Who would have thought Robert De Niro would crash and burn before Donald Trump?

The one-time great movie actor (Taxi Driver, The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull) ended up playing a clown when he went after Trump.

It took place during his bizarre and rambling attack on Trump outside the Manhattan courthouse last week when Trump was on trial.

It was so strange that it is a wonder De Niro did not appear in a dress, like fellow actor Richard Dreyfuss (Jaws) did in his meltdown a couple of days earlier at the Cabot Theater in Beverly.

What is it with these actors?

In Dreyfuss’ case, “An Evening with Richard Dreyfuss” and a showing of “Jaws,” before an admiring audience of fans of the movie, turned into a nightmare when the veteran actor went rogue.

He came on the stage wearing a dress and dancing to a Taylor Swift song.

After the dress was taken off, Dreyfuss, instead of talking about the movie—which is what the audience came to hear– launched into what was described as a “transphobic, misogynistic, homophobic sexist rant.”

It did not take long for the disappointed and rattled audience to walk out in disgust.

Still, Dreyfuss, as accomplished an actor as he is, is no De Niro when it comes to stage entrances.

De Niro’s act, sponsored by the Biden campaign, had him arrive outside the Trump courthouse accompanied by bodyguards who looked like they were mobsters out of the movie Goodfellas, another great Di Niro film. It is only too bad the Oscar winning actor did not bring a couple of Goodfella movie props with him, like the telephone booth he abolished in the film.

That was when Jimmy Conway (Robert De Niro) went berserk after getting the sad news that his criminal meal ticket Tommy De Vito (Joe Pesci), took one in the head at a Mafia induction ceremony.

Conway (De Niro) in a rage then proceeded to repeatedly smash the phone apparatus with the receiver. Still not satisfied he left the telephone booth only to turn around and kick it. Then, like a raging bull, he attacked the telephone booth and tipped it over.

That is the kind of passion De Niro, in his contempt for fellow New Yorker Donald Trump, needed to show outside the courthouse.

And just because there are no longer any phone booths around is no excuse. De Niro surely could have gotten one from the telephone company and the burly bodyguards he brought with him could have carried it in and set it up.

Then DeNiro could have acted as though Trump were on the other line, launched some F-bombs, hung up and then smashed everything up, like in the movie. Only this time it would have been great TV.

Instead, the 80-year-old actor, dressed in clothes that looked slept in– and without a decent script in his hand—looked and sounded deranged. All that was missing was Dreyfuss’ dress.

“I love this city,” De Niro said to the horde of reporters surrounding him—as well as to hecklers on the sidelines.  “I don’t want to destroy it,” he added, as though New York were not already wrecked with runaway crime and illegal immigrants.

Sounding more like Nero than De Niro, the actor said, “Donald Trump wants to destroy not only the city but the country, and eventually he could destroy the world.”

Acting as though Trump was the missing telephone booth, De Niro kicked away calling Trump a “grubby real estate hustler masquerading as a big shot…” “a two-bit playboy lying his way to the tabloids,” and, among other things, a “clown.”

In addition, according to De Niro, Trump was generally a bad guy even though he is a former president who half the country voted for and will vote for him again, despite his rigged conviction.

And, speaking of clowns, De Niro finally got to play one.

Peter Lucas is a veteran political reporter. Email him at: peter.lucas@bostonherald.com

Former President Donald Trump speaks during a news conference at Trump Tower, Friday in New York. (AP Photo/Julia Nikhinson)