J. Edgar Hoover
J. Edgar Hoover in 1959
1st Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation
In office March 22, 1935 – May 2, 1972
President	Franklin D. Roosevelt Harry S. Truman Dwight D. Eisenhower John F. Kennedy Lyndon B. Johnson Richard Nixon
Deputy	Clyde Tolson
Preceded by	Office created (was BOI director)
Succeeded by	L. Patrick Gray
6th Director of the Bureau of Investigation
In office May 10, 1924 – March 22, 1935
President	Calvin Coolidge Herbert Hoover Franklin D. Roosevelt
Preceded by	William J. Burns
Succeeded by	Himself (as FBI Director)
Personal details
Born	John Edgar Hoover (1895-01-01)January 1, 1895 Washington, D.C. United States
Died	May 2, 1972(1972-05-02) (aged 77) Washington, D.C. United States
Religion	Presbyterian
Signature

J. Edgar Hoover in 1924

John Edgar Hoover (January 1, 1895 – May 2, 1972) was the first Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States. Appointed director of the Bureau of Investigation—predecessor to the FBI—in 1924, he was instrumental in founding the FBI in 1935, where he remained director until his death in 1972 aged 77. Hoover is credited with building the FBI into a large and efficient crime-fighting agency, and with instituting a number of modernizations to police technology, such as a centralized fingerprint file and forensic laboratories.

Late in life and after his death Hoover became a controversial figure as evidence of his secretive actions became public. His critics have accused him of exceeding the jurisdiction of the FBI.^[1] He used the FBI to harass political dissenters and activists, to amass secret files on political leaders,^[2] and to collect evidence using illegal methods.^[3] FBI directors are now limited to one 10-year term,^[4] subject to extension by the United States Senate,^[5] because of his long and controversial tenure.

Early life and education[link]

J. Edgar Hoover was born on New Year's Day 1895 in Washington, D.C., to Anna Marie (née Scheitlin; 1860–1938), who was of German Swiss descent, and Dick Naylor Hoover, Sr. (1856–1921), of English and German ancestry. The uncle of Hoover's mother was a Swiss honorary consul general to the United States. Hoover grew up near the Eastern Market in Washington's Capitol Hill neighborhood. At Central High, he sang in the school choir, participated in the Reserve Officers' Training Corps program, and competed on the debate team,^[6] where he argued against women getting the vote and against abolition of the death penalty.^[7] He obtained a law degree from George Washington University Law School in 1916, and an LL.M., a Master of Laws degree, in 1917 from the same university.^[8][9] While a law student, Hoover became interested in the career of Anthony Comstock, the New York City United States Postal Inspector, who waged prolonged campaigns against fraud and vice, and also was against pornography and birth control.

FBI career[link]

During World War I, immediately after getting his LLM, Hoover was hired by the Justice Department. He was soon promoted to head of the Enemy Aliens Registration Section. In August 1919, he became head of the new General Intelligence Division of the Bureau of Investigation within the Justice Department^[10] (see the Palmer Raids).

Hoover joined the Bureau as America's first great Communist scare was getting under way, and handpicked as his assistant a man named George Ruch. One of two key associates to name their own sons J Edgar, Ruch expressed astonishment that left-wingers should even "be allowed to speak and write as they like".^[11] Hoover and Ruch favoured deporting people merely for being members of radical organisations, and used the Bureau to spy on lawyers representing those arrested in the Red Raids of 1920. One of them, on whom Hoover was to keep tabs for half a century and deem "the most dangerous man in the United States", was future Supreme Court justice Felix Frankfurter.^[12]

In 1921, he rose in the Bureau of Investigation to deputy head, and in 1924, the Attorney General made him the acting director. On May 10, 1924, President Calvin Coolidge appointed Hoover as the sixth director of the Bureau of Investigation, following President Warren Harding's death and in response to allegations that the prior director, William J. Burns, was involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. When Hoover took over the Bureau of Investigation, it had approximately 650 employees, including 441 Special Agents.

Hoover was noted as sometimes being capricious in his leadership; he frequently fired FBI agents, singling out those who he thought "looked stupid like truck drivers" or he considered to be "pinheads".^{[13][page needed]} He also relocated agents who had displeased him to career-ending assignments and locations. Melvin Purvis was a prime example; he was one of the most effective agents in capturing and breaking up 1930s gangs and received substantial public recognition, but a jealous Hoover maneuvered him out of the FBI.^[14]

Hoover often hailed local law-enforcement officers around the country and built up a national network of supporters and admirers in the process. One that he often commended was the conservative sheriff of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, J. Howell Flournoy, for particular effectiveness.^[15]

Gangster wars[link]

Famous Depression Era gangsters, including Pretty Boy Floyd, Baby Face Nelson, Machine Gun Kelly, and more (1920s).

In the early 1930s, criminal gangs carried out large numbers of bank robberies in the Midwest. They used their superior firepower and fast getaway cars to elude local law enforcement agencies and avoid arrest. Many of these criminals, particularly John Dillinger, who became famous for leaping over bank cages and repeatedly escaping from jails and police traps, frequently made newspaper headlines across the United States. Since the robbers operated across state lines, their crimes became federal offenses, giving Hoover and his men the authority to pursue them. Initially, the FBI suffered some embarrassing foul-ups, in particular with Dillinger and his conspirators. A raid on a summer lodge named "Little Bohemia" in Manitowish Waters, Wisconsin, left an FBI agent and a civilian bystander dead, and others wounded. All the gangsters escaped. Hoover realized that his job was now on the line, and he pulled out all stops to capture the culprits. In late July 1934, Special Agent Melvin Purvis, the Director of Operations in the Chicago office, received a tip on Dillinger's whereabouts which paid off when Dillinger was located, ambushed and killed by FBI agents outside the Biograph Theater.

In the same period, there were numerous Mafia shootings as a result of Prohibition, while Hoover continued to deny the very existence of organized crime.^[16] Frank Costello helped encourage this view by feeding Hoover, "an inveterate horseplayer" known to send Special Agents to place $100 bets for him,^[17] tips on sure winners through their mutual friend, gossip columnist Walter Winchell.^[17] Hoover said the Bureau had "much more important functions" than arresting bookmakers and gamblers.^[17]

Even though he was not there, Hoover was credited with several highly publicized captures or shootings of outlaws and bank robbers. These included that of Dillinger, Alvin Karpis, and Machine Gun Kelly, which led to the Bureau's powers being broadened and it was given its new name in 1935: the Federal Bureau of Investigation. In 1939, the FBI became pre-eminent in the field of domestic intelligence. Hoover made changes, such as expanding and combining fingerprint files in the Identification Division to compile the largest collection of fingerprints to date.^[18][19] Hoover also helped to expand the FBI's recruitment and create the FBI Laboratory, a division established in 1932 to examine evidence found by the FBI.

Investigation of subversion and radicals[link]

Hoover, perhaps at the behest of Richard Nixon, investigated ex-Beatle John Lennon by putting the singer under surveillance, and Hoover wrote this letter to the Attorney General in 1972. A 25-year battle by historian Jon Wiener under the Freedom of Information Act eventually resulted in the release of documents like this one.

The same Hoover letter, with fewer redactions.

