Mickey Rourke looks UNRECOGNISABLE with shocking new look in LA

In the 1980s Mickey Rourke was the quintessential bad boy.

He was sultry, he was naughty and women loved him – but then he became more interested in brawling than box office and his good looks took a beating.

Rourke had been a keen amateur boxer before he became an actor but returned to the ring as a professional in the early 1990s. During the next five years he was undefeated in eight fights but frequent punches to the face led him to seek surgery.

Rourke, the son of a professional body builder, claims that most of his operations were performed to fix prior injuries.

“Most of it was to mend the mess of my face, but I went to the wrong guy to put my face back together,” he once said.

“I had my nose broken twice. I had five operations on my nose and one on a smashed cheekbone,” Rourke added. 

“I had to have cartilage taken from my ear to rebuild my nose and a couple of operations to scrape out the cartilage because the scar tissue wasn’t healing properly.”

Experts say he has also had a facelift, eyelid surgery to both upper and lower lids, soft tissue fillers, cheek and chin implants.

But there is some debate over whether the procedures are reconstructive or cosmetic.

In 1996 Rourke’s spokesperson said rhinoplasty (a nose job) was necessary because the actor, who’d retired from the ring, was having diffi culty breathing.

“A boxing injury can cause severe breathing problems,” says Dr Anthony Griffin, a plastic surgeon who appeared on E! TV’s 20 Best And Worst Plastic Surgery Countdown – a programme in which Rourke appeared at number 15.

“The most delicate bony structure in the body is the nose, so it’s very vulnerable.”

Three years later Rourke’s plastic surgeon said he needed to fix “callus formations” in his cheekbones, areas of toughened skin apparently caused by boxing.

Cheek implants were prescribed but were they necessary?

“I would disagree that because he was a boxer he needed cheek implants,” says Dr Griffin.

“I think just the opposite.” 

With six films due out by the end of next year, Rourke’s roles are now a world away from the erotic backlist that made the actor famous.

These days he plays misfi ts and villains, character roles suggested by the visible results of 20 years spent keeping the plastic surgeons of America’s West Coast busy.

His role in the 1998 film Buffalo 66, in which he played an intimidating bookie, marked the beginning of a string of character roles and by then he had the haunting face to match his new genre.

By 2000 his lips were several sizes larger and his face began to take on the unnatural plasticised sheen of “work”.

Three years later his eyes – always a compelling feature – had lost their prominence amidst scar tissue. 

To ready him for his portrayal as a haunted comic book hero brought to life in the 2005 movie Sin City, Rourke underwent three hours of make-up every day.

While his performance won plaudits, cruel critics pointed out that he was perfectly cast because he already looked like a cartoon character – even before the make-up was applied.

Rourke followed up this star turn with The Wrestler for which he won best actor at the Golden Globes in 2009.

It was a role that fully exploited the gruesome real-life appearance that he continues to try to fix.

Last month the actor had yet another nose job.

He posted a photograph on Instagram in which he was wearing a bandage and shaking hands with his plastic surgeon.

“Now I am pretty again,” he wrote.

The actor’s fans have been less than impressed.

“Mickey Rourke is a goddamn idiot,” said one on social media.

“Does he even know how many of us men would have died to get such looks that he had in the 1980s. Damn.”

Dr Griffin believes that Rourke is “one of those sad cases where they took a perfectly handsome looking movie star and distorted his features”.

Being defined by your looks is one thing but being defined by cosmetic surgery and a shortlived boxing career is quite another.