Richard Gere

Richard Gere
Gere in Venice, 2007
Born	Richard Tiffany Gere
Years active	1973 - present
Spouse	Cindy Crawford (1991-1995) Carey Lowell (2002-present)

Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. A prototypical leading man of romantic and dramatic films, he first became famous during the 1980s, and has since managed to retain his status.

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, as well as a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the Best Cast.

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. 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. 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. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in Philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years.

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. 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. In 1980, Gere appeared in the Broadway production of Bent. His acting career took off that year with the film American Gigolo, followed by the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman, which had grossed over $100 million in 1982. 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 film 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. In Mr. Jones, Gere 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, 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.

Personal life & activism

Gere presented with a Khata by the 14th Dalai Lama

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.

Gere was raised by Methodist parents; his interest in Buddhism began when he traveled to Nepal in 1978 with the Brazilian painter, Sylvia Martins. He is a practicing Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama. 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. In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent. On the March 14, 2008 The Situation Room, Gere spoke against China's crackdown on the uprising in Tibet. He also starred in a politically themed pro-Tibet Lancia commercial featuring the Lancia Delta.

Gere Visits USAID HIV / AIDS "Operation Lighthouse" Project In Mumbai, as part of USAID.

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, and he also actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world. 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.

On April 15, 2007 Gere appeared at an AIDS awareness rally in Jaipur, India. During a live news conference to promote condom use among truck drivers, the American actor affectionately embraced Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty, dipped her, and kissed her several times on the cheek. As a result of that seemingly innocuous gesture, a local court ordered the arrest of Gere and Shetty, finding them in violation "public obscenity" laws. Gere, who quickly fled the country, has said the controversy was "manufactured by a small hard-line political party." About a month later, a two-judge bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, KG Balakrishnan described the case as "frivolous" and believed that such complaints (against celebrities) were filed for "cheap publicity" and have brought a bad name to the country. They ruled that "Richard Gere is free to enter the country. This is the end of the matter."

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 Hoax	Clifford Irving
	The Hunting Party	Simon
	I'm Not There	Bob Dylan as Billy The Kid
	The Flock	Agent Erroll Babbage
2008	Nights in Rodanthe	Dr. Paul Flanner
2009	Amelia	George Putnam	post-production
	Hachiko: A Dog's Story	Lead role	post-production
	Brooklyn's Finest	Eddie Dugan	post-production

Urban Legend

Gere has been the subject of a well traveled and notable urban legend. The urban legend makes mention of Gere being hospitalized for having a gerbil lodged in his rectum. This unusual sexual act is often called Gerbilling. The origin of this story is unknown, but the story is widely considered to be false.. The story is so noteworthy that it has been referenced in the motion picture Scream and Family Guy.

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.
• Shambhala Sun Interview