Interesting facts about Richard Gere

richard gere

Richard Gere is an American actor.

His full name is Richard Tiffany Gere.

He was born on August 31, 1949, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

His father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent while his mother, Doris Ann (née Tiffany), was a housewife while.

He is the second child in the family, in which he has three sisters and one younger brother.

Gere has English, and small amounts (to varying degrees) of Scots-Irish (Northern Irish), Welsh, Dutch, Scottish, and French, ancestry. He has deep roots in the state of Pennsylvania, and is also a Mayflower descendant, with American roots going back to Massachusetts of the 1600s.

He spent his childhood in upstate New York.

In 1967, Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, playing the trumpet.

richard gere young

He enrolled at the University of Massachusetts in Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in philosophy, but left college after two years to work as a musician.

He performed in numerous bands and began acting in summer programs throughout New England.

His first major acting role was in the original London stage version of Grease in 1973.

He had a small role in his first film, Report to the Commissioner (1975), but he gained recognition for his performance alongside Diane Keaton in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), a dark character study of a troubled young woman.

looking for mr goodbar

Than he starred in director Terrence Malick’s well-reviewed drama Days of Heaven (1978).

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.

Than he played the title role in American Gigolo (1980), which significantly boosted his profile.

In 1982 Gere starred as the young navy officer candidate Zack Mayo in An Officer and a Gentleman. The film was a box office success, and it established Gere as a major star.

After several poorly received films, he scored another hit with Pretty Woman (1990), portraying a wealthy businessman who employs and later falls in love with a prostitute (played by Julia Roberts).

pretty woman

Also in 1990 he starred in crime thriller Internal Affairs, portraying a cop who has managed to maintain a spotless reputation despite being involved in a web of corruption.

In 1993, he starred in the romantic drama Sommersby directed by Jon Amiel and co-starring Jodie Foster.

Gere earned critical praise for Primal Fear (1996), a courtroom drama in which he starred as an attorney who defends an altar boy (played by Edward Norton) accused of murdering a prominent priest.

In 1997, he took a leading role in the action thriller The Jackal, playing former IRA militant Declan
Mulqueen; Gere affected an Irish accent for the role.

In 1999, he reteamed with Roberts in the romantic comedy Runaway Bride which was a runaway success (Richard got $12 million, Julia made $17 million, the box office was $152 million)

In 2002 Gere starred as defense attorney Billy Flynn in the film adaptation of the Broadway musical Chicago and won a Golden Globe for his performance.

chicago

Also in 2002 he starred in the supernatural horror mystery The Mothman Prophecies, and in the thriller drama Unfaithful.

In 2004, he once again stunned audiences with his versatility in Shall We Dance opposite Jennifer Lopez. The movie went on to become a huge success at the box-office, grossing $170 million.

His next film, the book-to-screen adaptation Bee Season (2005), was a commercial failure.

In The Hoax (2006), which was based on a true story, he portrayed Clifford Irving, a writer who pens a false biography of Howard Hughes.

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 than appeared as Billy the Kid, one of six pseudo-biographical embodiments of Bob Dylan, in the critically acclaimed I’m Not There (2007).

Gere co-starred with Diane Lane in the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe (2008). The film was widely panned by critics, but grossed over $84 million worldwide.

In 2009, he appeared in the drama film Hachi: A Dog’s Tale. Based on the true story of a faithful Akita Inu, the titular Hachikō, it is directed by Lasse Hallström, is written by Stephen P. Lindsey and Kaneto Shindo and also stars Joan Allen and Sarah Roemer. The subject is a remake of the 1987 Japanese film, Hachikō Monogatari (ハチ公物語), literally “The Tale of Hachiko”.

hachi a dogs tale

Also in 2009, he appeared in crime film Brooklyn’s Finest co-starring Don Cheadle, Ethan Hawke and Wesley Snipes.

Gere than appeared in Amelia (2009), a biopic about the American aviator Amelia Earhart (played by Hilary Swank).

In 2011 he starred in The Double a spy film, directed by Michael Brandt and co-starring Topher Grace.

Gere appeared in the thriller Arbitrage (2012), in which he starred as a scandal-plagued venture capitalist, earning his fourth Golden Globe Award nomination.

arbitrage

He starred in the unsettling drama The Benefactor (2015), in which he played a wealthy drug addict who wheedles and bribes his way into the lives of a young couple.

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 saw him portray Norman Oppenheimer, a “small time Jewish ‘fixer'”.

In 2017, Gere starred in the drama film Three Christs, based on the book The Three Christs of Ypsilanti by Milton Rokeach.

Richard Gere has an estimated net worth of $100 million.

10/6/2011 - Bedford, New York. American actor Richard Gere photographed in Bedford, New York. Chad Batka for The New York Times.

Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995.

In November 2002, he married model and actress Carey Lowell. 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. “Jigme” means “fearless” in Tibetan. In September 2013, the two separated after 11 years of marriage.

Gere was raised attending a Methodist church. His interest in Buddhism began when he was in his twenties.

He spent 1978 meeting Tibetans when he traveled to Nepal, where he spoke to many monks and lamas.

buddha

He met the 14th Dalai Lama in India and became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist of the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama.

Gere regularly visits Dharamshala, the headquarters of the Tibetan government-in-exile.

A Buddhist for over a decade, Gere was banned from the Oscars once after making anti-China comments on the air at the 1993 ceremony.

When the Chinese Government asked Gere to one of their film festivals, Gere would go attend two conditions: 1. That he was allowed to bring his own interpreter and 2. That he would stay in Taipei, Taiwan during his visit. The government agreed and Gere went to the festival.

In the early 1980s, Richard went to Honduras, Nicaragua and El Salvador (amidst ongoing wars and political violence); he traveled with a doctor and visited refugee camps.

Gere is an accomplished pianist and music writer; in fact, he composed and performed the piano solo featured in Pretty Woman (1990).

He trained for five months for the tap dance scene in Chicago (2002).

For his role as Clifford Irving in The Hoax (2006), Gere shaved back his hairline, got a perm, and even altered the appearance of his nose to fit the part.

Gere’s name is on some lists of famous vegetarians. However, he is not a vegetarian.