Richard Gere

Richard Tiffany Gere[1] (IPA: /ɡɪər/, pronunciation respelling: geer;[2][3] born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and a starring role in Days of Heaven (1978). He came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol.[4] He went on to star in many well-received films, including An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), Pretty Woman (1990), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), I'm Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016). For portraying Billy Flynn in the Academy Award-winning musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actors Guild Award as part of the cast.
== Early life and education ==
Gere was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. His mother, Doris Ann (née Tiffany, 1924–2016),[1] was a housewife. His father, Homer George Gere (1922-),[1] was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and had originally intended to become a minister.[5] Gere is their eldest son and second child.[1]
His paternal great-grandfather had changed the spelling of the surname from "Geer".[1] Both of his parents were Mayflower descendants; Gere's ancestors include Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, Francis Cooke, and William Brewster.[1]
In 1967, Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, and played the trumpet.[5] He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in philosophy, but he left after two years and did not graduate.[5][6]
== Career ==
=== Stage ===
Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1969, where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. His first major acting role was in the original London stage version of Grease in 1973.[5] Gere was one of the first notable Hollywood actors to play a homosexual character, starring as a gay Holocaust victim in the 1979 Broadway production of Bent; Gere's performance earned him a Theatre World Award.
=== Film ===
He began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid-1970s. Originally cast in a starring role in The Lords of Flatbush (1974), he was replaced after fighting with another star of the film, Sylvester Stallone. He played a small but memorable part in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and starred in director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed drama Days of Heaven (1978).[5] The crime drama American Gigolo (1980) significantly boosted his profile and the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) (co-starring Debra Winger) cemented Gere's ascent to stardom, grossing almost $130 million[7] and winning two Academy Awards out of six nominations;[8] Gere himself received his first Golden Globe Award nomination.[9]
For the remainder of the 1980s, Gere appeared in films of varying critical and commercial reception.[10][11] His career rebounded with the releases of Internal Affairs (1990) and Pretty Woman (1990), the latter of which earned him his second Golden Globe Award nomination.[12] The 1990s saw Gere star in successful films including Sommersby (1993) (opposite Jodie Foster), Primal Fear (1996) and Runaway Bride (1999) (which reunited him with his Pretty Woman co-star Julia Roberts).[10] He also took a leading role in the action thriller The Jackal (1997), playing former IRA militant Declan Mulqueen; Gere affected an Irish accent for the role.[13]
Gere was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999. Not long thereafter, all in the same year, he appeared in the hit films The Mothman Prophecies (2002), Unfaithful (2002) and the Academy Award-winning musical film adaptation Chicago(2002),[5] for which he won his first Golden Globe Award. Gere's ballroom dancing drama Shall We Dance? (2004) was also a solid performer that grossed $170 million worldwide.[14] His next film, the book-to-screen adaptation Bee Season (2005), was a commercial failure.[15] Gere went on to co-star with Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party (2007), a thriller in which he played a journalist in Bosnia. He next appeared with Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes' semi-biographical film about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There (2007); Gere was one of six actors to portray a variation of Dylan.
Gere co-starred with Diane Lane in the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe (2008). The film was widely panned by critics[16](making #74 on The Times Worst Films of 2008 list),[17] but grossed over $84 million worldwide.[18] The film is Gere's most recent to have been produced entirely by a major film studio. Gere has expressed belief that his politics regarding Tibet and China, the latter an important financial resource for major studios, have made him persona non grata within Hollywood.[19]
Gere embraced his apparent exile from Hollywood, appearing in independent features that garnered some of the best reviews of his career.[11] He was notably singled out for portraying businessman Robert Miller in Arbitrage (2012), earning his fourth Golden Globe Award nomination. Among many positive reviews,[20] Peter Travers of Rolling Stone cited Gere's performance as "too good to ignore" and "an implosive tour de force".[21] Lou Lumenick of the New York Post further wrote "Richard Gere gives the best performance of his career".[22][23] Also in 2012, Gere received the Golden Starfish Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Hamptons International Film Festival and the Career Achievement Award from the Hollywood Film Awards.[24][25] He had earlier received an award from the 34th Cairo International Film Festival in December 2010.[26]
