Rourke is back in the ring

TORONTO — MICKEY Rourke's time has finally come. More than a quarter of a century after he catapulted to stardom in Barry Levinson's "Diner" and Francis Ford Coppola's "Rumble Fish," the man who never won an Oscar but pretty much retired the trophy for America's Craziest Living Actor may get that second act that few artists who self-destruct at an early age ever live to see.

When I had dinner with Rourke in L.A. a few years ago, he spent two hours at a crowded Sunset Strip eatery, virtually unnoticed. Here in Toronto, after getting raves for his tough-but-tender performance in Darren Aronofsky's "The Wrestler," Rourke is the center of attention again. The film was the big sale of the festival, going to Fox Searchlight for roughly $4 million after winning the Golden Lion in Venice last week. And wherever Rourke has gone here, he's drawn a crowd of photographers.

Nearly back to his regular 190-pound fighting weight after gaining 35 pounds to play the part, wearing a blue pinstripe jacket with little blond ringlets in his hair, he's hard to miss. As we sipped coffee in an upstairs lobby at the Four Seasons Hotel here, actors, producers, agents and wannabe screenwriters all stopped by, eager to offer hugs and congratulations or pass along hand-written notes, hoping to interest him in one new project or another.

Maybe this time Rourke can handle the spotlight. Earlier in his career, he fumbled the ball, taking horrible parts, partying all night, spending years fruitlessly trying to revive his schoolboy boxing career and telling anyone who would listen how much disdain he had for the art of acting. Although he's still as eccentric as ever -- taking his favorite Chihuahua, Loki, whom he also calls "No. 1," with him nearly everywhere he goes -- he says he's been in therapy for 13 years and can finally control the anger he'd carried around after surviving a turbulent and violent childhood.

In "The Wrestler," Rourke plays Randy (the Ram) Robinson, a beaten-down wrestler 20 years past his prime, his body scarred and gone to seed, unable to sustain any real relationships, least of all with his daughter, played by Evan Rachel Wood, who wants nothing to do with him. The part hit home.

"Let's put it this way, Randy the Ram was somebody 20 years ago, and so was Mickey Rourke," he told me. "When you used to be somebody and you aren't anybody anymore, you live in what my doctor calls a state of shame. You don't want to go out of the house. You hate just going to the store and having to stand in line, because inevitably someone will stare at you and say, 'Hey, didn't you used to be someone in the movies?' "