Now 50, Leonardo DiCaprio is nothing short of a Hollywood powerhouse—the industry’s quintessential leading man, with an Oscar, BAFTA, SAG Award, two Critics’ Choice Awards, and three Golden Globes to his name, accumulated over the course of an unparalleled four-decade-long career with towering performances in everything from Romeo + Juliet and Titanic to Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, Revolutionary Road, The Wolf of Wall Street, The Revenant, and Killers of the Flower Moon.
But before he became entirely ubiquitous, the Los Angeles native was a child star in the late 1980s and early ’90s, a frequent presence in commercials and sitcoms including NBC’s Parenthood and ABC’s Growing Pains.
It was his part in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape opposite Johnny Depp that then set him on a path to the A-list at the age of 19, securing him a best-supporting-actor Oscar nomination and a string of more prominent roles, including the swoon-worthy romantic hero in Baz Luhrmann’s vivid reimagining of the bard’s best-known tragedy, and the free-spirited artist Jack Dawson in a certain Academy Awards-sweeping, box-office-record-breaking, James Cameron-directed cultural phenomenon. After that, there was no looking back.
In honor of his birthday, we present 27 jaw-dropping throwback photos of the actor, from his childhood to the remarkable first decade of his career.
