Mickey Rourke, born Phillip Andre Rourke, Jr. on September 16, 1952, in Schenectady, New York, was the son of Annette Elizabeth (Cameron) and Philip Andre Rourke, who had Irish and German descent, and his mother was of mostly English and French-Canadian ancestry.
When Rourke was six years old, his parents divorced, and a year later, his mother married Eugene Addis, a Miami Beach police officer, and moved to Miami Shores, Florida.
After graduating from Horace Mann Junior High School, Rourke's family moved to a house located on 47th Street and Prairie Avenue in Miami Beach, where he attended Miami Beach Senior High School, playing second-string first baseman under coach Skip Bertman and acted in a school play, "The Serpent," directed by legendary "Teacher To The Stars" Jay W. Jensen.
In 1971, he graduated from Miami Beach Senior High School and moved back to New York to seek out a career in acting, working for a short time as a bus boy at the famed Forge Restaurant on Miami Beach before pursuing his acting dreams.
Rourke's teenage years were more focused on sports than acting, taking up self-defense training at the Boys Club of Miami, where he learned boxing skills and decided on an amateur career.
At the age of 12, Rourke won his first boxing match as an 118-pound bantamweight, defeating Javier Villanueva, and continued his boxing training at the famed 5th Street Gym in Miami Beach, soon joining the Police Athletic League boxing program.
In 1969, Rourke, now weighing 140 pounds, sparred with former World Welterweight champion Luis Rodriguez, who was training for his match with world champion Nino Benvenuti, and claims to have received a concussion in this sparring match.
In 1971, at the Florida Golden Gloves, Rourke received another concussion from a boxing match, and doctors told him to take a year off and rest, but he continued his boxing career, knocking out Ron Robinson in 18 seconds and John Carver in 39 seconds.
On Aug. 20, 1973, Rourke knocked out 'Sherman "Big Train"' Bergman in 31 seconds, and shortly after, he decided to retire from amateur boxing, compiling an amateur boxing record of 27 wins (17 by knockout) and 3 defeats.
From 1964 to 1973, Rourke had been friendly with pro-boxer Tommy Torino and was trained by former pro-boxer Freddie Roach at Miami Beach's 5th Street Gym and the Outlaw Boxing Club Gym in Los Angeles, making $250 for his pro debut, but by the end of his second year of boxing, he had earned a million dollars.
In June 1994, Rourke appeared on the cover of World Boxing Magazine, sparring with world champions James Toney, John David Jackson, and Tommy Morrison, and wished to have 16 professional fights and then fight for a world title, but he retired in 1994 after eight bouts and never got his desired title fight.
Rourke's boxing career resulted in severe facial injuries that required a number of operations to repair his damaged face, and he went back to acting but worked in relative obscurity until he won a Golden Globe Award for his role as Randy "The Ram" Robinson in The Wrestler (2008).
