On this day in 1943, Robert de Niro, one of the greatest actors of all time, was born in New York City. I've called De Niro my favorite actor ever since I saw him in the 1995 crime thriller Heat, which I consider my all-time favorite movie. After seeing him play mobster Paul Vitti opposite Billy Crystal in 1999's Analyze This  and the uptight ex-CIA operative Jack Byrnes in the 2000 comedy Meet the Parents, I realized just how versatile and talented De Niro really is. Not every actor can deftly switch from gun-shooting assassin to funnyman like he can. You know an actor is great when he's likable even as a villain. Other memorable roles include the boxer Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull,  for which De Niro won the Oscar for Best Actor; the young Vito Corleone in The Godfather: Part II , for which he won an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor; and creepy loner Travis Bickle in Taxi Driver, where his signature line was "You talking to me?" And that's just ...

Over the past few weeks, I've asked 12 women whether they prefer men with facial hair or without. The result? Eighty three percent (10 in total) said they'd choose stubble over the clean look. I find this interesting because, from what I remember, plenty of girls I went to college with swore by the clean, boyish look. It could be that as a woman gets older, she begins to lean in favor of a more manly look. With exception to so-called cougars, it seems most women don't want a partner who looks, say, ten years her junior. Facial hair, after all, makes men look older and more mature. My wife has told me countless times that she prefers I leave my goatee. She actually whines each time I shave it off, but I remind her she need only wait a couple of days for most of it to grow back. I liken this preference to men who prefer that women have long hair. In case you didn't know, most of us do, as it makes women look more feminine. If you haven't noticed, actors who ...