Hoover was concerned about subversion, and under his leadership, the FBI spied upon tens of thousands of suspected subversives and radicals. According to critics, Hoover tended to exaggerate the dangers of these alleged subversives and many times overstepped his bounds in his pursuit of eliminating that perceived threat.^[20]

The FBI investigated rings of German saboteurs and spies starting in the late 1930s, and had primary responsibility for counterespionage. The first arrests of German agents were made in 1938, and continued throughout World War II.^[21] In the Quirin affair during World War II, German U-boats set two small groups of Nazi agents ashore in Florida and Long Island to cause acts of sabotage within the country. The two teams were apprehended after one of the men contacted the FBI, and told them everything. He was also charged and convicted.^[22]

The FBI participated in the Venona Project, a pre–World War II joint project with the British to eavesdrop on Soviet spies in the UK and the United States. It was not initially realized that espionage was being committed, but due to multiple wartime Soviet use of one-time pad ciphers, which are normally unbreakable, redundancies were created, enabling some intercepts to be decoded, which established the espionage. Hoover kept the intercepts—America's greatest counterintelligence secret—in a locked safe in his office, choosing not to inform President Truman, Attorney General J. Howard McGrath, or two Secretaries of State—Dean Acheson and General George Marshall—while they held office. He informed the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the Venona Project in 1952.

In 1946, U.S. Attorney General Tom C. Clark authorized Hoover to compile a list of potentially disloyal Americans who might be detained during a wartime national emergency. In 1950, at the outbreak of the Korean War, Hoover submitted to President Truman a plan to suspend the writ of habeas corpus and detain 12,000 Americans suspected of disloyalty. Truman did not act on the plan.^[23]

COINTELPRO years[link]

In 1956, Hoover was becoming increasingly frustrated by Supreme Court decisions that limited the Justice Department's ability to prosecute people for their political opinions, most notably communists. At this time he formalized a covert "dirty tricks" program under the name COINTELPRO.^[24]

This program remained in place until it was revealed to the public in 1971, after the theft of many internal documents stolen from an office in Media, Pennsylvania, and was the cause of some of the harshest criticism of Hoover and the FBI. COINTELPRO was first used to disrupt the Communist Party, where Hoover went after targets that ranged from suspected everyday spies to larger celebrity figures such as Charlie Chaplin who were seen as spreading Communist Party propaganda,^[25] and later organizations such as the Black Panther Party, Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Southern Christian Leadership Conference and others. Its methods included infiltration, burglaries, illegal wiretaps, planting forged documents and spreading false rumors about key members of target organizations.^[26] Some authors have charged that COINTELPRO methods also included inciting violence and arranging murders.^[27] In 1975, the activities of COINTELPRO were investigated by the United States Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, called the Church Committee after its chairman, Senator Frank Church (D-Idaho), and these activities were declared illegal and contrary to the Constitution.^[28] Hoover amassed significant power by collecting files containing large amounts of compromising and potentially embarrassing information on many powerful people, especially politicians. According to Laurence Silberman, appointed Deputy Attorney General in early 1974, FBI Director Clarence M. Kelley thought such files either did not exist or had been destroyed. After The Washington Post broke a story in January 1975, Kelley searched and found them in his outer office. The House Judiciary Committee then demanded that Silberman testify about them.

In 1956, several years before he targeted King, Hoover had a public showdown with T.R.M. Howard, a civil rights leader from Mound Bayou, Mississippi. During a national speaking tour, Howard had criticized the FBI's failure to thoroughly investigate the racially motivated murders of George W. Lee, Lamar Smith, and Emmett Till. Hoover wrote an open letter to the press singling out these statements as "irresponsible."

Response to Mafia and civil rights groups[link]

In the 1950s, evidence of Hoover's unwillingness to focus FBI resources on the Mafia became grist for the media and his many detractors. His moves against people who maintained contacts with subversive elements, some of whom were members of the civil rights movement, also led to accusations of trying to undermine their reputations. The treatment of Martin Luther King, Jr. and actress Jean Seberg are two examples. Jacqueline Kennedy recalled that Hoover told President John F. Kennedy that King tried to arrange a sex party while in the capital for the March on Washington and told Robert Kennedy that King made derogatory comments during the President's funeral.^[29]

Hoover personally directed the FBI investigation into the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. In 1964, just days before Hoover testified in the earliest stages of the Warren Commission hearings, President Lyndon B. Johnson waived the then-mandatory U.S. Government Service Retirement Age of seventy, allowing Hoover to remain the FBI Director "for life." The House Select Committee on Assassinations issued a report in 1979 critical of the performance by the FBI, the Warren Commission, and other agencies. The report also criticized what it characterized as the FBI's reluctance to thoroughly investigate the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President.^[30]

Late career and death[link]

J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI, photographed in 1961.

FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC

Presidents Harry S. Truman and John F. Kennedy each considered dismissing Hoover as FBI Director, but ultimately concluded that the political cost of doing so would be too great.^[31]

Hoover's FBI investigated Hollywood lobbyist Jack Valenti, a special assistant and confidant to President Lyndon Johnson, in 1964. Despite Valenti's two-year marriage to Johnson's personal secretary, the investigation focused on rumors that he was having a gay relationship with a commercial photographer friend.^[32]

Hoover maintained strong support in Congress until his death at his Washington, D.C., home on May 2, 1972, from a heart attack attributed to cardio-vascular disease.^[33] His body lay in state in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol, where Chief Justice Warren Burger eulogized him.^[34] President Richard Nixon delivered another eulogy at the funeral service in the National Presbyterian Church. Nixon called Hoover "one of the giants. His long life brimmed over with magnificent achievement and dedicated service to this country which he loved so well."^[35] Hoover was buried in the Congressional Cemetery in Washington, D.C., next to the graves of his parents and a sister who died in infancy.^[36]

Operational command of the Bureau passed to Associate Director Clyde Tolson. On May 3, Nixon appointed L. Patrick Gray, a Justice Department official with no FBI experience, as Acting Director, with W. Mark Felt remaining as Associate Director.^[37]

Legacy[link]

Hoover was a consultant to Warner Bros. for a 1959 theatrical film about the FBI, The FBI Story, and in 1965 on Warner Bros.' long-running spin-off television series, The F.B.I. Hoover personally made sure that Warner Bros. would portray the FBI more favorably than other crime dramas of the times.

In 1979, there was a large increase in conflict in the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) under Senator Richard Schweiker, which had re-opened the investigation into the assassination of President Kennedy, reported that Hoover's FBI "failed to investigate adequately the possibility of a conspiracy to assassinate the President". The HSCA further reported that Hoover's FBI "was deficient in its sharing of information with other agencies and departments".^[38]

The FBI Headquarters in Washington, DC is named after Hoover. Because of the controversial nature of Hoover's legacy, there have been periodic proposals to rename it by legislation proposed by both Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate. In 2001, Senator Harry Reid sponsored an amendment to strip Hoover's name from the building. "J. Edgar Hoover's name on the FBI building is a stain on the building", Reid said.^[39] However, the Senate never adopted the amendment.

Sexuality[link]

Hoover and his assistant Clyde Tolson sitting in beach lounge chairs, c. 1939

President Lyndon B. Johnson at the signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964. White House East Room. People watching include Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Senator Hubert Humphrey, First Lady "Lady Bird Johnson", Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., F.B.I. Director J. Edgar Hoover, Speaker of the House John McCormack. Television cameras are broadcasting the ceremony.

Hoover with Bebe Rebozo (left) and Richard Nixon. The three men relax before dinner, Key Biscayne, Florida, December 1971.

Since the 1940s, rumors have circulated that Hoover was gay.^[40] There are speculations that Clyde Tolson, an associate director of the FBI and Hoover's primary heir, may have been his lover.^[41]

Hoover hunted down and threatened anyone who made insinuations about his sexuality.^[42] He also spread unsubstantiated rumors that Adlai Stevenson was gay to damage the liberal governor's 1952 presidential campaign.^[42] His extensive secret files contained surveillance material on Eleanor Roosevelt's alleged lesbian lovers, speculated to be acquired for the purpose of blackmail.^[42]

Some authors have dismissed the rumors about Hoover's sexuality and his relationship with Tolson in particular as unlikely,^[43][44][45] while others have described them as probable or even "confirmed",^{[46][47][page needed]} and still others have reported the rumors without stating an opinion.^[48][49] Hoover described Tolson as his alter ego: the men not only worked closely together during the day but also took meals, went to night clubs and vacationed together.^[41] This closeness between the two men is often cited as evidence that they were lovers, though some FBI employees who knew them, such as W. Mark Felt, say that the relationship was merely "brotherly." However, former FBI official Mike Mason suggested that some of Hoover's colleagues were denying he had a sexual relationship with Tolson in an effort to protect his image.^[50]

Upon Hoover's death, Tolson inherited Hoover's estate and moved into his home, having accepted the American flag that draped Hoover's casket. Tolson is buried a few yards away from Hoover in the Congressional Cemetery.

