PERSON: Richard Gere

Actor, Producer

Richard Tiffany Gere (/ɡɪər/ GHEER; born August 31, 1949) is an American actor. He began appearing 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 came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. Gere’s other films include An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), Internal Affairs (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Sommersby (1993), First Knight (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), Unfaithful (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), I’m Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman (2016). For portraying Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award.

Gere was born in Philadelphia on August 31, 1949, the eldest son and second child of homemaker Doris Ann (née 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. His paternal great-grandfather, George Lane Gere (1848–1932), changed the spelling of his surname from “Geer”. 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.

Gere graduated from North Syracuse Central High School in 1967, where he had excelled at gymnastics and music and played the trumpet. He then attended the University of Massachusetts Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship, studying philosophy. He left after two years and never graduated.

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