From raging bull to good fella

He is renowned for playing a hard man in films such as Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and Goodfellas but could it be Robert De Niro is finally going soft?

Despite a notoriously stormy marriage to Grace Hightower, the movie legend is renewing his wedding vows in New York tomorrow amid rumours she is expecting their second child at the age of 51.

It is a remarkable turnaround for the couple who met at a London nightclub in 1987, married ten years later - and filed for divorce in 1999.

By the summer of 2001, the split became even more bitter as they started fighting over custody of their six-year-old son, Elliott.

The big screen tough guy claimed in court that his wife had fractured one of his ribs when she found him with another woman below-decks on a yacht.

The former air stewardess, who didn't want De Niro to have unsupervised visits to their son, countered that the Oscar winner used drugs and alcohol.

But the divorce was never finalised and the couple secretly made another stab at making love work.

Insiders say one of the main reasons for De Niro deciding to work at his marriage came when he was diagnosed with prostate cancer a year ago.

'The cancer made him take a good look at his life - and he realised the most important thing was family,' a close friend said.