Among those skeptical of claims that Hoover was homosexual is Hoover's biographer Richard Hack. Hack notes that Hoover was romantically linked to actress Dorothy Lamour in the late 1930s and early 1940s, and that after Hoover's death Lamour did not deny rumors that she had had an affair with Hoover in the years between her two marriages.^[51] Hack additionally reports that during the 1940s and 1950s, Hoover so often attended social events with Lela Rogers, the divorced mother of dancer and actress Ginger Rogers, that many of their mutual friends assumed the pair would eventually marry.^[51]

In his 1993 biography Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover, journalist Anthony Summers quoted "society divorcee" Susan Rosenstiel as claiming to have seen Hoover engaging in cross-dressing in the 1950s. She stated that on two occasions she witnessed Hoover wearing a fluffy pink dress with flounces and lace, stockings, high heels and a black curly wig, at homosexual orgies:^{[47][page needed][52][53]}

Summers also said that the Mafia had blackmail material on Hoover, which made Hoover reluctant to aggressively pursue organized crime. Although never corroborated, the allegation of cross-dressing has been widely repeated. In the words of author Thomas Doherty, "For American popular culture, the image of the zaftig FBI director as a Christine Jorgensen wanna-be was too delicious not to savor."^[54] Skeptics of the cross-dressing story point to Susan Rosenstiel's poor credibility (she plead guilty for attempted perjury in a 1971 case and later served time in a New York City jail)^[55][56] and say recklessly indiscreet behavior by Hoover would have been totally out of character, whatever his sexuality. Most biographers consider the story of Mafia blackmail to be unlikely in light of the FBI's investigations of the Mafia.^[57][58] Truman Capote, who helped spread salacious rumors about Hoover, once remarked that he was more interested in making Hoover angry than determining whether the rumors were true.^[31]

Attorney Roy Cohn, an associate of Hoover during the 1950s investigations of Communists and himself a closeted homosexual, opined that Hoover was too frightened of his own sexuality to have anything approaching a normal sexual or romantic relationship.^[31]

In his 2004 study of the Lavender Scare, historian David K. Johnson attacked the notion of Hoover's homosexuality for relying on "the kind of tactics Hoover and the security program he oversaw perfected – guilt by association, rumor, and unverified gossip." He views Rosenstiel as a liar who was paid for her story, whose "description of Hoover in drag engaging in sex with young blond boys in leather while desecrating the Bible is clearly a homophobic fantasy." He believes only those who have forgotten the virulence of the decades-long campaign against homosexuals in government can believe reports that Hoover would allow himself to be seen in compromising situations.^[59]

Some people affiliated with Hoover, however, defended the claims that he had homosexual tendencies.^[60] Singer Ethel Merman, who was a friend of Hoover since 1938, stated in a 1978 interview: "Some of my best friends are homosexual. Everybody knew about J. Edgar Hoover, but he was the best chief the FBI ever had."^[61] Another FBI agent who had gone on fishing trips with Hoover and Tolson revealed that the director liked to "sunbathe all day in the nude."^[61] Hoover often frequented New York City's Stork Club and one observer – soap model Luisa Stuart, who was 18 or 19 at the time – told Summers she saw Hoover holding hands with Tolson as they all rode in a limo uptown to the Cotton Club in 1936.^[61]

Novelist William Styron told Summers that he once spotted Hoover and Tolson in a California beach house and the director was painting his friend's toenails.^[61] Harry Hay, founder of the Mattachine Society, one of the first gay rights organizations, confirmed that Hoover and Tolson sat in boxes owned by and used exclusively by gay men at their racing haunt Del Mar in California.^[61] One medical expert told Summers that Hoover was of "strongly predominant homosexual orientation", while another medical expert categorized him as a "bisexual with failed heterosexuality."^[60]

Freemasonry[link]

Hoover was a devoted Freemason, being raised a Master Mason on 9 November 1920, in Federal Lodge No. 1, Washington, DC, just two months before his 26th birthday. During his 52 years with the Masons, he received many medals, awards and decorations. Eventually in 1955, he was coroneted a Thirty-Third Degree Inspector General Honorary in the Southern Scottish Rite Jurisdiction. He was also awarded the Scottish Rite's highest recognition, the Grand Cross of Honor, in 1965.^[62] Today a J. Edgar Hoover room exists within the House of the Temple. The room contains many of Hoover's personal papers and records.

Honors[link]

• In 1938, Oklahoma Baptist University awarded Hoover an honorary doctorate during commencement exercises at which he spoke.^[63][64]
• In 1939, the National Academy of Sciences awarded Hoover its Public Welfare Medal.^[65]
• In 1950, King George VI of the United Kingdom awarded Hoover an honorary knighthood in the Order of the British Empire.^[66]
• In 1955, President Dwight Eisenhower gave Hoover the National Security Medal.^[67]
• In 1966, President Lyndon B. Johnson bestowed the State Department's Distinguished Service Award on Hoover for his service as director of the FBI.
• The FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., is named the J. Edgar Hoover Building.
• Congress voted to honour Hoover's memory by publishing a memorial book. J. Edgar Hoover: Memorial Tributes in the Congress of the United States and Various Articles and Editorials Relating to His Life and Work appeared in 1974.
• In Schaumburg, Illinois, a grade school was named after Hoover. In 1994, after personal information about Hoover was released, the school's name was changed to reflect Herbert Hoover instead of J. Edgar Hoover.^[68]

Portrayals[link]

J. Edgar Hoover has been portrayed many times in film and on stage. Some notable portrayals include:

• Broderick Crawford and James Wainwright portrayed Hoover in the Larry Cohen film The Private Files of J. Edgar Hoover (1977).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Ernest Borgnine in both the television film Blood Feud (1983) and Hoover (2000).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Vincent Gardenia in the television film Kennedy (1983).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Jack Warden in the television film Hoover vs. The Kennedys (1987).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Treat Williams in the television film J. Edgar Hoover (1987).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Kevin Dunn in the film Chaplin (1992).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Pat Hingle in the television film Citizen Cohn (1992).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Richard Dysart, both in the television film Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair (1993) and in the 1995 film Panther.
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Bob Hoskins in the Oliver Stone drama Nixon (1995).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor David Fredericks in two episodes of The X-Files, as well as on the show Millennium.
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Kelsey Grammer with John Goodman as his lover, in the Harry Shearer comic musical J. Edgar! on L.A. Theatre Works' The Play's the Thing (2001).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Larry Drake in the Robert Dyke film Timequest (2002).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Billy Crudup in the Michael Mann film Public Enemies (2009).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Enrico Colantoni in the television miniseries The Kennedys (2011).
• Hoover was portrayed by actor Leonardo DiCaprio in the Clint Eastwood biopic J. Edgar (2011).
• Hoover will be portrayed by actor William Harrison-Wallace in the first Dollar Baby screen adaptation of Stephen King's The Death of Jack Hamilton (2012). ^[69].

See also[link]

	Government of the United States portal
	Biography portal

• Anti-communism
• Federal Bureau of Investigation
• G-Man (slang)
• Helen Gandy
• McCarthyism
• German American

Writings[link]

Wikisource has original text related to this article: J. Edgar Hoover

J. Edgar Hoover was the nominal author of a number of books and articles. Although it is widely believed that all of these were ghostwritten by FBI employees,^[70][71][72] Hoover received the credit and royalties.

