Robert Downey Jr. turned into a real-life superhero for an injured woman and later also flirted with her…

For over a decade, Robert Downey Jr. did play a superhero on screen but did you even know that to one admirer, he was also a superhero in actual life? Dana Reinhardt recalled in a 2020 Reader's Digest article how the actor, who was still years away from being a global icon with the Marvel films, went into overdrive when he saw her grandma had seriously injured herself. And he made every effort to be as endearing as possible.

On the occasion of Downey's 57th birthday, here's a look back at that story. The incident occurred in the early 1990s, prior to Downey's well-publicized run-ins with the law. Before being cast as Tony Stark/Iron Man in the Marvel Universe, the actor popularly conquered a drug dependency and was uninsurable for a time.

The author of the article was with her 80-year-old grandmother at a garden party for the ACLU of Southern California. Downey was pointed out to her, but she had no idea who he was. The author and her grandmother stood up to leave after the event, but her grandmother stumbled and fell, cutting her chin open. Blood was gushing from every pore. "I sat down and put my head between my knees because I thought I was going to pass out..." the author wrote, adding, "Fortunately, someone did take control of the situation." Robert Downey Jr. was that person."

She further added “He took off his gorgeous linen jacket, he rolled up his sleeves, and he grabbed hold of my grandmother’s leg. Then he took the jacket, which I’d assumed he’d taken off only to get it out of the way, and he tied it around her wound. I watched the cream-colored linen turn scarlet with her blood. He told her not to worry and that everything would be all right.” The author recalled that Downey also made sure to flirt with her grandmother. “He held on to her calf, and he whistled. He told her how stunning her legs were,” she wrote, and later, “He walked alongside the stretcher holding her hand and telling her she was breaking his heart by leaving the party so early, just as they were getting to know each other. He waved to her as they closed the doors. ‘Don’t forget to call me, Silvia,’ he said. ‘We’ll do lunch.”

The author revealed that she was too ashamed to talk to him at the time. Years later, when she learned of his drug-related imprisonment, she considered writing to him in his jail cell and notifying him of the story. She, however, did not. Then fate introduced her to a third chance. She ran into Downey at a restaurant years after her grandmother died and he had been released from jail. She further added “I said, ‘I don’t have any idea if you remember this …,’ and I told him the story. ‘I just wanted to thank you,’ I said. ‘And I wanted to tell you that it was simply the kindest act I’ve ever witnessed.’ He stood up and took both of my hands in his and he looked into my eyes and he said, ‘You have absolutely no idea how much I needed to hear that today.”