Gere made a notable departure from his traditional screen persona with Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016). The political drama (written and directed by Academy Award-nominee Joseph Cedar) saw him portray Norman Oppenheimer, a "small time Jewish 'fixer'". Gere himself described the character as an embodiment of the "sides of us we know are annoying and needy".[27] His portrayal of Oppenheimer was called "consistently, completely fascinating" by RogerEbert.com[28]and was singled out as a worthy Academy Award contender by Variety.[29]
=== Music and dance ===
Gere is an accomplished musician, composing and performing the Pretty Woman piano theme and a guitar solo in Runaway Bride. He learned tap dance for Chicago and karate for An Officer and a Gentleman.[30]
== Personal life and activism ==
Gere had a relationship with actress Penelope Milford from 1971-78.[31] He had affairs with Priscilla Presley in 1983[32] and Kim Basinger in 1986.[33]
Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991-95. In November 2002, he married model and actress Carey Lowell.[34] They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in February 2000 and is named for his grandfathers as well as the Tibetan name Jigme.[5][35]
In September 2013, the two separated after 11 years of marriage. The couple spent three years in highly contested divorce proceedings in New York County Supreme Court.[36][37] The case was settled in October 2016.[38]
In early April 2018, he married Spanish activist Alejandra Silva.[39] As per August 2018, the couple was expecting their first child.[40][41]
Gere was raised Methodist.[42][43]
His interest in Buddhism began when he was in his 20s.[44] He first studied Zen Buddhism[44] under Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. After having studied Zen for five or six years,[44] in 1978 he traveled with the Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins[45] to Nepal, where he met many Tibetan monks and lamas.[45] He then met the 14th Dalai Lama in India[44] and became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism[44] and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama.[5] Gere regularly visits Dharamshala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.[46]
Gere is also an advocate for human rights in Tibet. He is a co-founder of the Tibet House, creator of the Gere Foundation and Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. Because he supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering the People's Republic of China.[47][48]
In 1993, Gere was banned from being an Academy Award presenter after he denounced the Chinese government in his capacity while announcing the nominees.[49][50]
In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent. He starred in a Free Tibet-themed Lancia commercial featuring the Lancia Delta.[51] On June 27, 2011, Gere meditated in Borobudur Temple,[52] in Indonesia.
Gere actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world.[45]
He contributed some of his writing for the book, We Are One: A Celebration of Tribal Peoples, released in October 2009.[53] Gere discussed the persecution and loss of land of the Jummas as an example of a tragic story that repeats itself in different continents of the world, calling attention to the crime against their peaceful culture and how it reflects on humankind's own relationship with nature and capacity to survive.[54] The royalties from the sale of the book go to the indigenous rights organization, Survival International.
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.[55] 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 in that country. In 1999, he created the Gere Foundation India Trust to support a variety of humanitarian programs in India.[56]
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, he embraced Bollywood superstar Shilpa Shetty, dipped her, and kissed her several times on the cheek. As a result of that gesture, a local court ordered the arrest of Gere and Shetty, finding them in violation of public obscenity laws. Gere 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, K. G. 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 Gere would remain free to enter the country.[57]
Gere's name is on some lists of famous vegetarians.[58][59] However, he is not a vegetarian.[60]
In 2016, he endorsed Hillary Clinton for president and donated $2,700 to her campaign.[61]
== Honors and awards ==
In 1995, he was the President of the Jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.[62]
On May 17, 2012, Albanian President, Bamir Topi awarded the "Medal of Gratitude" to Richard Gere with the citation: "With gratitude and honor outstanding personality of the world art, great humanist and activist for the protection of human rights, which unmasked and the American public made known, and further, inhuman crimes, ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, in 1999, the Serbian military machine against the Albanian civilian population living in its land".[63] On February 16, 2012, the George Eastman Museumhonored Gere with the George Eastman Award for distinguished contribution to the art of film.[64]
== Political views ==
In 2010, Gere stated that the war in Iraq wasn't supported by the American people and that the George W. Bush administration"bullied" Americans into the decision. He called George W. Bush a very "poor president".[65]
"I'm very sorry about what the U.S. has done in Iraq. This war has been a tragedy for everyone. I hope that the people of Iraq can rebuild their country," Gere said in a press conference held on the sidelines of the 34th Cairo International Film Festival.[66]