• Hoover, J. Edgar (1938). Persons In Hiding. Gaunt Publishing. ISBN 1-56169-340-5. http://books.google.com/?id=zSEiAAAAMAAJ&q. 
• Hoover, J. Edgar (1958). Masters of Deceit: The Story of Communism in America and How to Fight It. Holt Rinehart and Winston. ISBN 1-4254-8258-9. http://books.google.com/?id=U503AAAAIAAJ&q. ^[73]
• Hoover, J. Edgar (1962). A Study of Communism. Holt Rinehart & Winston. ISBN 0-03-031190-X. http://books.google.com/?id=8Jk3AAAAIAAJ&q. 
• Hoover, J. Edgar; Paterson, T. G. (February 1947). "Red Fascism in the United States Today". American Magazine 75 (4): 1046–64. JSTOR 1852269. 

References[link]

1. ^ "J. Edgar Hoover", Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation. 2008. Archived from the original on October 31, 2009. http://www.webcitation.org/5kwrg7R6c. 
2. ^ "Hoover, J. Edgar", The Columbia Encyclopedia (Sixth ed.). Columbia University Press. 2007. 
3. ^ Documented in Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-532-X.  and elsewhere.
4. ^ Pub.L. 94-503, 90 Stat. 2427, 28 U.S.C. § 432: In note: Confirmation and Compensation of Director; Term of Service
5. ^ "Obama signs 2-year extension to Mueller's FBI tenure". CNN. July 26, 2011. http://articles.cnn.com/2011-07-26/politics/obama.mueller.term_1_obama-signs-mueller-s-fbi-fbi-director-robert-mueller?_s=PM:POLITICS. Retrieved November 10, 2011. 
6. ^ Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-532-X. 
7. ^ The Guardian, The secret life of J Edgar Hoover
8. ^ "J. Edgar Hoover's GW Years". GW Today. GWU. http://gwtoday.gwu.edu/people/jedgarhooversgwyears. .
9. ^ "Prominent". Alumni. GWU. http://alumni.gwu.edu/prominent/classyear/1880s30s.html. .
10. ^ Murray, Robert K (1955). Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919–1920. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. p. 193. ISBN 0-8166-5833-1. .
11. ^ The Guardian, The secret life of J Edgar Hoover
12. ^ The Guardian, The secret life of J Edgar Hoover
13. ^ Schott, Joseph L (1975). No Left Turns: The FBI in Peace & War. Praeger. ISBN 0-275-33630-1. 
14. ^ Purvis, Alston; Tresinowski, Alex (2005). The Vendetta: FBI Hero Melvin Purvis's War Against Crime and J. Edgar Hoover's War Against Him. Public Affairs. pp. 183+. ISBN 1-58648-301-3. 
15. ^ "Sheriff 26 Years – J. H. Flournoy Dies," Shreveport Journal, December 14, 1966, p. 1
16. ^ Sifakis, Carl. The Mafia Encyclopedia (New York: Facts on File, 1999), p.127.
17. ^ ^{a b c} Sifakis, p.127.
18. ^ "More Fingerprints Called Necessary... Hoover Urges Criminologists At Rochester To File Records In The Capital Bureau". New York Times. July 23, 1931. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0612FD385F11738DDDAA0A94DF405B818FF1D3&scp=14&sq=%22J.+Edgar+Hoover%22&st=p. Retrieved April 17, 2008. 
19. ^ "Washington Develops a World Clearing House For Identifying Criminals by Fingerprints.". New York Times. August 10, 1932. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F70617F8355A13738DDDA90994D0405B828FF1D3&scp=33&sq=%22J.+Edgar+Hoover%22&st=p. Retrieved April 17, 2008. "Through the medium of the fingerprint, the Department of Justice is developing an international clearing house for the identification of criminals." 
20. ^ See, for example, Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. ISBN 0-87722-532-X. 
21. ^ William Breuer, Hitler's Undercover War, New York: St. Matin's Press, 1989, ISBN 0-312-02620-X.
22. ^ Ardman, Harvey (February 1997). "German Saboteurs Invade America in 1942". World War II magazine (HistoryNet.com). http://www.historynet.com/world-war-ii-german-saboteurs-invade-america-in-1942.htm. 
23. ^ Weiner, Tim (December 23, 2007). "Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950.". New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/23/washington/23habeas.html. Retrieved April 15, 2008. 
24. ^ Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G. (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. p. 312. ISBN 0-87722-532-X. 
25. ^ Sbardellati, John; Tony Shaw. Booting a Tramp: Charlie Chaplin, the FBI, and the Construction of the Subversive Image in Red Scare America. 
26. ^ Kessler, Ronald (2002). The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. St. Martin's Paperbacks. pp. 107, 174, 184, 215. ISBN 0-312-98977-6. 
27. ^ See for example James, Joy (2000). States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 335. ISBN 0-312-21777-3. , Williams, Kristian (2004). Our Enemies In Blue: Police And Power In America. Soft Skull Press. p. 183. ISBN 1-887128-85-9.  and Churchill, Ward and Wall, Jim Vander (2001). Agents of Repression: The FBI's Secret Wars Against the Black Panther Party and the American Indian Movement. South End Press. pp. 53+. ISBN 0-89608-646-1. 
28. ^ "Intelligence Activities And The Rights Of Americans". 1976. http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/churchfinalreportIIa.htm. Retrieved October 25, 2006. 
29. ^ Klein, Rick (2011). "Jacqueline Kennedy on Rev. Martin Luther King Jr". ABCNews. http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/Jacqueline_Kennedy/jacqueline-kennedys-feelings-martin-luther-king-jr-revealed/story?id=14478321. Retrieved September 9, 2011. 
30. ^ "Report of the Select Committee on Assassinations of the U.S. House of Representatives". The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration. 1979. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/. Retrieved October 25, 2006. 
31. ^ ^{a b c} Hack, 2007
32. ^ 'Gay' Probe of LBJ Aide by Washington Associated Press at NY Post newspaper February 20, 2009
33. ^ Graham, Fred P. (May 3, 1972). "J. Edgar Hoover, 77, Dies". New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FB0910FC3F5F117B93C1A9178ED85F468785F9&. Retrieved March 15, 2011. 
34. ^ New York Times: Nan Robertson, "Hoover Lies in State in Capitol," May 4, 1972, accessed February 15, 2011
35. ^ Richard Nixon (May 4, 1972). "Richard Nixon: Eulogy Delivered at Funeral Services for J. Edgar Hoover". American Presidency Project. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2012/jan/01/j-edgar-hoover-secret-fbi. Retrieved 2012-06-01. 
36. ^ New York Times: Nan Robertson, "President Lauds Hoover," May 5, 1972, accessed February 15, 0211
37. ^ New York Times: "Nixon Names Aide as Chief of FBI until Elections," May 4, 1972, accessed February 15, 2011
38. ^ "HCSA Conclusions, 1979". Archives.gov. http://www.archives.gov/research/jfk/select-committee-report/summary.html. Retrieved January 1, 2012. 
39. ^ "No thanks to Hoover". The Washington Post. May 5, 2001. http://www.polkonline.com/stories/050701/opi_hoover.shtml. ^{[dead link]}
40. ^ Terry, Jennifer (1999). An American Obsession: Science, Medicine, and Homosexuality in Modern Society. University of Chicago Press. p. 350. ISBN 0-226-79366-4. 
41. ^ ^{a b} Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-87722-532-X. 
42. ^ ^{a b c} "J. Edgar Hoover: Gay marriage role model?". Salon. http://www.salon.com/health/sex/urge/world/2000/01/05/hoover/. Retrieved November 14, 2008. 
43. ^ Felt, W. Mark and O'Connor, John D (2006). A G-man's Life: The FBI, Being 'Deep Throat,' And the Struggle for Honor in Washington. Public Affairs. p. 167. ISBN 1-58648-377-3. .
44. ^ Jeffreys-Jones, Rhodri (2003). Cloak and Dollar: A History of American Secret Intelligence. Yale University Press. p. 93. ISBN 0-300-10159-7. .
45. ^ Cox, John Stuart and Theoharis, Athan G (1988). The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition. Temple University Press. p. 108. ISBN 0-87722-532-X. "The strange likelihood is that Hoover never knew sexual desire at all." 
46. ^ Percy, William A. and Johansson, Warren (1994). Outing: Shattering the Conspiracy of Silence. Haworth Press. pp. 85+. ISBN 1-56024-419-4. .
47. ^ ^{a b} Summers, Anthony (1993). Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J Edgar Hoover. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-88087-X. 
48. ^ Theoharis, Athan G, ed. (1998). The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide. Oryx Press. pp. 291, 301, 397. ISBN 0-89774-991-X. .
49. ^ Doherty, Thomas (2003). Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. Columbia University Press. pp. 254, 255. ISBN 0-231-12952-1. 
50. ^ "Movie depicting J Edgar Hoover gay affair rankles some in FBI". News. AOL. 2011-1-9. http://www.aolnews.com/2011/01/09/movie-depicting-j-edgar-hoover-gay-affair-rankles-some-in-fbi/. .
51. ^ ^{a b} Hack, Richard Puppetmaster: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. (2007). Phoenix Books. ISBN 1-59777-512-6.
52. ^ Lehmann-Haupt, Christopher (February 15, 1993). "Books of The Times; Catalogue of Accusations Against J. Edgar Hoover". New York Times. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F0CE1DE173BF936A25751C0A965958260&scp=1&sq=j.+Edgar+hoover+confidential&st=nyt. Retrieved April 16, 2008. 
53. ^ Claire Bond Potter, Wesleyan University (July 2006). "Queer Hoover: Sex, Lies, and Political History". Journal of the History of Sexuality (Texas: University of Texas Press) 15 (3): 355–81. DOI:10.1353/sex.2007.0021. ISSN 1535-3605. "What does the history of sex look like without evidence of sexual identities or proof that sex acts occurred? And how might an analysis of gossip, rumors, and perhaps even lies about sex help us to write political history?" 
54. ^ Doherty, Thomas (2003). Cold War, Cool Medium: Television, McCarthyism, and American Culture. Columbia University Press. p. 255. ISBN 0-231-12952-1. 
55. ^ Summers, Anthony (2012). Official and Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Open Road Media. p. 295. ISBN 1-4532-4118-3. 
56. ^ Holden, Henry M. (2008-04-15). FBI 100 Years: An Unofficial History. Zenith Imprint. p. 42. ISBN 0-7603-3244-4. 
57. ^ Kessler, Ronald (2002). The Bureau: The Secret History of the FBI. St. Martin's Paperbacks. pp. 120+. ISBN 0-312-98977-6. .
58. ^ Ronald Kessler. "Did J. Edgar Hoover Really Wear Dresses?". History News Network. http://hnn.us/articles/814.html. 
59. ^ David K Johnson, The Lavender Scare: The Cold War Persecution of Gays and Lesbians in the Federal Government (University of Chicago Press, 2004), 11–13
60. ^ ^{a b} "J. Edgar Hoover: Gay or Just a Man Who Has Sex With Men?". ABCnews.go.com. p. 1. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/edgar-hoover-sex-men-homosexual/story?id=14948447#.TwJTkYGRlJE. 
61. ^ ^{a b c d e} "J. Edgar Hoover: Gay or Just a Man Who Has Sex With Men?". ABCnews.go.com. p. 2. http://abcnews.go.com/Health/edgar-hoover-sex-men-homosexual/story?id=14948447&page=2#.TwJU6IGRlJE. 
62. ^ J. Edgar Hoover, 33, Grand Cross-Fidelity, Bravery, Integrity Cartha DeLoach, Chairman, Hoover Foundation at Scottish Rite Journal of Freemasonry Magazine
63. ^ "Honorary Doctorates". Oklahoma Baptist University. http://www.okbu.edu/alumni/honordocs.html. Retrieved September 20, 2010. 
64. ^ "How the Angells changed OBU". December 15, 2004. https://www.okbu.edu/news/2004-12-15/how-the-angells-changed-obu. Retrieved September 20, 2010. 
65. ^ "Public Welfare Award". National Academy of Sciences. http://www.nasonline.org/site/PageServer?pagename=AWARDS_pwm. Retrieved February 14, 2011. 
66. ^ New York Times: George VI Honors FBI Chief," December 11, 1947, accessed February 17, 2011. This entitled him to use the letters KBE after his name, but not to the use of the title "Sir," since that title is restricted to citizen of countries belonging to the British Commonwealth.
67. ^ "Citation and Remarks at Presentation of the National Security Medal to J. Edgar Hoover". http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=10244. 
68. ^ Winter, Christine (June 26, 1994). "Hoover School Gets A Name It Can Take Pride In". Chicago Tribune. http://articles.chicagotribune.com/1994-06-26/news/9406260229_1_pta-honored-president. 
69. ^ "'The Death of Jack Hamilton' official movie website". http://www.thedeathofjackhamilton.com. Retrieved 07 May 2012. 
70. ^ Anderson, Jack (1999). Peace, War, and Politics: An Eyewitness Account. Forge Books. p. 174. ISBN 0-312-87497-9. .
71. ^ Powers, Richard Gid (2004). Broken: the troubled past and uncertain future of the FBI. Free Press. p. 238. ISBN 0-684-83371-9. .
72. ^ Theoharis, Athan G, ed. (1998). The FBI: A Comprehensive Reference Guide. Oryx Press. p. 264. ISBN 0-89774-991-X. 
73. ^ Oakes, John B (March 9, 1958). "Conspirators Against the American Way". New York Times. http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=FA0611FE3B5D1A7B93CBA91788D85F4C8585F9&scp=15&sq=J.+Edgar+Hoover&st=p. Retrieved April 17, 2008. 

