 (12A) opens in cinemas tomorrow.

Review: Page 10