Bukowski On Mickey Rourke

Upon seeing a rough cut of Rourke's performance in the Bukowski authored Barfly, he wrote this to John Martin:

"Rourke did it wondrously. - The eyes, the body, the voice, the spirit, the guts, the inventiveness, the gamble, all that - but never cheating on the reality of of what I meant or what it was, at its best.

Mickey did it. Would only that he had some help from the others.

And not only that, but off camera, Rourke appeared the most human of them all.

I don't understand where all the shit reports come from."

-Charles Bukowski, 1987.