Background

Ethnicity: Richard has English and small/distant amounts of Scots-Irish/Northern Irish, Welsh, Dutch, Scottish, German, and French ancestry.

Richard Gere was born in Philadelphia on August 31, 1949. He grew up in a large Methodist family, one of five children born to Homer and Doris Ann Gere. Both of Gere's parents were Mayflower descendants. Gere's middle name, Tiffany, is from his mother's maiden name. A musical child, Gere became quite skilled at playing the trumpet.

Education

Richard Gere studied at North Syracuse Central High School, was a member of his high school's student council, gymnastics team, lacrosse team, and ski team. North Syracuse Central High School After graduating from high school in 1967, Richard Gere studied philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship. He left school after two years to explore his interest in theater.

Career

Gere made his feature film debut in 1974 with a tiny part in Report to the Commissioner. He returned to the stage the following year as part of the cast of an off-Broadway production of Sam Shepard's Killer's Head; following Gere's turn in the 1977 Looking for Mr. Goodbar, he and Shepard would again collaborate in Terrence Malick's breathtaking Days of Heaven (1978). In 1979, Gere won considerable theatrical acclaim for his performance in the Broadway production of Martin Sherman's Bent, and the next year enjoyed his first shot at screen stardom with the title role in Paul Schrader's American Gigolo. Though the film was not a major critical or box-office success, it did earn recognition for the actor, who had taken the role after John Travolta turned it down. Gere did not become a real star until he appeared opposite Debra Winger in An Officer and a Gentleman in 1982, but his bona fide celebrity status was jeopardized with roles in several poorly received films including King David (1985). A lead role in Francis Ford Coppola's 1984 The Cotton Club also failed to perk up the actor's career; despite a legendary director and stellar cast, the film received mixed reviews and poor box-office turnout.

With no recent major successes behind him by the end of the decade, it looked as if Gere's career was in a tailspin. Fortunately, he abruptly pulled out of the dive in 1990, first as a cop/crime lord in Mike Figgis' Internal Affairs and then as a ruthless businessman who finds true love in the arms of prostitute Julia Roberts in the smash romantic comedy Pretty Woman. Back in the saddle again, Gere continued to star in a number of films, including Sommersby (1993), Intersection (1994), and First Knight (1995). In 1996, he was highly praised for his portrayal of an arrogant hot-shot attorney in Primal Fear, and in 1999 found further financial, if not critical, success starring opposite Julia Roberts in Runaway Bride. The following year the actor enjoyed some of his best reviews to date as a gynecologist at once devoted to and bewildered by all of the women in his life in Robert Altman's aptly titled Dr. T & the Women; many critics noted that Gere seemed to have finally come into his own as an actor, having matured amiably with years and experience.

In 2002, Gere played the too-perfect-for-words husband to Diane Lane in Unfaithful. While the film was not a huge critical success, Gere was praised for game performance, and Lane was nominated for an Oscar. Unfortunately for Gere, a starring role in The Mothman Prophecies didn't do too much for his resume -- while critics once again lauded the actor's intensity, the film itself was widely hailed as too slow-paced to properly showcase his talents. Luckily, the same couldn't be said for his performance in the multiple Oscar-winning Chicago, which found Gere in the role of another hotshot lawyer, this time alongside a diverse and talented cast including Catherine Zeta-Jones, Renée Zellweger, and Queen Latifah. In 2004, Gere starred opposite Jennifer Lopez and Oscar-winning Hollywood veteran Susan Sarandon in Peter Chelsom's Shall We Dance?.

In 2005, Gere played a professor of religious studies in director David Siegel’s drama Bee Season, and enjoyed success in 2007 with The Hoax, an edgy biographical drama, and The Hunting Party, a political tragi-comedy in which he played a discredited reporter mistaken as a member of a CIA hit squad. The actor joined the cast of Nights in Rodanthe in 2008 and worked with Hilary Swank in Amela, the 2009 Amelia Earhart biopic. Gere took on the role of a burnt-out cop in Training Day (2009), director Antoine Fuqua’s gritty crime drama Brooklyn’s Finest.

