Richard Gere
Richard Gere | |
|---|---|
 Richard Gere Visits USAID HIV / AIDS "Operation Lighthouse" Project In Mumbai, as part of USAID. | |
| Born | Richard Tiffany Gere |
| Years active | 1973 - present |
| Spouse(s) | Cindy Crawford (1991-1995) Carey Lowell (2002-) |
Richard Tiffany Gere[1] (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He first became famous during the 1980s, after appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including American Gigolo and An Officer and a Gentleman, and has since retained his status as a leading man. During the 1990s and 2000s, he starred in several well-received films, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe award as Best Actor.
Biography
Early life
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gere is a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, William Brewster and Francis Cooke.[1] Gere's mother, Doris Anna (née Tiffany), was a homemaker, and his father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and had originally intended to become a minister.[2] Gere has three sisters and a brother. In 1967, he graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, playing the trumpet.[2] He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in Philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years.[3][2]
Career
Gere first worked professionally at the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1971 where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Gere's first major acting role was in the original London stage version of Grease in 1973.[2] He began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid 1970s, co-starring in the thriller Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and playing the leading role in director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed 1978 film, Days of Heaven.[2] In 1980, Gere appeared in the Broadway production of Bent. His acting career took off thar year with the successful film American Gigolo, followed by the popular romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman, which had grossed over $100 million in 1982.[2] Subsequently, he was the first man ever to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine.
Gere's career in the 1980s alternated between box office successes and failures. After the release of both Internal Affairs and the box office hit Pretty Woman in 1990, Gere's status as a leading man was again solidified, and he continued starring in solidly performing films throughout the 1990s, including Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996), and Runaway Bride (1999), which paired Gere with his Pretty Woman co-star, Julia Roberts.[2] In Mr. Jones, Gere accurately portrayed a high-functioning, creative, and intellectual man with bipolar disorder. The movie was not a commercial success, but was well-received by the mental health community. It is frequently utilized as a training tool to acquaint students and families with the disorder.
People magazine named Gere the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999. In 2002, he appeared in three major releases: the horror thriller The Mothman Prophecies, the drama Unfaithful, and the Academy Award-winning film version of Chicago,[2] for which he won a Golden Globe as "Best Actor - Comedy or Musical". Gere's 2004 ballroom dancing drama, Shall We Dance, was also a solid performer, although his next film, Bee Season, failed to find an audience amid the Oscar-contenders of November 2005.
Gere was Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals' "Man of the Year" for 2006. In July 2006, he was cast opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party, a comic thriller in which he played a journalist in Bosnia; the film was released in September of 2007.[4]
Personal life & activism
Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married actress Carey Lowell. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000 and is named after Gere's father.[2]
Gere was raised by Methodist parents;[5] his interest in Buddhism began when he travelled to Nepal in 1978 with the Brazilian painter, Sylvia Martins.[3] He is a practicing Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama.[2] Gere is also a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet; he is a co-founder of the Tibet House, creator of The Gere Foundation, and he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. Because he strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering The People's Republic of China. Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter in 1993 after he used the opportunity to condemn the Chinese government.[6] In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent.
Gere campaigns for ecological causes and AIDS awareness. He currently serves on the Board of Directors for Healing the Divide, an organization that supports global initiatives to promote peace, justice and understanding,[7] and he also actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world.[3] He helped to establish the AIDS Care Home, a residential facility in India for women and children with AIDS, and also supports campaigns for AIDS awareness and education that country. In 1999 he created the Gere Foundation India Trust to support a variety of humanitarian programs in India.[8]
On April 15, 2007, during an AIDS awareness event, Gere kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty several times on the cheek and neck. The pair had appeared at a press conference in New Delhi as part of a campaign to preach safe sex to truck drivers in India and promotion of AIDS awareness. The kiss prompted protesters, allegedly members of the right-wing Hindu nationalist group Shiv Sena, to beat burning effigies of Gere with sticks. Others set fire to glamour shots of Shetty.
Similar protests broke out in other cities, including Varanasi, Hinduism's holiest city, and in the northern town of Meerut, where crowds of hundreds of thousands chanted "Down with Shilpa Shetty!" Star News Office was also attacked. The protests did not take any violent turn and the situation was quickly brought under control with some activists being detained.
