The King of Comedy (film) character fails to differentiate between his fantasies and reality in much the same way. Scorsese sought to achieve the same with the film so that, in his words, the "fantasy is more real than reality". Rupert Pupkin has been compared to Travis Bickle in "Taxi Driver": both characters have serious issues with reality testing, that is drawing the line between outer objective and inner subjective reality. In her review, entertainment columnist Marilyn Beck approved Johnny Carson's refusal to participate in "The King of Comedy", supposedly because he feared the film could inspire psychopaths like John Hinckley. Beck considered "The King
Robert De Niro (1987), "Heat" (1995), and "Casino" (1995). He has directed and starred in films such as the crime drama "A Bronx Tale" (1993) and the spy film "The Good Shepherd" (2006). Robert Anthony De Niro Jr. was born on August 17, 1943, in the Manhattan borough of New York City, the only child of painters Virginia Admiral and Robert De Niro Sr. He is of Irish and Italian descent on his father's side, while his mother had Dutch, English, French, and German ancestry. De Niro's parents, who had met at the painting classes of Hans Hofmann in Provincetown, Massachusetts, divorced when