Suave, handsome, and roguish Richard Gere has played romantic leads for almost 30 years. In fact, he has aged so well that his leading women are often 20 years younger than he. Although he has appeared mostly in romantic and dramatic films, he can also do musicals, as proved by his performance in the hit musical Chicago (2002). He was nominated for a Best Supporting Actor Golden Globe Award for his role as the cynical, ambitious, and ruthless lawyer who gets two murderers acquitted.
Born in Philadelphia but raised in upstate New York, Richard Gere spent two years studying philosophy and film at the University of Massachusetts before leaving to become an actor. He was unsuccessful in his attempts to form a rock band but did succeed in getting some work in the theater. He got his first big break in London in 1973, when he played Danny Zucco in Grease; he would later play the same role on Broadway.
The following year, he made his film debut when he had a small role in Report to the Commissioner. During the next few years, he alternated between the stage and the screen: He worked with Sam Shepard on two plays and in 1979 won critical praise for his performance in Martin Sherman's Bent; on screen he was one of the men Diane Keaton found in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977), and his good looks were well utilized as the lead in American Gigolo (1980).
Stardom, however, did not come until 1982 when he played the egocentric loner who learns what it is to be An Officer and a Gentleman. Unfortunately, his roles during the rest of the decade did little to enhance his reputation.
In 1990, he appeared in two films that reestablished him as a popular lead, Internal Affairs and Pretty Woman. As the ruthless businessman who falls in love with prostitute JULIA ROBERTS, Richard Gere was nominated for a Golden Globe Best Actor award. Other romantic roles during the 1990s were in Sommersby (1993) and Runaway Bride (1999), when he was again teamed with Julia Roberts.
During the 1990s, Richard Gere also took on some roles in thrillers and action dramas, and he played a defense attorney, a corrupt, sleazy cop, a psychiatrist, a psychiatrist's patient, and even a Eurasian, the last in Akira Kurosawa's film about post–World War II Nagasaki.
The new millennium saw Richard Gere return to romance with Dr. T. and the Women (2000), another remake, like Sommersby, of a French film; and Autumn in New York (2000), which concerns a December/May relationship. Both films suggest that Richard Gere's forte is romantic comedy, but, as his role in Chicago demonstrates, Richard Gere is adept in all film genres.
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1. Gilbert Andreson alias Broncho Billy and early Hollywood
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