Sources[link]

• Ackerman, Kenneth D. (2007). Young J. Edgar: Hoover, the Red Scare, and the Assault on Civil Liberties. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 978-0-7867-1775-0. 
• Beverly, William (2003). On the Lam; Narratives of Flight in J. Edgar Hoover's America. University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1-57806-537-2. 
• Carter, David (2003). Stonewall: The Riots That Sparked The Gay Revolution. New York: St. Martin's Griffin. ISBN 978-0-312-34269-2. 
• Charles, Douglas (2007). J. Edgar Hoover and the Anti-interventionists: FBI Political Surveillance and the Rise of the Domestic Security State, 1939–1945. Ohio State University Press. ISBN 978-0-8142-1061-1. 
• Garrow, David J. (1981). The FBI and Martin Luther King, Jr., From 'Solo' to Memphis. W.W.Norton. ISBN 0-393-01509-2. 
• Gentry, Curt (1991). J. Edgar Hoover: The Man and the Secrets. Plume. ISBN 0-452-26904-0. 
• Lowenthal, Max (1950). The Federal Bureau of Investigation. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-8371-5755-2. 
• Porter, Darwin (2012). J. Edgar Hoover and Clyde Tolson: Investigating the Sexual Secrets of America's Most Famous Men and Women. Blood Moon Productions. ISBN 1-936003-25-2. 
• Powers, Richard Gid (1986). Secrecy and Power: The Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Free Press. ISBN 0-02-925060-9. 
• Schott, Joseph L. (1975). No Left Turns: The FBI in Peace & War. Praeger. ISBN 0-275-33630-1. 
• Stove, Robert J. (2003). The Unsleeping Eye: Secret Police and Their Victims. Encounter Books. ISBN 1-893554-66-X. 
• Summers, Anthony (2003). Official and Confidential:The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover. Putnam Publishing Group. ISBN 0-399-13800-5. 
• Swearingen, M. Wesley. FBI Secrets An Agent's Expose. 
• Theoharis, Athan (1993). From the Secret Files of J. Edgar Hoover. Ivan R. Dee. ISBN 1-56663-017-7. 
• Frontline ; The Secret File on J. Edgar Hoover (#11.4) 1993

