Richard Gere

At 74 years old, Richard Gere has this physical status:

Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor and producer.

He appeared in films in the 1970s, including a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and Days of Heaven (1978).

He came to prominence after appearing in the film American Gigolo (1980), which made him a leading man and a sex symbol.

He went on to appear in numerous well-received films, including An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1990), Runaway Bride (1999), I'm Not There (2006), and Norman: A New York Fixer (2016).

He received a Golden Globe Award and a Screen Actor Guild Award for his role as Billy Flynn in the Academy Award-winning musical Chicago (2002).

Early life

Richard Tiffany Gere was born in Philadelphia on August 31, 1949, the eldest son and second child of housewife Doris Ann (née Tiffany; 1924-2016) and NMIC insurance agent Homer George Gere (born May 7,1922). His father had intended to become a minister from the start. Gere was raised in Syracuse, New York, and was a member of the Universal Methodist Church of St. Louis. George Lane Gere, his paternal grandfather (1848-1932), changed the spelling of his surname from "Geer." In 1638, an Englishman named George, one of his ancestors, came from Heavitree and settled in the Connecticut Colony. Both of Gere's parents were Mayflower descendants, and his ancestors included Pilgrims such as John Billington, William Brewster, Francis Cooke, Degory Priest, George Soule, and Richard Warren.

He graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, as well as playing the trumpet. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, studying philosophy; after two years, he dropped out and did not graduate;

Personal life

Gere had on-again/off-again friendships with actress Penelope Milford from 1971 to 1978, as well as painter Sylvia Martins from 1978 to 1986. He was also closely associated with Tuesday Weld, Carole Mallory, Dawn Steel, Loree Rodkin, Diane von Fürstenberg, Barbara Carrera, and Barbra Strob Stony during those years. In a tell-all book written by Presley's ex-boyfriend Michael Edwards and Basinger's ex-husband Ron Snyder, he was accused of having affairs with Priscilla Presley and Kim Basinger. Laura Bailey, Tina Chow, Dalila Di Lazzaro, and Padma Lakshmi are all reported to have dated model Laura Bailey, Tina Chow, Dalila Di Lazzaro. Cindy Crawford, a 1991-1995 husband, was married to model Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995.

Gere married actress Carey Lowell in November 2002. They have a son named Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in February 2000 and named for his grandfathers as well as the Tibetan word "Jigme." After 11 years of marriage, the two couples were divorced in September 2013. In New York County Supreme Court, they spent three years in bitter divorce litigation. In October 2016, the lawsuit was settled. Gere married Spanish feminist Alejandra Silva in early April 2018. They revealed that they were expecting their first child in August 2018. Alexander, the couple's son, was born in February 2019. The birth of their second son was announced in April 2020.

When he was in his twenties, Gere's interest in Buddhism began. He first studied Zen Buddhism under Kyozan Joshu Sasaki. He and Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins traveled to Nepal in 1978, where they encountered many Tibetan monks and lamas. He became a practicing Tibetan Buddhist (more specifically of the Gelugpa school) and an active endorser of the Dalai Lama in India after his 14th Dalai Lama.

Despite not being vegetarian, Gere has been consistently included on lists of popular vegetarians.

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Career

Gere appeared in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead in 1969, where he appeared on the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod. In 1973, he appeared in the original London stage adaptation of Grease for the first time. He was one of the first notable Hollywood actors to play a gay person in Bent's 1979 Broadway revival, for which he received a Theatre World Award.

In the mid-1970s, Gere first appeared in Hollywood films. He was initially cast in The Lords of Flatbush (1974), but after struggling with his co-star Sylvester Stallone, he was forced to recast. He appeared in Terrence Malick's well-reviewed drama Days of Heaven (1978), a small but memorable role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977). The crime drama The American Gigolo (1980) boosted his profile and romance An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) (co-starring Debra Winger) cemented Gere's ascension to fame, grossing nearly $130 million and winning two Academy Awards out of six nominations; Gere himself received his first Golden Globe Award nomination. Gere appeared in films of varying critical and commercial reception in the remainder of the 1980s. With the introduction of Internal Affairs (1990) and Pretty Woman (1990), his career resurgent, earning him his second Golden Globe Award nomination. Gere appeared in many successful films, including Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996) and Runaway Bride (1999), which reunited him with his Pretty Woman co-star Julia Roberts. He appeared in The Jackal (1997), playing former IRA terrorist Declan Mulqueen; during this role, Gere used an Irish accent;

In 1999, Gere was named "The Most Important Man Alive" by People magazine. He appeared in the hit films The Mothman Prophecies (2002), Unfaithful (2002), and the Academy Award-winning documentary film adaptation Chicago (2004), for which he received his first Golden Globe Award. Shall We Dance, Gere's ballroom dancing drama. Besides being a good performer with a net income of $170 million around the world, (2004) he was also a good performer who earned $170 million. Bee Season, the book-to-screen version, was a commercial failure. Gere went on to co-star Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in The Hunting Party (2006), a drama in which he played a journalist in Bosnia. In Todd Haynes' semi-biographical film about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There (2007), he appeared alongside Christian Bale, Heath Ledger, and Cate Blanchett; Gere was one of six actors to perform a version of Dylan. In Rodanthe's romantic drama Nights, he co-starred with Diane Lane. Critics also blasted the film (it was #74 on the Times Worst Films of 2008 list), but it did gross over $84 million worldwide. The film is the first to have been produced entirely by a major film studio.

Gere has expressed a suspicion that his ideas regarding China, which is a vital financial resource for major Hollywood studios, have made him unwelcome in Hollywood. He embraced his apparent exile from Hollywood and instead appeared in independent films that received some of the best accolades of his career. He was particularly notable for his role as businessman Robert Miller in Arbitrage (2012), receiving his fourth Golden Globe Award nomination. Gere's success was "too good to ignore" and "an implosive tour de force," Peter Travers of Rolling Stone wrote in a series of glowing reviews. "gives the best performance of his career," Lou Lumenick of the New York Post remarked. He received the Golden Starfish Award for Lifetime Achievement from the Hamptons International Film Festival and the Career Achievement Award from the Hollywood Film Awards in 2012. He had been given an award by the 34th Cairo International Film Festival in December 2010.

With Joseph Cedar's political drama, Gere made a significant change from his conventional screen persona. A New York Fixer's Moderate Rise and Tragic Fall of a New York Fixer (2016). Norman Oppenheimer, a small-time Jewish fixer, was portrayed in the film. The character, according to Gere, is an example of the "sides of us we all know are irritable and dependent." RogerEbert.com's description of Oppenheimer was described as "consistently, completely fascinating" and singled out as a worthy Academy Award nominee by Variety.

Gere is a natural performer, composing and performing the Pretty Woman piano theme as well as a guitar solo in Runaway Bride. Billy Flynn, a Chicago lawyer, learned tap dance, as well as karate for An Officer and a Gentleman.

Multiple film critics and media outlets have praised Gere as one of the finest actors to have received an Academy Award nomination.

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