Robert John Downey (né Elias Jr.; June 24, 1936 – July 7, 2021) was an American filmmaker and actor. He was known for writing and directing his underground film Putney Swope, a satire on the New York Madison Avenue advertising world. According to film scholar Wheeler Winston Dixon, Downey's films during the 1960s were "strictly take-no-prisoners affairs, with minimal budgets and outrageous satire, effectively pushing forward the countercultural agenda of the day."
Robert Downey Sr. was born Robert John Elias Jr. in the Manhattan borough of New York City, on June 24, 1936. He was the son of Elizabeth (née McLauchlen), a model, and Robert John Elias Sr., who worked in management of motels and restaurants. His paternal grandparents were Lithuanian Jews, while his mother was of half Hungarian Jewish and half Irish ancestry. He grew up in Rockville Centre, New York. He changed his surname to Downey after his stepfather, when he wanted to enlist in the United States Army while being underage. Downey later said he wrote an unpublished novel during his time in the army, though he spent much of his military career "in the stockade".
Downey initially made his mark creating very low-budget independent films aligning with the Absurdist movement, in line with counterculture, anti-establishment, 1960s America. His work in the late 1960s and 1970s was quintessential anti-establishment, reflecting the nonconformity popularized by larger counterculture movements and given impetus by new freedoms in films, such as the breakdown of codes on censorship. In keeping with the underground tradition, his 1970s films were independently made on shoestring budgets and were relatively obscure in the Absurdist movement, finding cult notoriety.

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