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: J. Edgar Hoover

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: J. Edgar Hoover

• StraightDope.com – 'The Straight Dope: Was J. Edgar Hoover a crossdresser?'
• FBI file on J. Edgar Hoover
• J. Edgar Hoover Appointment and Phone Logs
• Time.com – 'The Truth about Hoover', December 22, 1975
• Wall Street Journal – 'Hoover's Institution', Laurence H. Silberman, July 20, 2005
• Assassination Records Review Board – Final Report: 1998
• Zpub.com – 'J. Edgar Hoover Biography'
• J. Edgar Hoover's Watching You – slideshow by Life magazine
• Yardley, Jonathan (June 26, 2004). "'No Left Turns': The G-Man's Tour de Force". A review of the book "No Left Turns" (Washington Post). http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7055-2004Jun25.html. Retrieved May 5, 2010. 

Government offices
Preceded by William J. Burns as Director of the Bureau of Investigation	Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (Bureau of Investigation until 1935) 1924–1972	Succeeded by L. Patrick Gray
Honorary titles
Preceded by Everett Dirksen	Persons who have lain in state or honor in the United States Capitol rotunda May 3–4, 1972	Succeeded by Lyndon B. Johnson

v t e Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation Hoover • Gray* • Ruckelshaus* • Kelley • Adams* • Webster • Otto* • Sessions • Clarke* • Freeh • Pickard* • Mueller denotes acting

v t e Alcohol prohibition By country Canada Finland Iceland Iran Russia/Soviet Union United States By topic 18th Amendment (U.S. Constitution) 21st Amendment (U.S. Constitution) Anti-Saloon League American Mafia Dry county Islam Jazz Age Moonshine Prohibition Party Roaring Twenties Rum-running Rum row Rum Patrol Speakeasy Temperance movement Teetotalism Volstead Act Woman's Christian Temperance Union Associated people Al Capone Mickey Duffy The Purple Gang Waxey Gordon Frank Hamer J. Edgar Hoover Bumpy Johnson Enoch L. Johnson Meyer Lansky Lucky Luciano Sam Maceo Owney Madden Bugs Moran William McCoy Eliot Ness Arnold Rothstein Nicholas II of Russia Dutch Schultz

Persondata
Name	Hoover, J. Edgar
Alternative names	Hoover, John Edgar
Short description	FBI director
Date of birth	1895-01-01
Place of birth	Washington, D.C., United States
Date of death	1972-05-02
Place of death	Washington, D.C., United States

Leonardo DiCaprio
DiCaprio at the Shutter Island premiere at the 60th Berlin International Film Festival.
Born	Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (1974-11-11) November 11, 1974 (age 37) Los Angeles, California, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, film producer
Years active	1989–present
Website
www.leonardodicaprio.com

Leonardo Wilhelm DiCaprio (/dɨˈkæpri.oʊ/; born November 11, 1974)^[1] is an American actor and film producer. He has been nominated for the Golden Globe Award eight times as an actor, and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Actor for his performance in The Aviator (2004). He has also been nominated by the Academy Awards, Screen Actors Guild, Satellite Awards, and the British Academy of Film and Television Arts.

Born and raised in Los Angeles, California, DiCaprio started his career by appearing in television commercials prior to landing recurring roles in TV series such as the soap opera Santa Barbara and the sitcom Growing Pains in the early 1990s. He made his film debut in the comedic sci-fi horror film Critters 3 (1991) and received first notable critical praise for his performance in This Boy's Life (1993). DiCaprio obtained recognition for his subsequent work in supporting roles in What's Eating Gilbert Grape (1993) and Marvin's Room (1996), as well as leading roles in The Basketball Diaries (1995) and Romeo + Juliet (1996), before achieving international fame in James Cameron's Titanic (1997).

Since the 2000s, DiCaprio has been nominated for awards for his work in such films as Catch Me If You Can (2002), Gangs of New York (2002), The Aviator (2004), Blood Diamond (2006), The Departed (2006), and Revolutionary Road (2008). His latest films Shutter Island (2010) and Inception (2010) rank among the biggest commercial successes of his career.^[2] DiCaprio owns a production company named Appian Way Productions, whose productions include the films Gardener of Eden (2007) and Orphan (2009). A committed environmentalist, DiCaprio has received praise from environmental groups for his activism.^[3]

Early life and family[link]

DiCaprio, an only child, was born in Los Angeles, California. His mother, Irmelin (née Indenbirken), is a German-born former legal secretary, and his father, George DiCaprio, is an underground comic artist and producer/distributor of comic books.^[4] DiCaprio's mother moved from Oer-Erkenschwick at the Ruhr, Germany, to the U.S. during the 1950s. DiCaprio's father is of half Italian (from the Naples area) and half German descent (from Bavaria), and is a fourth-generation American.^[1][5][6] DiCaprio's maternal grandmother, Helene Indenbirken (1915–2008),^[7] who was born Yelena Smirnova, was a Russian immigrant to Germany.^[8]

DiCaprio's parents met while attending college and subsequently moved to Los Angeles.^[1] He was named Leonardo because his pregnant mother was looking at a Leonardo da Vinci painting in a museum in Italy when DiCaprio first kicked.^[9] DiCaprio was raised Catholic.^[10][11]

His parents divorced when he was a year old and he lived mostly with his mother. The two lived in several Los Angeles neighborhoods, such as Echo Park, and at 1874 Hillhurst Avenue, Los Feliz district (which was later converted into a local public library), while his mother worked several jobs to support them.^[1] He attended Seeds Elementary School and graduated from John Marshall High School a few blocks away, after attending the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies for four years.

Career[link]

Early career[link]

DiCaprio's career began with his appearance in several commercials and educational films. After being booted off the set of children's television series Romper Room for being disruptive at the age of five,^[12] DiCaprio followed his older stepbrother Adam Farrar into television commercials, landing an ad for Matchbox cars at 14.^[12] In 1990, he got his break on television when he was cast in the short-lived series based on the movie Parenthood. After Parenthood, DiCaprio had bit parts on several shows, including The New Lassie and Roseanne, as well as a brief stint on the soap opera Santa Barbara, playing the young Mason Capwell. His involvement in Parenthood and the daily soap earned him a nomination for the Young Artist Award for Best Young Actor each.

1991–95[link]

His debut film role was in the comedic sci-fi horror film Critters 3, in which he played the stepson of an evil landlord, a role that DiCaprio described as "your average, no-depth, standard kid with blond hair."^[13] Released in 1991, the movie went direct-to-video.^[13] Soon after, he became a recurring cast member on the ABC sitcom Growing Pains, playing Luke Brower, a homeless boy who is taken in by the Seaver family. DiCaprio made his big screen breakthrough in 1992, when he was handpicked by Robert De Niro out of 400 young actors to play the lead role in This Boy's Life, co-starring Ellen Barkin and De Niro himself.^[12]

Later in 1993, DiCaprio co-starred as the mentally handicapped brother to Johnny Depp in What's Eating Gilbert Grape, a comic-tragic odyssey of a dysfunctional Iowa family. Director Lasse Hallström admitted he was initially looking for a less good-looking actor but finally settled on DiCaprio as he had emerged as "the most observant [actor]" among all auditioners.^[13] Budgeted at US$11.0 million,^[14] the film became a financial and critical success, resulting in a domestic box office total of US$9.1 million and various accolades for DiCaprio, who was awarded the National Board of Review Award and nominated for both an Academy Award and a Golden Globe for his portrayal. New York Times critic Janet Maslin praised DiCaprio's performance, writing "the film's real show-stopping turn comes from Mr. DiCaprio, who makes Arnie's many tics so startling and vivid that at first he is difficult to watch. The performance has a sharp, desperate intensity from beginning to end."^[15]

