What happened to Richard Gere, the eternal Buddhist heartthrob who is very close to Spain today

Richard Tiffany Gere, popularly known as Richard Gere, was born in August 1949 in Philadelphia, United States. His father was an insurance agent and his mother was a housewife, but that didn’t stop him from starting to do what he liked best.

After graduating from high school, he began to gain popularity as a trumpeter, composer, and gymnast. Although at first Richard Gere planned to start his gymnastics studies and then continue with philosophy, he ended up abandoning his intentions and took a more relaxed life that made him begin to be interested in Buddhism.

the passion of Richard Gere would get stronger throughout his life, but began studying Zen Buddhism, and later visited Nepal to meet the Tibetan monks and lamas together with the Brazilian painter Sylvia Martins.

During those years, he met an artistic producer who encouraged him to start in the theater, and after a few plays participated in the theatrical version of greasereleased in 1975. At the same time, and while he was gaining more and more popularity and getting new roles, he began to be part of the industry of hollywood.

Richard Gere, from fighting with Sylvester Stallone to kissing Julia Roberts

Starting his film career, Richard Gere had a run-in with none other than Sylvester Stallone. Gere was to star in Happy Days in 1974, but after fighting with his co-star, he ended up being replaced. Later, there were also rumors of fights with Bruce Willis during the filming of The Jackal (1997).

However, Richard Gere is not remembered so much for his fights as for roles as remarkable in romantic films as those of Julian Kaye in American Gigolo (1980), Zack Mayo in officer and gentleman (1982) or Edward Lewis in beautiful woman (1990), in which he co-starred with Julia Roberts.

These three films are the best known of Richard Tiffany Gere’s career, which gave him the opportunity to receive his first Golden Globe nominations and that they were also the ones that ended up turning it into a Hollywood sex symbolwith People magazine rating it in 1999 as he “sexiest man alive”.

In 2002 he starred in films such as: Unfaithful, Mothman: The Last Prophecyeither Chicago. With the latter, Richard Gere managed to win his first Golden Globe for best actor in a comedy or musical. But this was not the only award of his career. In 2007, the protagonist of beautiful woman received the Donostia Award during the San Sebastian Film Festival in recognition of his career.

What Happened to Richard Gere

In the following years, Bruce Willis’s old partner starred in the endearing Always at your side Hachiko) (2009), based on a true story; the drama invisible (2014), about poverty, or comedy The new exotic Marigold Hotel (2015), where he shared the screen with other great stars of his generation such as: Judi Dench, Maggie Smith or Bill Nighy.

At that time, Richard Gere’s relationship with Spain and Buddhism it continued to intensify. On the one hand, she met her current partner, the Spanish activist Alexandra Silvawhom he married in 2018 and with whom he has already had two children, and through another he met the Dalai Lama in India and became a practicing Tibetan Buddhistof the Gelugpa school, as well as an active supporter of the Dalai Lama.

His faith has also led the protagonist of officer and gentleman to fight for human rights in Tibet, has criticized Chinese policy in Tibet and has supported various causes for the rights of indigenous peoples.

Richard Gere today

The last times we saw Richard Gere on screen before the pandemic it was through the documentary It Takes a Lunatic (2019), on the life and work of Wyn Handmanand of the series MotherFatherSon (2019), a psychological thriller set in the world of politics.

This year, in 2023, Richard Gere returns to the big screen with two premieres framed within the genre that made him a sex symbol: that of romantic dramas and comedies. Next April 21 will premiere in Spain Maybe I Doand on October 11 he will star in the film longing.

The first will have Emma Roberts already Luke Bracey of protagonists, with Richard Gere acting as a counselor father to guide them in the functioning of a marriage. And in the second we will see him put himself in the shoes of a single man who discovers that an ex-girlfriend of his gave birth to his son twenty years ago.

Now that you know what What happened to Richard Gere? We invite you to discover other celebrities such as Meg Ryan, America’s sweetheart who now prefers to direct her own movies, or Lorenzo Lamas, the king of beds who ended up forgotten in B-movies.

Every week we will post new stories from other mythical actresses and actors whose lives also took an unexpected turn As in the case of Richard Gere.