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Richard Tiffany Gere[1] ( ; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor and activist. He began acting in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar and a starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980 for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. He went on to star in several hit films, including An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, Runaway Bride, Arbitrage and Chicago, for which he won a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor and a Screen Actors Guild Award for part of the Best Cast.
Gere was born in 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, 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.[2][3]
Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1971, 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.[2] He began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid-1970s, playing a small but memorable part in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and starring in the director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed 1978 film, Days of Heaven.[2] In 1979, Gere was one of the first big-name Hollywood actors to play a gay character, starring as a homosexual Holocaust victim in the Broadway production of Bent. Gere won a Theatre World Award for his performance. In 1980, he became a major star with the film American Gigolo, followed in 1982 by the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman with Debra Winger, which grossed almost $130 million.[4]
Experiencing several box office failures after 1982,[5][6] Gere's career strengthened with the releases of Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman in 1990. His status as a leading man was solidified and he went on to star in several successful films throughout the 1990s, including Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996) and Runaway Bride (1999) (which reunited him with his Pretty Woman co-star Julia Roberts).[5] He also took a leading role in the 1997 action movie The Jackal, playing Declan Mulqueen.
Gere was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999. In 2002, he appeared in three major films, including The Mothman Prophecies, 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 that grossed $170 million worldwide[7] though his next film, Bee Season (2005), was a commercial failure.[8]
By 2007, Gere was co-starring with Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party a thriller in which he played a journalist in Bosnia, as well as with Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes' semi-biographical film about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There.
In 2008, Gere co-starred with Diane Lane in the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe. The film was widely panned by critics[9] (making #74 on The Times Worst Films of 2008 list),[10] but grossed over $84 million worldwide.[11]
Later in his career, Gere was honored twice for his lifetime achievement. Regarding his 2012 performance in Arbitrage, Lou Lumenick of the New York Post said "Richard Gere gives the best performance of his career".[12][13] He received an award from the 34th Cairo International Film Festival in December 2010.[14]
Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In November 2002, he married model and actress Carey Lowell.[15] They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in February 2000 and is named after Gere's and Lowell's fathers, as well as the Tibetan name Jigme.[2][16] In September 2013, the two separated after 11 years of marriage and plan to get divorced.[17]
Gere was raised attending a Methodist church.[18][19] His interest in Buddhism began when he was in his twenties.[20] He first studied Zen Buddhism[20] under Kyozan Joshu Sasaki.[20] After having studied Zen for five or six years,[20] in 1978 he traveled with the Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins[21] to Nepal, where he met many Tibetan monks and lamas.[21] He then met the 14th Dalai Lama in India[20] and became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism[20] and an active supporter of the political figure of free Tibet movement Dalai Lama.[2] Gere regularly visits Dharamsala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.[22]
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.[23][24] In 1993, Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter after he denounced the Chinese government in his capacity as presenter.[25][26] 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.[27] On June 27, 2011, Gere meditated in Borobudur Temple,[28] in Indonesia.
Gere actively supports Survival International.
Gere campaigns for ecological causes and AIDS awareness. He currently serves on the board of directors for
"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.[38]
In 2010, Gere stated that the decision to go to war in Iraq was one that the American people were not in support of and that the administration at the time "bullied" Americans into the decision. He blamed the situation on a very "poor president".[37]
[36] On May 17, 2012,
In 1995 he was the President of the Jury at the 19th Moscow International Film Festival.[34]
In June 2008, Gere appeared in a Fiat commercial for the European market, driving a new Lancia Delta from Hollywood to Tibet. The commercial concluded with a tagline of "the power to be different". The commercial was reported in Chinese newspapers, and Fiat apologized to China.
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 "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.[33]
[32] 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.[31]
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