Robert Downey Jr.'s mother passed away on Monday, the actor has revealed.
The "Iron Man" star shared the sad news on his Facebook page, in a lengthy letter that celebrated his mom's life.
"My mom passed away early this week....I wanna say something about her life, and a generic 'obit' won't suffice... Elsie Ann Ford was born outside Pittsburgh in April of 1934, daughter of an engineer who worked on the Panama Canal, and mother who ran a jewelry shop in Huntingdon, where they settled....a bona fide 'Daughter Of The American Revolution,'" he wrote.
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"In the mid '50s, she dropped out of college and headed to NY, with dreams of becoming a comedienne. In '62, she met my dad, (who proposed at a Yankees/Orioles game). They married, had my sister Allyson in '63 and me in '65...," the post continued.
Elsie's show business dreams led her into what Robert described as the "drug culture," and the actor said that by the '70s, his mother was an alcoholic.
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"I remember living with her and her boyfriend Jonas, (who became a second father to me) in a 2 room 5 story walk up in Manhattan after that...Bunsen burner for a stove, cockroaches, broken dreams," he wrote. "By 1990, she'd had enough, went to treatment, got sober. Just in time to enjoy several decades of heart disease, bypasses, you name it."
Robert's mom was instrumental in his own quest to get sober.
"In the summer of 2004, I was in bad shape. She called me out of the blue, and I admitted everything. I don't remember what she said, but I haven't drank or used since," he said.
The actor said his mom was his role model, "as an actor, and as a woman who got sober and stayed that way."
"She was also reclusive, self-deprecating, a stoic Scotch-German rural Pennsylvanian, a ball buster, stubborn, and happy to hold a grudge," he wrote. "My ambition, tenacity, loyalty, 'moods,' grandiosity, occasional passive aggression, and my faith... That's all her...and I wouldn't have it any other way."
Read Robert's full letter here.
-- Erin O'Sullivan
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