Gere focused on smaller, character-driven films in subsequent years, starring in dramas like Time Out of Mind (2014), The Benefactor (2015), and The Dinner (2017). In 2019, he made a rare foray into television with the BBC series MotherFatherSon, playing a media mogul who seeks to keep his life in order amid competing forces of family, business and politics.

Achievements

• Richard Gere achieved fame for his portrayal of genteel characters in romantic films. His awards include David di Donatello Award for Best Foreign Actor, National Board of Review Freedom of Expression Award, and Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Cast. He is also a notable philanthropist.
  
  In 1991 Gere was chosen by "People" magazine as one of the 50 Most Beautiful People in the world.

Works

More photos

• movie

  • I'm Not There

    (An unconventional journey into the life and times of Bob ...)

    2007
  • Movie 43

    (From the twisted minds of producers Peter Farrelly (Hall ...)

    2013
  • Report to the Commissioner

    (This action-loaded drama set in New York City stars Micha...)

    1975
  • Baby Blue Marine

    (During World War II, Marion (Jan-Michael Vincent, The Mec...)

  • Brooklyn's Finest

    (In a precinct reeling with drugs and poverty, three NYC c...)

    2009
  • Cotton Club Encore

    (Francis Ford Coppola's lavish, 1930s-era epic comes to vi...)

    1984
  • Amelia

    (A look at the life of legendary American pilot Amelia Ear...)

    2009
  • The Mothman Prophecies

    (After his wife dies in a bizarre car crash, a newspaper r...)

    2002
  • Yanks

    (Academy Award-winner Vanessa Redgrave and Richard Gere li...)

    1979
  • Time Out of Mind

    (Richard Gere gives a soul-baring performance in this unfo...)

    2014
  • Chicago

    (The hit stage musical becomes a multiple-Oscar winning fi...)

    2002
  • The Hoax

    (The intriguing and comedic account of how the bogus Howar...)

    2006
  • Internal Affairs

    (Richard Gere is Peck and Andy Garcia is Raymond Avila, th...)

    1990
  • Three Christs

    (A psychiatrist tries to alter the way schizophrenic patie...)

    2017
  • Shall We Dance?

    (A romantic comedy where a bored, overworked Estate Lawyer...)

    2004
  • Intersection

    (Separated from his beautiful but aloof wife, Vincent has ...)

    1994
  • Bee Season

    (A gifted speller from a dysfunctional family is coached t...)

    2005
  • Final Analysis

    (San Francisco psychiatrist Richard Gere is ensnared in a ...)

    1992
  • Sommersby

    (Richard Gere stars as Jack Sommersby, a man who returns h...)

    1993
  • The Benefactor

    (A newly married couple are forced to navigate the all-con...)

    2015
  • First Knight

    (A new vision of Camelot, filled with breathtaking battles...)

    1995
  • Hunting Party

    (A young journalist, a seasoned cameraman and a discredite...)

    2007
  • Unfaithful

    (Diane Lane earned a 2002 Best Actress Oscar(R) nomination...)

    2002
  • No Mercy

    (A Chicago cop (Richard Gere) travels to the Bayou to trac...)

    1986
  • The Dinner

    (Two estranged brothers and their wives meet at a restaura...)

    2017
  • Breathless

    (A hustling, amoral punk who's killed a cop goes on the ru...)

    1983
  • Runaway Bride

    (Roberts and Gere confirm their status as an eternal scree...)

    1999
  • Looking for Mr. Goodbar

    (Theresa Dunn (Diane Keaton) is a sensitive grade-school t...)

    1977
  • Hachi: A Dog's Tale

    (Hachi: A Dog's Tale, a film based on one of the most trea...)

    2009
  • Days of Heaven

    (A story of love and murder told through the jaded voice o...)

    1978
  • Nights in Rodanthe

    (Two strangers meet at an inn, each planning to deal with ...)

    2008
  • American Gigolo

    (A slick Los Angeles callboy finds love and redemption in ...)

    1980
  • An Officer and a Gentleman

    (Loner Zack Mayo (Richard Gere) enters Officer Candidate S...)

    1982
  • Norman: The Moderate Rise And Tragic Fall Of A New York Fixer | Prime Video

    (Norman is a small time operator who befriends a young pol...)

    2016
  • King David

    (A cinematic retelling of the life of Israel's King David.)

