The historic first meeting between Bananarama and Robert De Niro: “We’d no idea it was him”
If there’s one thing Robert De Niro hates more than talking about his movies, it’s talking about himself, so it seems fair to surmise the acting legend may not have been entirely thrilled when he discovered he’d become the backdrop to a hit song, which meant somebody was going to ask him about it eventually.
Plenty of silver screen stars have become the subjects of songwriters, with Winona Ryder having more tracks penned about her than most, but until Bananarama released ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting…’ in February 1984, there’s a distinctly high probability that he’d never heard of them.
Since it never flew any higher than 95th place on the Billboard charts, it wasn’t exactly a smash hit on the opposite side of the Atlantic, although it did reach number three in the UK. As fate would have it, though, who happened to be in Britain shooting their latest film when Banarama’s Robert De Niro song received its first serious airplay? Robert De Niro, of course.
In early 1984, the two-time Academy Award winner was filming Terry Gilliam’s Brazil, and he was up to his usual tricks by spending months studying brain surgeons in order to play a plumber. Why? Because he’s fucking Robert De Niro, that’s why. Despite his intense preparations, though, the director hinted that his approach to Harry Tuttle leaned more toward madness than method.
And yet, it was almost as if the stars had aligned in perfect synchronicity. Bananarama were basking in the success of ‘Robert De Niro’s Waiting…’, and as it turned out, Robert De Niro really was waiting to meet them in person. This being one of Hollywood’s most publicity-shy icons, the historic first meeting between the pop trio and Martin Scorsese’s muse wasn’t dripping in the glitz and glamour associated with movie stardom.
“When the song came out, he was in the UK filming Brazil, and he invited us for a drink at Kettners in Soho,” Sara Dallin told The Guardian. “We were all sitting there when this guy knocked on the window. It was a freezing winter’s night, and he had a bobble hat and glasses on, and we just thought: ‘Who is that person trying to catch our attention?'”
That person was, of course, Robert De Niro. “We’d no idea it was him,” Dallin explained. “He had his producer with him, who did most of the talking. I think De Niro was quite shy. But the place was filled with our friends and boyfriends, all sitting at different tables trying to sneak a look at him.”
Fortunately for Bananarama, he didn’t think to ask why their song with his name featured prominently in the title and choruses couldn’t find someone who even looked remotely like him to star in the video, with Siobhan Fahey admitting “we were really disappointed they couldn’t find a Robert De Niro lookalike,” which left them with “someone who resembled John Travolta” instead.
Still, it was Bananarama and Robert De Niro, face to face for the first time ever, and history was made.
