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Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is a Golden Globe Award-winning American actor.

Biography

Early life

Gere was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to parents of Irish descent. His father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for Nationwide Insurance Company. His mother, Doris Anna Tiffany, is a housewife; he has three sisters, a brother, and a half brother, the German Henry Januszewski. In 1967, Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music (he played the trumpet).

Career

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 sexual thriller, Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), and playing the leading role in director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed 1978 film, Days of Heaven. His acting career took off in 1980, 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. 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 huge 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 1993's Sommersby, 1996's Primal Fear and 1999's Runaway Bride, which re-teamed Gere with his "Pretty Woman" co-star, Julia Roberts. People magazine named him the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999.

2002 was a notable year for Gere, with three major releases; The Mothman Prophecies, a horror thriller which received some decent reviews, Unfaithful, a solid performer at the box office, and the critically acclaimed 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, largely failed to find an audience amid the Oscar-contenders of November 2005.

Gere is Harvard's Hasty Pudding Theatricals' "Man of the Year" for 2006. In July of 2006, Gere was cast opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in Spring Break in Bosnia, a comic thriller in which he will play a journalist in Bosnia; the film will be released in 2007.

Private life

Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. During their marriage there were numerous rumors in the press that the relationship was a cover-up for the alleged homosexuality of both partners, something each denied. "Cooking For Mr. Goodbar" article from Entertainment Weekly He married actress Carey Lowell in 2002, after dating her for several years. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000, and is named after Gere's father. They live inCostaregni, Susie, "'Law & Order' actress spotted in Greenwich", from "The Dish" column in The Advocate of Stamford, Connecticut and the Greenwich Time daily newspapers, November 12, 2006, page 2 of The Advocate: "Actor and Pound Ridge, N.Y., resident Richard Gere's new project ..." Pound Ridge, New York.

Gere is a well-known Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama. He has also been a persistent advocate for better human rights in Tibet, and was a co-founder of the Tibet House and served on the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. He also campaigns for ecological causes and for AIDS awareness, and has expressed his concern for AIDS problems in India. Because he strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering China.

Gere currently serves on the Board of Directors for Healing the Divide, which concerns itself with global initiatives that promote peace, justice and understanding Healing the Divide website.

Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter in 1993 after he used the opportunity to condemn the Chinese government Richard Gere's profile from Hello! magazine.

In 2006, Gere, his wife and a neighbor were involved in turning a group of Eighteenth century buildings on a 14-acre tract in Bedford Hills, New York into a combination 125-seat restaurant/lodge/cafe/yoga studio/stables and horse trails. The incipient business was incorporated as Squirrelly Acres L.L.C.

Rumors of 'gerbilling'

During the mid-1980s, widespread rumors began to appear suggesting that Gere had been admitted to a Los Angeles hospital after engaging in a practice known as gerbilling, which involves inserting a live gerbil into the anus for sexual gratification. Gere has never publicly addressed the rumor, but Hollywood journalists and urban folklorists have unanimously dismissed the story as a baseless urban legend. While Gere is not the first celebrity to be the subject of gerbilling rumors, he has become their most common target, with references to the "Richard Gere gerbil story," appearing frequently in popular film and television. [1] [2] [3]

Selected filmography

He has also appeared in a 2006 VISA card advertisement on television co-starring Jason Taylor.

Footnotes

See also

External links

• article on Gere's ancestry and famous relations
• Defended India's nuclear tests
• Hello Magazine, Hello! Profile
• The Gere Foundation, dedicated to end the Chinese Occupation of Tibet
• The Druk White Lotus School, Ladakh, of which Gere is a patron.

Interviews

• Cinema Confidential interview (November 18, 2005)
• Pop Entertainment interview (November, 2005)
• Defended India's nuclear tests
• Rumor about Richard Gere at The Snopes.com
• About.com interview (May, 2002)
• Filmmonthly interview (January 12, 2002)
• SciFi Online interview (January, 2002)
• "My Journey as a Buddhist", interview on Gere's religion (1999)
• Rochester Goes Out interview (July 30, 1999)
• About.com: About that Thing with Richard Gere and the Gerbil
• Esquire magazine interview (July, 1995)

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