'Shall We Dance?'

The heading is the name of one of the movies I love the best that stars actor Richard Gere, who was born on August 31, 1949 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. I know that if this handsome actor came forth and asked me, “Shall we dance?” I would be on my feet in a second. He has starred in such popular movies like Pretty Woman, An Officer and a Gentleman and Chicago. I know that Pretty Woman despite the prostitute story reminded me of a modern day Cinderella story, and by the end of the movie when the character Gere was portraying came after Julie Roberts’ character I was both crying and cheering. It’s a real feel good movie with a touch of comedy and romance.

Gere spent his childhood in Syracuse, New York, and went to the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on a gymnastics scholarship. Now let’s take a pause here just suppose Gere hadn’t left school to pursue a career in the theater suppose he had decided to be an Olympic gymnast. Hollywood would have been the loser because this handsome guy is some actor. He began acting on stage at the Seattle Repertory and the Provincetown Playhouse in Cape Cod. There he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. In 1973 Gere had his first major acting role in the original London stage version of Grease.

Then came Hollywood and he got his first roles on the big screen in Looking for Mr. Goodbar with Diane Keaton in 1977 and Days of Heaven with Brooke Adams and Sam Shepard in 1978.

He got his reputation as a sex symbol when he took the role of male escort Julian Kaye in American Gigolo. This made me think of another role where an actor could give you heart palpitations and that was Tom Cruise in Cocktail. Now imagine ladies how you would feel going out with Gere as he was in the role of the male escort and walking into a bar where the bartender was Cruise in his role. I think I might possibly not have survived that night but I would’ve gone with a huge smile on my face.

His next role was in the very successful movie An Officer and a Gentleman with Debra Winger. This movie brought us the very lovely song Up Where We Belong which won the Oscar for Best Original Song. Then came the movie that I always rave about Pretty Woman in 1990. That same year Gere also portrayed a crooked cop in the thriller Internal Affairs.

The team of Roberts and Gere came together again in 1999 in Runaway Bride. I don’t think they quite had the same magic as previously but I did enjoy the movie. Gere went on to star in the musical Chicago playing a slick lawyer named Billy Flynn. For this movie he received a Golden Globe for Best Actor in a Musical or Comedy. In 2002 he starred in Unfaithful with Diane Lane and Olive Martinez and in 2004 Shall We Dance? with Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sarandon.

What makes Gere an exceptional actor is that he has other talents that he can put into his various roles. He is a musician and composed and performed the Pretty Woman piano theme, he played a guitar solo in Runaway Bride, learned to tap dance for Chicago and took up karate for An Officer and a Gentleman.

When he’s not on the silver screen Gere has become known for his advocacy work for human rights in Tibet and for AIDS awareness. From his second marriage to the former Law & Order actress Carey Lowell he has one son, Homer. It doesn’t matter that Gere is 70 because he still remains handsome and sexy.