Robert De Niro De Niro went on to have a successful working relationship with him in films such as "Taxi Driver" (1976), "New York, New York" (1977), "Raging Bull" (1980), "The King of Comedy" (1983), "Goodfellas" (1990), "Cape Fear" (1991), and "Casino" (1995). They also acted together in "Guilty by Suspicion" (1991) and provided their voices for the animated feature "Shark Tale" (2004). "Taxi Driver" was particularly important to De Niro's career. His iconic performance as Travis Bickle catapulted him to stardom and forever linked his name with Bickle's famous "You talkin' to me?" monologue, which De Niro largely improvised. The role of
Frank Rosenthal Spilotro, on which the character Nicky Santoro (played by Joe Pesci) is based. Rosenthal is represented by the character Sam "Ace" Rothstein (played by Robert De Niro). The character of Ginger McKenna Rothstein, his wife in the film (played by Sharon Stone), is based on Geri McGee, Rosenthal's wife in real life. In an interview about the movie, Rosenthal stated that his character portrayed by Robert De Niro was quite but not fully similar to him, namely "7 on a scale of 1 to 10", and that he would neither "dispute" nor "confirm" whether Sharon Stone accurately portrayed his wife