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In The Wrestler, helmed by Darren Aronofsky, Rourke turns in a tour-de-force performance as Randy “Ram” Robinson, a veteran grappler, 20 years past his prime. Robinson still wrestles, mostly in small shows in north Jersey, and ekes out a living working at a supermarket and signing autographs at conventions in VFW halls. He believes he has another shot of glory, even though his health on the wane from a heart ailment. Further, he thinks he can get his personal life straightened out, showing romantic interest in Cassidy (Marisa Tomei), a stripper and single mother, and attempting to reconnect with his estranged daughter Stephanie (Evan Rachel Wood). Like the Cowardly Lion, “the Ram” needs some courage (and a little luck) to see his dreams come true.

And much like “the Ram,” Rourke is looking to turn things around for himself. After a long time in professional exile, Rourke is back at the top of his game, as The Wrestler gains year-end awards and waves of Oscar buzz. Despite the streaky yellow locks and the punched-down punim, Rourke still has some of the ruffian golden boy good looks of his prime. On and off the screen, he was always a tough cookie, but in the movies there was an unequivocal good nature and undeniable charisma to him. These characteristics shine through his turn in The Wrestler, too, as big a louse as “the Ram” has been throughout his life.

Many people remember the first time they saw Rourke on-screen because he really made a helluva first impression. For many, it was in 1981’s Body Heat, where he played Teddy Lewis, a “rock-and-roll arsonist” enlisted by William Hurt’s lawyer Ned Racine to blow up the warehouse owned by the husband of lover Matty Walker (Kathleen Turner). This writer actually recalls Rourke making an earlier impact in 1980’s Fade To Black, playing the bullying nemesis of psychotic movie buff Eric Binford (Dennis Christopher). Rourke gets his just desserts from Christopher, clad as Hopalong Cassidy, on a deserted boardwalk.

Larger roles post-Body Heat came fast and furious. Of course, there was “Boogie” in Barry Levinson’s autobiographical Diner, the weisenheimer Baltimore kid who does hair during the day, studies law at night and has a trick with a popcorn bucket that is classic. Does he make out to Frank Sinatra or Johnny Mathis? Neither. He does it with Elvis in the background. That says it all about Boogie.

Rourke was a cool cucumber, and comparisons to Brando, Dean and Nicholson rolled in along with a series of high profile roles, all of them pretty badass. He was “the Motorcycle Boy,” sage-like brother to Matt Dillon’s troubled youth, in Francis Ford Coppola’s experimental take on S.E. Hinton’s Rumble Fish. As Charlie Moran in 1984’s The Pope Of Greenwich Village, Rourke limned the debt-ridden cousin to Eric Roberts with dreams of owning his own restaurant. In Year Of The Dragon, Rourke was the racist cop tackling Asian mobs in Michael Cimino’s uneven but action-packed adaptation of Robert Daley’s best-seller. And in 1987’s Angel Heart, Alan Parker cast Rourke as Harry Angel, a gumshoe hired by a mysterious man named Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro). The assignment, investigating the disappearance of a singer named Johnny Favourite, leads him into New Orleans’ strange world of voodoo.

Via explicit sex scenes with Lisa Bonet in Angel Heart and Kim Basinger in the ultra-kinky hit 9 ½ Weeks, Rourke gained the reputation of an actor willing to take on roles others would not touch. Rourke also proved apt in taking odd choices in less-than-successful Hollywood films such as the crime thriller White Sands, Cimino’s maligned remake of The Desperate Hours with Anthony Hopkins, and Harley Davidson And The Marlboro Man with Don Johnson. But he also turned in stellar work in out-of-the-mainstream efforts like Barbet Schroeder’s Barfly, in which he plays an alcoholic Charles Bukowski-inspired writer; Johnny Handsome, cast as the title character, a hideously deformed criminal who gets a second stab at life after an experimental operation to alter his looks; and the troubled production of A Prayer For The Dying, in which Rourke essayed the part of an IRA agent trying to come clean from his violent past. It was no coincidence that the actor took some heat for donating his salary for 1989’s Francesco, in which he played St. Francis of Assisi, to causes tied to the Irish Republican Army.

In the late 1980s, Rourke’s personal life often made more waves than the movies he appeared in. His marriage to actress Debra Feuer dissolved in 1989, and Rourke began a tempestuous relationship with model Carre Otis, with whom he appeared in Zalman King’s erotic 1989 drama Wild Orchid. Rumor was that the new couple had real sex in at least one of the film’s scenes. Although Rourke and Otis eventually married, the union lasted just six years, and was riddled with allegations of spousal abuse on Otis’ part which were eventually dropped. Rourke’s career was also marred by reports of increasingly erratic behavior on the set. His movie career seemingly stalled after a series of roles in forgotten “B” pictures—and after passing on roles such as Butch, the boxer, in Pulp Fiction--Rourke began to box professionally, something he had done before acting in Miami.

In some circles, Rourke became a joke; a cranky, chain-smoking, expletive-spouting creep who was just about unemployable in movies. People either ignored him or joked about him. Joe Queenan wrote an article in Movieline called “Mickey Rourke for a Day,” in which the writer smokes, cusses, spits, starts fights and basically annoys people as he acts like, well, Mickey Rourke for a day. 9 ½ Weeks co-star Basinger called him “a human ashtray.”

Several serious injuries drove Rourke, a practicing Catholic, back into action on-screen--mainly in films that received limited theatrical exposure, but received strong response upon their hasty debut on home video. His shaggy, cooler-than-thou persona still attracted interest from top directors, albeit in smaller, scene-stealing parts. Terrence Malick placed him in 1999’s The Thin Red Line, but his scenes were left on the cutting room floor. Robert Rodriguez cast him in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, and subsequently in the role that placed him firmly back on the pop-culture radar, as the hulking, vengeful Marv in the adaptation of Frank Miller’s noir comic fables, Sin City. How much of Marv’s puffy Frankensteinian appearance was really Rourke and really makeup became the center of much debate. Meanwhile, Tony Scott placed him in Man On Fire and Domino, and John Madden gave him a key role in the Elmore Leonard adaptation Killshot, which is yet to be released.

Aronofsky had originally cast Nicolas Cage for the part of “the Ram” in The Wrestler, but Cage, after preparing for the part, was let go to make way for Rourke. In light of the accolades, the award buzz and the word-of-mouth about the actor’s resurrection, the move has had more impact than a crushing body slam to Rourke’s newly recharged career.

And it appears that with luck and courage, the actor won’t be counted out anytime soon.

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