Richard Tiffany Gere (born
August 31,
1949) is a
Golden Globe- and
Screen Actors Guild Award-winning
American actor. A prototypical leading man of romantic and dramatic films, he first became famous during the 1980s, and has since managed to retain his status.
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.
Biography
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 mother, Doris Anna (
née Tiffany), was a homemaker, and his father, Homer George Gere, was an insurance agent for the
Nationwide Mutual Insurance Company and had originally intended to become a
minister.
[Stated in interview on Inside the Actors Studio, 2002] Gere has three sisters and a brother. In 1967, he 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.
["Richard Gere Biography", Carey Latimore, The Biography Channel. Retrieved May 1, 2007.]
