Richard Gere

Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He first became famous during the 1980s, after appearing in several successful Hollywood films, including An Officer and a Gentleman, and has since retained his status as a leading man. During the 1990s and 2000s, he starred in several well-received films, Pretty Woman, Primal Fear, and Chicago for which he won a Golden Globe award as Best Actor.

Early life
Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Gere is a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrims Francis Eaton, John Billington, George Soule, Richard Warren, Degory Priest, William Brewster and Francis Cooke. Gere's father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for the Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company. Gere's mother, Doris Anna (née Tiffany), was a homemaker. He has three sisters and a brother. In 1967, Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School, where he excelled at gymnastics and music, playing the trumpet. He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst, on a gymnastics scholarship, majoring in Philosophy, but did not graduate, leaving after two years to pursue acting.

Career
Gere's first major acting role was in the original London stage version of Grease in 1973. He began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid 1970s, co-starring in the thriller Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), and playing the leading role in director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed 1978 film, Days of Heaven. His acting career took off in 1980, with the successful film American Gigolo, followed by the popular romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman, which had grossed over $100 million in 1982. Subsequently, he was the first man ever to appear on the cover of Vogue magazine. In 1980 Gere appeared in the Broadway production of Bent.

In  Mr. Jones, Gere accurately portrayed a high-functioning, creative, and intellectual man with bipolar disorder. The movie was not a commercial success, but was well-received by the mental health community. It is frequently utilized as a training tool to acquaint students and families with the disorder.

Gere's career in the 1980s alternated between box office successes and failures. After the release of both Internal Affairs and the huge hit Pretty Woman in 1990, Gere's status as a leading man was again solidified, and he continued starring in solidly performing films throughout the 1990s, including Sommersby (1993), Primal Fear (1996), and Runaway Bride (1999), which paired Gere with his Pretty Woman co-star, Julia Roberts. People magazine named him the "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999.

In 2002, he appeared in three major releases: the horror thriller The Mothman Prophecies, the drama Unfaithful, and the Academy Award-winning film version of Chicago, 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, although his next film, Bee Season, largely failed to find an audience amid the Oscar-contenders of November 2005.

Gere was Harvard University's Hasty Pudding Theatricals' "Man of the Year" for 2006. In July 2006, Gere was cast opposite Jesse Eisenberg and Terrence Howard in "The Hunting Party", a comic thriller in which he played a journalist in Bosnia; the film was released in September of 2007.

Personal life & activism
Gere was married to supermodel Cindy Crawford from 1991 to 1995. In 2002, he married actress Carey Lowell. They have a son, Homer James Jigme Gere, who was born in 2000, and is named after Gere's father.

Gere was raised by Methodist parents; his interest in Buddhism began when he travelled to Nepal in 1978 with the Brazilian painter, Sylvia Martins. He is a practicing Buddhist and an active supporter of the Dalai Lama. He is also a persistent advocate for human rights in Tibet; he is a co-founder of the Tibet House, creator of The Gere Foundation, and he is Chairman of the Board of Directors for the International Campaign for Tibet. Because he strongly supports the Tibetan Independence Movement, he is permanently banned from entering The People's Republic of China. Gere was banned as an Academy Award presenter in 1993 after he used the opportunity to condemn the Chinese government. In September 2007, Gere called for the boycott of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games to put pressure on China to make Tibet independent.

Gere also 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, and he also actively supports Survival International, an organization dedicated to protecting the rights and lands of tribal peoples throughout the world. 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 that country. In 1999 he created the Gere Foundation India Trust to support a variety of humanitarian programs in India.

During an AIDS-awareness event in New Delhi in April 2007, Gere kissed Bollywood actress Shilpa Shetty on the neck and cheeks several times, rousing angry protests in India. Gere has apologized to the actress several times since the incident, stating : "My clumsy attempt at a 'Shall We Dance' move was a naive misread of Indian customs, and I assure you nothing more." On 26 April 2007 a district court in Jaipur, the capital of Rajasthan, issued a warrant for Gere's arrest. A week later the judge issuing the warrant, Judge Dinesh Gupta, was transferred from the Jaipur court to the town of Kishangarh. On May 16 the Supreme Court of India suspended all legal proceedings as it debated on the proper jurisdiction for the case.