Shetty responded to these protests by saying, "I understand this (kissing) is his (Gere's) culture, not ours. But this was not such a big thing or so obscene for people to overreact in such a manner. I understand people's sentiments, but I do not want a foreigner to take bad memories from here."
On April 26, 2007 an Indian court in Rajasthan issued a warrant for Shetty and Gere's arrest. The legal action against both Shetty and Gere has been suspended by the Indian Supreme Court until the court decides on the case's proper jurisdiction. Gere has since expressed regret for causing any offense and Shetty has stated: "so much has been blown out of proportion."
Filmography
| Year | Title | Role | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1977 | Looking for Mr. Goodbar | Tony Lo Porto | |
| 1978 | Bloodbrothers | Thomas Stony De Coco | |
| Days of Heaven | Bill | ||
| 1979 | Yanks | Matt Dyson | |
| 1980 | American Gigolo | Julian Kaye | |
| 1982 | An Officer and a Gentleman | Zack Mayo | Golden Globe nomination - Best Drama Actor |
| 1983 | Beyond the Limit | Dr. Eduardo Plarr | |
| Breathless | Jesse Lujack | ||
| 1984 | The Cotton Club | Dixie Dwyer | |
| 1985 | King David | David | Razzie nomination - Worst Actor |
| 1986 | No Mercy | Eddie Jillette | |
| Power | Pete St. John | ||
| 1988 | Miles from Home | Frank Roberts, Jr. | |
| 1990 | Pretty Woman | Edward Lewis | Golden Globe nomination - Best Musical/Comedy Actor |
| Internal Affairs | Dennis Peck | ||
| 1991 | Rhapsody in August | Clark | |
| 1992 | Final Analysis | Dr. Isaac Barr | |
| 1993 | Mr. Jones | Mr. Jones | |
| Sommersby | John Robert 'Jack' Sommersby | ||
| And The Band Played On | The Choreographer | ||
| 1994 | Intersection | Vincent Eastman | |
| 1995 | First Knight | Lancelot | |
| 1996 | Primal Fear | Martin Vail | |
| 1997 | The Jackal | Declan Joseph Mulqueen | |
| Red Corner | Jack Moore | ||
| 1999 | Runaway Bride | Ike Graham | |
| 2000 | Dr. T & the Women | Dr. T | |
| Autumn in New York | Will Keane | Razzie nomination - Worst Screen Couple | |
| 2002 | Chicago | Billy Flynn | Golden Globe win - Best Musical/Comedy Actor |
| Unfaithful | Edward Sumner | ||
| The Mothman Prophecies | John Klein | ||
| 2004 | Shall We Dance | John Clark | |
| 2005 | Bee Season | Saul Naumann | |
| 2007 | The Hunting Party | ||
| I'm Not There | Bob Dylan | ||
| The Libreg Incident | Max Owens | ||
| The Flock | Agent Erroll Babbage | ||
| The Hoax | Clifford Irving | ||
| 2008 | Nights in Rodanthe | Dr. Paul Flanner |
References
- ^ a b Roberts, Gary Boyd. ""The New England Ancestry of Actor Richard (Tiffany) Gere"". New England Historic Genealogical Society. Retrieved 2007-01-12.
{{cite web}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ a b c d e f g h i j Stated in interview on Inside the Actors Studio, 2002
- ^ a b c "Richard Gere Biography", Carey Latimore, The Biography Channel. Retrieved May 1, 2007. Cite error: The named reference "BiographyChannel" was defined multiple times with different content (see the help page).
- ^ "KillerMovies". Jesse Eisenberg Joins [Spring Break in Bosnia].
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|accessmonthday=ignored (help); Unknown parameter|accessyear=ignored (|access-date=suggested) (help) - ^ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/low/in_depth/uk/2000/newsmakers/2591237.stm
- ^ http://www.hellomagazine.com/profiles/richardgere/
- ^ http://www.healingthedivide.org
- ^ The Gere Foundation. Retrieved May 12, 2007.
External links
- Richard Gere at IMDb
- Defended India's nuclear tests
- The Gere Foundation
- The Druk White Lotus School (external link) of which Gere is an Honorary Patron.
