Richard Gere

One of his ancestors, also named George, was an Englishman who came from Heavitree, England, and settled in the Connecticut Colony in 1638.

Both of Gere's parents were Mayflower descendants; his ancestors include Pilgrims such as John Billington, William Brewster, Francis Eaton, Francis Cooke, Degory Priest, George Soule and Richard Warren.

His paternal great-grandfather, George Lane Gere (1848–1932), changed the spelling of his surname from "Geer".

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

Gere was born in Philadelphia on August 31, 1949, the eldest son and second child of homemaker Doris Ann ( Tiffany; 1924–2016) and NMIC insurance agent Homer George Gere (1922–2023).

His father originally intended to become a minister.

Gere was raised Methodist in Syracuse, New York.

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

He attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, studying philosophy; after two years, he left and did not graduate.

Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1969, where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.

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

Gere began appearing in Hollywood films in the mid-1970s.

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

Originally cast in a starring role in The Lords of Flatbush (1974), he was replaced after fighting with his co-star Sylvester Stallone.

He played a small but significant part in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and starred in director Terrence Malick's well-reviewed drama Days of Heaven (1978).

He 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, for which he earned a Theatre World Award.

He came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol.

The crime drama American Gigolo (1980) significantly boosted his profile and the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) (co-starring Debra Winger) cemented Gere's ascent to stardom, grossing almost $130 million and winning two Academy Awards out of six nominations; Gere himself received his first Golden Globe Award nomination.

For the remainder of the 1980s, Gere appeared in films of varying critical and commercial reception.

His other films include An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), No Mercy (1986), Pretty Woman (1990), Sommersby (1993), Intersection (1994), First Knight (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), Dr. T & the Women (2000), Shall We Dance? (2004), I'm Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman (2016).

His career rebounded with the releases of Internal Affairs (1990) and Pretty Woman (1990), the latter of which earned him his second Golden Globe Award nomination.

The 1990s saw Gere star in successful films including Sommersby (1993) (opposite Jodie Foster), Primal Fear (1996) and Runaway Bride (1999) (which reunited him with his Pretty Woman co-star Julia Roberts).

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

Gere was named People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive" in 1999.

For portraying Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award.

Not long thereafter, all in the same year, he appeared in the hit films The Mothman Prophecies (2002), Unfaithful (2002) and the Academy Award-winning musical film adaptation Chicago (2002), for which he won his first Golden Globe Award.

Gere's ballroom dancing drama Shall We Dance? (2004) was also a solid performer that grossed $170 million worldwide.

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

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 next appeared with Christian Bale, Heath Ledger and Cate Blanchett in Todd Haynes' semi-biographical film about Bob Dylan, I'm Not There (2007); Gere was one of six actors to portray a variation of Dylan.

He co-starred with Diane Lane in the romantic drama Nights in Rodanthe (2008).

The film was widely panned by critics (making #74 on The Times Worst Films of 2008 list), but grossed over $84 million worldwide.

The film is his most recent to have been produced entirely by a major film studio.

Gere has expressed a belief that his politics regarding China, an important financial resource for major Hollywood studios, have made him unwelcome within Hollywood.

He embraced his apparent exile from Hollywood and instead appeared in independent films that garnered some of the best reviews of his career.

He had earlier received an award from the 34th Cairo International Film Festival in December 2010.

He was notably singled out for portraying businessman Robert Miller in Arbitrage (2012), earning his fourth Golden Globe Award nomination.

Among many positive reviews, Peter Travers of Rolling Stone cited Gere's performance as "too good to ignore" and "an implosive tour de force".

Lou Lumenick of the New York Post further wrote that he "gives the best performance of his career".

Also in 2012, 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.