== Filmography ==
Year	Title 	Role 	Notes
1975	Report to the Commissioner 	Billy 	
1975	Strike Force 	Officer Walter C. Spenser 	
1976	Baby Blue Marine 	Raider 	
1976	Kojak 	Geno Papas 	Episode 4.1: "Birthday Party"
1977	Looking for Mr. Goodbar 	Tony Lopanto 	
1978	Bloodbrothers 	Thomas Stony De Coco 	
1978	Days of Heaven 	Bill 	
1979	Yanks 	Matt Dyson 	
1980	American Gigolo 	Julian Kaye 	
1982	An Officer and a Gentleman 	Zack Mayo 	
1983	The Honorary Consul 	Dr. Eduardo Plarr 	a.k.a. Beyond the Limit
1983	Breathless 	Jesse Lujack 	
1984	The Cotton Club 	Dixie Dwyer 	
1985	King David 	David 	
1986	No Mercy 	Eddie Jillette 	
1986	Power 	Pete St. John 	
1988	Miles from Home 	Frank Roberts, Jr. 	
1990	Internal Affairs 	Dennis Peck 	
1990	Pretty Woman 	Edward Lewis 	
1991	Rhapsody in August 	Clark 	
1992	Final Analysis 	Dr. Isaac Barr 	
1993	Mr. Jones 	Mr. Jones 	
1993	Sommersby 	John Robert 'Jack' Sommersby 	
1993	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 	
1997	Red Corner 	Jack Moore 	
1999	Runaway Bride 	Ike Graham 	
2000	Dr. T & the Women 	Dr. T 	
2000	Autumn in New York 	Will Keane 	
2002	The Mothman Prophecies 	John Klein 	
2002	Unfaithful 	Edward Sumner 	
2002	Chicago 	William "Billy" Flynn 	
2004	Shall We Dance? 	John Clark 	
2005	Bee Season 	Saul Naumann 	
2006	The Hoax 	Clifford Irving 	
2007	The Hunting Party 	Simon 	
2007	I'm Not There 	Bob Dylan as Billy The Kid 	
2007	The Flock 	Agent Erroll Babbage 	
2008	Nights in Rodanthe 	Dr. Paul Flanner 	
2009	Amelia 	George Putnam 	
2009	Hachi: A Dog's Tale 	Parker Wilson 	
2009	Brooklyn's Finest 	Eddie Dugan 	
2011	The Double 	Paul Shepherdson 	
2012	Arbitrage 	Robert Miller 	
2013	Movie 43 	Boss 	Segment "iBabe"
2014	Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey 	Clair Cameron Patterson (voice)[67]	Episode "The Clean Room"
2014	Henry & Me 	Henry (voice) 	
2014	Time Out of Mind 	George Hammond 	
2015	The Second Best Exotic Marigold Hotel 	Guy Chambers 	
2015	The Benefactor 	Franny 	
2016	Norman: The Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer	Norman Oppenheimer 	
2017	The Dinner 	Stan Lohman 	
2017	Three Christs 	Dr. Alan Stone 	
2018	MotherFatherSon 	Max 	Lead role, TV Series
== Awards and nominations ==
Year	Nominated work 	Award 	Result
1979	Days of Heaven 	David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor 	Won
1983	An Officer and a Gentleman	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama 	Nominated
1984	The Honorary Consul 	Nastro d'Argento Award for Best Foreign Actor 	Nominated
1986	King David 	Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Actor 	Nominated
1991	Pretty Woman 	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	Nominated
1994	And the Band Played On 	Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Miniseries or a Movie 	Nominated
1997	Red Corner 	National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award 	Won
2000	Runaway Bride 	Blockbuster Entertainment Award for Favorite Actor - Comedy/Romance 	Nominated
2001	Dr. T & the Women 	Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actor – Motion Picture 	Nominated
2001	Autumn in New York 	Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Screen Combo (shared with Winona Ryder) 	Nominated
2003	Chicago 	Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast 	Won
2003	Chicago 	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Musical or Comedy 	Won
2003	Chicago 	Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Cast in a Motion Picture 	Won
2003	Chicago 	Phoenix Film Critics Society Award for Best Cast 	Nominated
2003	Chicago 	Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a Male Actor in a Leading Role	Nominated
2003	Chicago 	Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie Villain 	Nominated
2005	Shall We Dance 	Teen Choice Award for Choice Movie: Dance Scene (shared with Jennifer Lopez) 	Nominated
2007	The Hoax 	Satellite Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture 	Nominated
2008	I'm Not There 	Independent Spirit Robert Altman Award 	Won
2013	Arbitrage 	Golden Globe Award for Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama 	Nominated