Do superheroes come from Hungary?

The Hungarian Hollywood Council’s aim is to discover Hungarian roots in the legendary history of Hollywood and to commemorate all the Hungarian producers, directors, actors and actresses in the American film industry. A few days ago, the council presented interesting research to the public: they discovered that Robert Downey Jr. has Hungarian ancestors.

[button link=”https://dailynewshungary.com/hungarian-founders-hollywood/” type=”big” newwindow=”yes”] The Hungarian founders of Hollywood[/button]

Robert Downey Jr. is best known from the Marvel movies Iron Man and Avengers, but he had many more iconic roles, for example, Sherlock Holmes. He got his first role from his father in the movie Pound when he was only five years old. During his amazing career, he won a Golden Globe and was nominated for an Academy Award. According to Forbes Magazine, he is the third highest-grossing actor in Hollywood.

HVG reported that the actor’s Hungarian ancestors were mongers. The council gave a detailed report about the marvellous discovery on its official Facebook page. The world-famous actor was born on April 4th, 1965, in Greenwich Village which is in New York City, USA. His parents are Robert Downey Sr. and Elsie Downey. According to the council’s research, Robert Downey Jr.’s great grandfather was a Hungarian man called Jakab Stern.

Jakab Stern was born in 1820 and worked as a monger till the end of his life in the Hungarian town Tata (Komárom-Esztergom county) and in the nearby towns. His wife, Eleonóra Deutschländer, was born eight years later. After Jakab Stern’s death, his wife married another man called Simon Deutsch, and they hired a mill in Szomód, not far from Tata. Eleonóra Deutschländer gave the property to her daughter called Ilka Stern (born in Hungary, 1836) who married Rudolf Ormay. She gave birth to four children and the youngest of them, Eleonóra Ella, was the great-grandmother of the American actor. The family emigrated to the United States at the end of the 1880s.