DiCaprio's first effort of 1995 was Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead, a western film in which he appeared alongside Gene Hackman, Sharon Stone, and Russell Crowe, playing the role of Hackman's alleged son named Kid. Sony Pictures was dubious over DiCaprio's casting, and as a result, Stone decided to pay for the actor's salary herself.^[16] The film was released to a dismal box office performance, barely grossing US$18.5 million in the United States, and received mixed reviews from critics.^[17] Jonathan Rosenbaum from the Chicago Reader observed that "Raimi tries to do a Sergio Leone, and though The Quick and the Dead is highly enjoyable in spots, it doesn't come across as very convincing."^[18] Afterwards DiCaprio starred in Total Eclipse, a fictionalized account of the homosexual relationship between Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine, played by David Thewlis. He replaced River Phoenix in the role of Rimbaud, who had died during pre-production on the project.^[19] A minor arthouse success, the film grossed US$0.34 million throughout its domestic theatrical run.^[20]

DiCaprio appeared alongside friends Kevin Connolly and Tobey Maguire in the mostly improvised short film called Don's Plum as a favor to aspiring director R.D. Robb.^[12] When Robb decided to expand the black-and-white film to feature length however, DiCaprio and Maguire obtained its blocking, arguing that they never intended to make it a theatrical release as it would have commercial value thanks to their stardom.^[12] Nevertheless, the film eventually premiered at the 2001 Berlin International Film Festival, where it was well-received by critics, with Time Out New York writer Mike D'Angelo calling it "the best film [I saw] in Berlin." DiCaprio's last film of the year 1995 was The Basketball Diaries, a biopic about Jim Carroll.

1996–2001[link]

In 1996, DiCaprio appeared opposite Claire Danes in Baz Luhrmann's film Romeo + Juliet, an abridged modernization of William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy of the same name which retained the original Shakespearean dialogue. The project was one of the first films to cash in on DiCaprio's future star-status, with a worldwide box office take of $147 million.^[21]

Later that year, he starred in Jerry Zaks' family drama Marvin's Room, reuniting with Robert De Niro. Based on Scott McPherson's screenplay adaptation of his own 1991 stage play of the same name, the film revolves around two sisters, played by Meryl Streep and Diane Keaton, who are reunited through tragedy after 17 years of estrangement.^[22] DiCaprio portrayed the character of Hank, Streep's troubled son, who has been committed to a mental asylum for setting fire to his mother's house.^[23] On his Chlotrudis Award-winning performance, Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly commented: "The deeply gifted DiCaprio [..] keeps right up with these older pros [Keaton and Streep]. The three are so full-bodied and so powerfully affecting that you're carried along on the pleasure of being in the presence of their extraordinary talent."^[23]

DiCaprio at a press conference for The Beach in February 2000

In 1997, DiCaprio starred in James Cameron's Titanic (1997), alongside Kate Winslet. Cast as twenty-year-old Jack Dawson, a penniless Wisconsin man who wins two tickets for the third-class on the ill-fated RMS Titanic, DiCaprio initially refused to portray the character but was eventually encouraged to pursue the role by Cameron who strongly believed in his acting ability.^[24] Against expectations, the film went on to become the highest-grossing film to date (it was surpassed in 2010 by Cameron's directorial follow-up, Avatar), grossing more than US$1.843 billion in box-office receipts worldwide,^[25] and transformed DiCaprio into a commercial movie superstar, resulting in fan worship among teenage girls and young women in general that became known as "Leo-Mania."^[26] He was nominated for most of the high-profile awards, including a second Golden Globe nomination. Upon the success of Titanic, DiCaprio stated in 2000: "I have no connection with me during that whole Titanic phenomenon and what my face became around the world [...] I'll never reach that state of popularity again, and I don't expect to. It's not something I'm going to try to achieve either."^[27]

The following year, DiCaprio made a self-mocking cameo appearance in Woody Allen's caustic satire of the fame industry, Celebrity (1998). That year, he also starred in the dual roles of the villainous King Louis XIV and his secret, sympathetic twin brother Philippe in Randall Wallace's The Man in the Iron Mask, based on the same-titled 1939 film. Despite receiving a rather mixed to negative response,^[28] the film became a box office success, grossing US$180 million internationally.^[29] Though DiCaprio's performance was generally well-received, with Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman writing that "the shockingly androgynous DiCaprio looks barely old enough to be playing anyone with hormones, but he's a fluid and instinctive actor, with the face of a mischievous angel,"^[30] he was awarded a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Couple for both incarnations the following year.

DiCaprio's next project was the drama film The Beach (2000), an adaption of Alex Garland's same-titled 1996 novel. Starring alongside Tilda Swinton and Virginie Ledoyen, he played an American backpacking tourist looking for the perfect way of life in a secret island commune in the Gulf of Thailand. Budgeted at $US50 million, the film became a financial success, grossing $US144 million worldwide,^[31] but as with DiCaprio's previous project, the film was largely panned by critics.^[32] Todd McCarthy of Variety noted that "Richard [DiCaprio's role] is too much the American Everyman and not enough of a well-defined individual to entirely capture one's interest and imagination, and DiCaprio, while perfectly watchable, does not endow him with the quirks or distinguishing marks to make this man from nowhere a dimensional character."^[33] The next year, he was nominated for another Razzie Award for his work on the film.

2002–07[link]

DiCaprio's first film of 2002 was the crime-comedy Catch Me If You Can, based on the life of Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, used his charm, confidence, and several different personas, to make millions in the 1960s writing bad checks. Directed by Steven Spielberg and co-starring Tom Hanks and Christopher Walken, the film was shot in 147 different locations in only 52 days, making it "the most adventurous, super-charged movie-making" DiCaprio had experienced yet.^[34] Catch Me If You Can received favourable reviews and proved to be an international success, becoming Dicaprio's highest-grossing film since Titanic with a total of US$351.1 million worldwide.^[35] Roger Ebert praised his performance, and noted that while "DiCaprio, who in recent films [...] has played dark and troubled characters, is breezy and charming here, playing a boy who discovers what he is good at, and does it."^[36] The following year, DiCaprio received his third Golden Globe nomination for his work on the film.

DiCaprio at the pre-premiere of Gangs of New York at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Also in 2002, DiCaprio appeared in Martin Scorsese's Gangs of New York, a historical film set in the mid-19th century in the Five Points district of New York City. Director Scorsese initially struggled selling his idea of realizing the film until DiCaprio became interested in playing protagonist Amsterdam Vallon, a young leader of the Irish faction, and thus, Miramax Films got involved with financing the project.^[37] Nonetheless production on the film was plagued by blown-out budgets and producer-director squabbles, resulting in a marathon eight-month shoot and, at US$103 million, the most expensive film Scorsese had ever made.^[37] Upon its release, Gangs of New York became a financial and critical success however.^[38] DiCaprio's acting was well-received but remained overshadowed by Daniel Day-Lewis' performance among most critics.^[37][39]

Forging a collaboration with Scorsese, the two paired again for a biopic of the eccentric and obsessive American film director and aviation pioneer Howard Hughes in The Aviator (2004). Centering on Hughes' life from the late 1920s to 1947, DiCaprio initially developed the project with Michael Mann, who decided against directing it after back-to-back film biographies in Ali and The Insider.^[39] The actor eventually pitched John Logan's script to Scorsese, who quickly signed on to direct. Altogether, DiCaprio reportedly spent more than a year and a half in preparation for the film which was not necessarily shot in continuity because of actors and locations schedules.^[39] The Aviator became a critical and financial success.^[40] DiCaprio received rave reviews for his performance and won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor, also receiving another Academy Award nomination.