    1985
  • Pretty Woman

    (A classic rags-to-riches love story.)

    1990
  • Miles From Home

    (The police called them outlaws. The farmers called them h...)

    1988
  • The Honorary Consul

    (Dr. Eduardo Plarr, despite the name is an Anglo working i...)

    1983

Religion

Gere was raised attending a Methodist church. His interest in Buddhism began when he was in his twenties. Devout in Buddhism, Gere maintained that he meditated daily and spent his time between projects in India with the exiled Tibetans. In fact, his very public twenty-year devotion to the faith led the Dalai Llama to personally request Gere's high-profile assistance in the crusade to end China's tyrannous rule of Tibet - a cause which Gere championed to the extent of making a very public plea at the Academy Awards, which in turn led to his banishment from the event. He was also actively involved in campaigning to raise public awareness of the religious and cultural heritage of Tibet in an effort to push for an American boycott of China. Gere has also published a book of photographs he has taken of Tibetans, Pilgrim, the proceeds of which were donated to the cause of Tibetan autonomy.

Politics

In 2010, Gere condemned the war in Iraq states that the Bush administration had "bullied" Americans into the decision. He also said on George W. Bush: "We have a President right now who lies constantly and gets away with it, apparently."

In 2016, Gere supported Hillary Clinton for president and donated $2,700 to her campaign.

Views

Richard Gere is also a philontropist. 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.

Membership

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

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  Tibet House , United States

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  The Gere Foundation , United States

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  International Campaign for Tibet

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  Survival International

Personality

Gere's role as a male prostitute in American Gigolo won him further acclaim; but while he was a hit with the critics, rumours abounded that he was gay. Richard doggedly refused to answer questions on the matter, arguing that to do so would suggest that it mattered. "Cosmically, there's nothing wrong with being heterosexual, homosexual or omnisexual with being anything so long as you don't hurt anybody, yourself included," he said in a typically composed fashion. "The accusation is meaningless and whether it's true or false is nobody's business. What difference does it make what anyone thinks if I live truthfully and honestly and with as open a heart as I can?"

A guitar aficionado since his youth, he is an avid collector of electric and acoustic guitars. Some of the ones he has are a 1958 Gibson Flying V Prototype (formerly owned by Albert King), 1935 John D'Angelico Exel (formerly owned by James D'Aquisto), 1931 Martin D-28, 1953 Fender Telecaster, 1960 Gibson ES-335 TD, 1954 Fender Stratocaster.

Quotes from others about the person

• "A lot of actors think acting is a girl's job, but Richard finds something sensuous in acting." - Jodie Foster

Interests

• playing musical instruments

• Philosophers & Thinkers

  Dalai Lama, Mahatma Gandhi

• Politicians

  Hillary Clinton

• Sport & Clubs

  gymnastics, basketball

Connections

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

In 2002, he wed actress Carey Lowell; they have one child together, a son named Homer. Gere and Lowell lived together in Bedford, New York, for many years. There they also co-owned the Bedford Post Inn with Russell Hernandez. Gere and Lowell announced that they were separating in 2013, with the divorce finalized three years later.

In 2018, Gere married a third-time, to 35-year-old Spanish publicist and activist Alejandra Silva. "I was a little lost, without light, and knowing him gave meaning to my life," she told the Spanish magazine HOLA! Their son, Alexander, was born in February 2019. In April 2020, the birth of their second son was reported.

Father:

Homer Gere

Mother:

Doris Ann Gere

colleague:

Christian Bale

ex-wife:

Cindy Crawford

ex-wife:

Carey Lowell

Wife:

Alejandra Silva

Son:

Homer Gere

Son:

Alexander Gere

colleague:

Julia Roberts

colleague:

Heath Ledger

colleague:

Sylvester Stallone

colleague:

Cate Blanchett

colleague:

Diane Lane

colleague:

Catherine Zeta-Jones

colleague:

Renée Zellweger

Acquaintance:

Dalai Lama XIV

References

• The Spirituality of Richard Gere The Spirituality of Richard Gere is a collection of the actor-humanitarian's insightful reflections and elevating words on so much of what he has witnessed and experienced along life's diverse highways and byways.
  2014