Richard Tiffany Gere (born August 31,
1949) is an American actor. He began acting in the 1970s,
playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar, and a
starring role in Days of Heaven. He came to prominence in 1980
for his role in the film American Gigolo, which established him
as a leading man and a sex symbol. He went on to star in several
hit films, including An Officer and a Gentleman, Pretty Woman,
Primal Fear, Arbitrage, and Chicago, for which he won a Golden
Globe Award as Best Actor, as well as a Screen Actors Guild
Award as part of the Best Cast. Gere first worked
professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and Provincetown
Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1971 where he starred in Rosencrantz
and Guildenstern Are Dead. His 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. In 1979 Gere was one of the first
big-name Hollywood actors to play gay, starring as a homosexual
Holocaust victim in the Broadway production of Bent. Gere won a
Theatre World Award for his performance. In 1980 he became a
major star with the film American Gigolo, followed in 1982 by
the romantic drama An Officer and a Gentleman with Debra Winger,
which grossed almost $130 million.
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