In 2006, DiCaprio starred in both Blood Diamond and The Departed. In Edward Zwick's war film Blood Diamond, he co-starred alongside Jennifer Connelly and Djimon Hounsou as a diamond smuggler from Rhodesia who is involved in the Sierra Leone Civil War. The film itself received generally favorable reviews,^[41] and DiCaprio was praised for the authenticity of his South African Afrikaner accent, known as a difficult accent to imitate.^[42] In Scorsese's The Departed he played the role of Billy Costigan, a state trooper working undercover in an Irish Mob in Boston. Highly anticipated, the film was released to overwhelmingly positive reviews and became one of the highest-rated wide release films of 2006.^[43] Budgeted at US$90 million, it also emerged as DiCaprio and Scorsese's highest-grossing collaboration to date, easily beating The Aviator´s previous record of US$213.7 million.^[44] DiCaprio's performance in The Departed was applauded by critics and earned him a Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor. The same year, both the Golden Globes and the Screen Actors Guild nominated DiCaprio twice in the Best Actor category for both of his 2006 features, and in addition, DiCaprio earned his third Academy Award nomination for Blood Diamond.

2008–present[link]

In 2008, DiCaprio starred in Body of Lies, a spy film based on the novel of the same name by David Ignatius, set in context of the Middle East and the War on Terror, unfolding the story of three men battling a terrorist organization, and each other.^[45] Directed by Ridley Scott and co-starring Russell Crowe and Vince Colosimo, DiCaprio dyed his hair brown and wore brown contacts for the role, which he chose to pursue because he considered it a throwback to political films in the 1970s such as The Parallax View (1974) and Three Days of the Condor (1975).^[45] The film received mixed reviews from critics,^[46] and at a budget of US$67.5 million, became a moderate box office success, grossing US$115 million worldwide.^[47]

DiCaprio at a charity event in March 2009.

The same year, DiCaprio reunited with Kate Winslet to film the drama Revolutionary Road (2008), directed by Winslet's then-husband Sam Mendes. As both actors had been reluctant to make romantic films similar to Titanic, it was Winslet who suggested that both should work with her on a film adaptation of the 1961 novel of the same name by Richard Yates after reading the script by Justin Haythe, knowing that plot had little in common with the 1997 blockbuster.^[48] Once DiCaprio agreed to do the film, it went almost immediately into production.^[49] He noted that he saw his character as "unheroic" and "slightly cowardly" and that he was "willing to be just a product of his environment."^[50] Portraying a couple in a failing marriage in the 1950s, DiCaprio and Winslet watched period videos promoting life in the suburbs to prepare themselves for Revolutionary Road, which earned them favorable reviews.^[51] For his portrayal DiCaprio garnered his seventh nomination from the Golden Globes.

DiCaprio continued his run with Scorsese in the 2010 psychological thriller film Shutter Island (2010), based on the 2003 novel of the same name by Dennis Lehane. Co-starring Ben Kingsley, Mark Ruffalo and Michelle Williams in supporting roles, the actor played U.S. Marshal Edward "Teddy" Daniels, who is investigating a psychiatric facility located on an island and comes to question his own sanity. With US$41 million, the film opened at number-one at the box office, giving both DiCaprio and Scorsese their best box office opening yet.^[52]

Also in 2010, DiCaprio starred in director Christopher Nolan's science-fiction film Inception. Inspired by the experience of lucid dreaming and dream incubation,^[53] DiCaprio portrays the character of Dom Cobb, an "extractor" who enters the dreams of others to obtain information that is otherwise inaccessible.^[54] Cobb is promised a chance to regain his old life in exchange for planting an idea in a corporate target's mind.^[55] DiCaprio, the first actor to be cast in the film,^[56] was "intrigued by this concept — this dream-heist notion and how this character's gonna unlock his dreamworld and ultimately affect his real life."^[57] Released to critical acclaim, the film grossed over US$21 million on its opening day, with an opening weekend gross of US$62.7 million.^[58]

In 2011, DiCaprio starred in Clint Eastwood's J. Edgar, a biopic about J. Edgar Hoover, the controversial first director of the FBI. He was also cast in the title role in Oliver Stone's film Travis McGee, in which he is expected to play a salvage consultant who helps his clients to recover lost property, and is attached to star as a father who kidnaps and tortures the man who kidnapped his daughter in the thriller Prisoners.^[59] In addition, DiCaprio is said to be involved in the pre-production of Ridley Scott's projects The Wolf of Wall Street and Brave New World, Marc Forster's The Chancellor Manuscript and the biopic Sinatra, a film about Frank Sinatra to be directed by Martin Scorsese.^[59] In July 2010, it was announced that DiCaprio had pulled out of a Viking movie to be directed by Mel Gibson amid controversy over Gibson's rage-fueled rant tapes and domestic violence probe.^[60] On November 1, 2010, it was announced that DiCaprio's production company had acquired the rights to the Erik Larson novel, The Devil in the White City.^[61] The novel tells the true story of Dr. H. H. Holmes, a serial killer responsible for the death of hundreds of women during the Chicago World's Fair.^[62] It has also been announced that DiCaprio will star in the film, playing the role of serial killer H. H. Holmes.^[63] He was also cast in the role of Jay Gatsby in Baz Luhrmann's upcoming adaptation of the novel The Great Gatsby.^[64]

On November 19, 2010, it was announced that DiCaprio will produce and star in the upcoming 2013 movie based on the book Legacy of Secrecy by Lamar Waldron and Thom Hartmann. The storyline examines how, in the early 1960s, the combined forces of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Mafia conspired to initiate and execute the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.^[65] DiCaprio is expected to play FBI informant Jack Van Laningham. The book asserts that Mafia godfather Carlos Marcello confessed to Van Laningham that he had ordered JFK's assassination, while the CIA and the Mafia were conspiring together to try to assassinate Fidel Castro. After the assassination, as part of a dangerous and long-secret undercover operation, the FBI positioned Van Laningham to become a confidant to Marcello, who ruled organized crime in Louisiana and most of Texas for decades.

DiCaprio will star as villainous Calvin Candie in the upcoming Quentin Tarantino film, Django Unchained.^[66] Principal photography started in California, Wyoming, and Louisiana in the first few months of 2012.^[67][68][69] He will reunite with Scorsese for the fifth time in The Wolf of Wall Street, a true story based on the life of stockbroker Jordan Belfort, who was arrested in the late 1990s for security fraud and money laundering.^[70][71]

Personal life[link]

DiCaprio is a close friend of actor Tobey Maguire, whom he met while auditioning for the Parenthood series in 1990, and is a longtime friend of both fellow actors Kevin Connolly and Lukas Haas,^[72] and Titanic and Revolutionary Road co-star Kate Winslet. He was a childhood friend of Christopher Pettiet.^[73]

DiCaprio at the red carpet at the 2007 Tribeca Film Festival.

His romantic relationships have been widely covered in the media.^[74] DiCaprio dated model Kristen Zang on-and-off for several years, and British model and socialite Emma Miller.^[75] In 2001, he met Brazilian model Gisele Bündchen with whom he had an on-and-off relationship until their separation in 2005. DiCaprio began a relationship with model Bar Refaeli in November 2005 after meeting her at a Las Vegas party thrown for members of U2.^[76] In the course of their trip to Israel in March 2007, the couple met with Israeli president Shimon Peres and visited Refaeli's hometown of Hod HaSharon.^[77] The relationship was on hold for a period of six months starting in June 2009; in early 2010, the romance was rekindled.^[78][79] In May 2011, it was reported that the couple had ended their romantic relationship, although still remaining friends.^[80] In August 2011, it was reported that he was in a relationship with actress Blake Lively since mid-May.^[81][82] They ended their relationship in October 2011.^[83]