Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson
at the 1990 Air America premiere
Born	Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson January 3, 1956 (1956-01-03) (age 53) Peekskill, New York, U.S.
Occupation	Actor, film director, film producer, screenwriter
Years active	1976–present
Spouse(s)	Robyn Moore (m. 1980–present) «start: (1980)»"Marriage: Robyn Moore to Mel Gibson" Location: (linkback:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson)

Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO (born January 3, 1956) is an American Australian actor, film director and producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art.

After appearing in the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, Gibson went on to direct and star in the Academy Award-winning Braveheart. Gibson's direction of Braveheart made him the sixth actor-turned-filmmaker to receive an Academy Award for Best Director.^[1] In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ, a controversial^[2] but successful^[3] film that portrayed the last hours of the life of Jesus Christ. The movies he has acted in have grossed more than two billion dollars in the U.S. alone.^[4]

Early life

Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of eleven children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson and Irish-born Anne Reilly. His paternal grandmother was the Australian opera soprano, Eva Mylott (1875–1920).^[5] One of Gibson's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name comes from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson's mother's native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colm-Cille,^[6] is shared by an Irish saint^[7] and is name of the parish in County Longford where Anne Reilly was born and raised. Because of his mother, Gibson holds dual Irish and American citizenship.^[8]

Soon after being awarded $145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968, Hutton Gibson relocated his family to Sydney, Australia.^[9] Gibson was 12 years old at the time. The move to Hutton's mother's native Australia was for economic reasons, and because Hutton thought the Australian military would reject his oldest son for the Vietnam War draft.^[10]

Gibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St. Leo's Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high school years.

Career

Gibson gained very favorable notices from film critics when he first entered the cinematic scene as well as comparisons to several classic movie stars. In 1982, Vincent Canby wrote that “Mr. Gibson recalls the young Steve McQueen… I can't define "star quality," but whatever it is, Mr. Gibson has it.”^[11] Gibson has also been likened to “a combination Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart.”^[12] Gibson's physical appearance made him a natural for leading male roles in action projects such as the "Mad Max" series of films, Peter Weir's Gallipoli, and the "Lethal Weapon" series of films. Later, Gibson expanded into a variety of acting projects including human dramas such as Hamlet, and comedic roles such as those in Maverick and What Women Want. His most artistic and financial success came with films where he expanded beyond acting into directing and producing, such as 1993's The Man Without a Face, 1995's Braveheart, 2000's The Patriot (acted only), 2004's The Passion of the Christ and 2006's Apocalypto. Gibson was considered for roles in Batman, GoldenEye, Amadeus, The Golden Child, X-Men, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, Runaway Bride and Primary Colors.^{[citation needed]} Actor Sean Connery once suggested Gibson should play the next James Bond to Connery's M. Gibson turned down the role, reportedly because he feared being typecast.^[13]

Stage

Gibson studied at the National Institute of Dramatic Art (NIDA) in Sydney. The students at NIDA were classically trained in the British-theater tradition rather than in preparation for screen acting.^[14] As students, Gibson and actress Judy Davis played the leads in Romeo and Juliet, and Gibson played the role of Queen Titania in an experimental production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.^[15] After graduation in 1977, Gibson immediately began work on the filming of Mad Max, but continued to work as a stage actor, and joined the State Theatre Company of South Australia in Adelaide. Gibson’s theatrical credits include the character Estragon (opposite Geoffrey Rush) in Waiting for Godot, and the role of Biff Loman in a 1982 production of Death of a Salesman in Sydney. Gibson’s most recent theatrical performance, opposite Sissy Spacek, was the 1993 production of Love Letters by A. R. Gurney, in Telluride, Colorado.^[16]

Australian television and cinema

While a student at NIDA, Gibson made his film debut in the 1977 film Summer City, for which he was paid $250. Gibson also played a mentally-slow youth in Tim, which earned him the Australian Film Institute Award for Best Actor in a Leading Role. The release of Mad Max in 1979 brought Gibson to mainstream attention.

During this period Gibson also appeared in Australian television series guest roles on programs The Sullivans, Cop Shop (in 1980), and in the pilot episode of Punishment (produced in 1980, screened 1981).

Gibson joined the cast of the World War II action film Attack Force Z, which was not released until 1982 when Gibson had become a bigger star. Director Peter Weir cast Gibson as one of the leads in the critically-acclaimed World War I drama Gallipoli, which earned Gibson another Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute. The film Gallipoli also helped to earn Gibson the reputation of a serious, versatile actor and gained him the Hollywood agent Ed Limato. The sequel Mad Max 2 was his first hit in America (released as The Road Warrior). In 1982 Gibson again attracted critical acclaim in Peter Weir’s romantic thriller The Year of Living Dangerously. Following a year hiatus from film acting after the birth of his twin sons, Gibson took on the role of Fletcher Christian in The Bounty in 1984. Playing Max Rockatansky for the third time in Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome in 1985 earned Gibson his first million dollar salary.^[17]

Hollywood

Early Hollywood years

Mel Gibson's first American film was Mark Rydell’s 1984 drama The River, in which he and Sissy Spacek played struggling Tennessee farmers. Gibson then starred in the gothic romance Mrs. Soffel for Australian director Gillian Armstrong. He and Matthew Modine played condemned convict brothers opposite Diane Keaton as the warden's wife who visits them to read the Bible. In 1985, after working on four films in a row, Gibson took almost two years off at his Australian cattle ranch. He returned to play the role of Martin Riggs in Lethal Weapon, a film which helped to cement his status as a Hollywood star. Gibson's next film was Robert Towne’s Tequila Sunrise, followed by Lethal Weapon 2 in 1989. After starring in three films back-to-back, Bird on a Wire, Air America, and Hamlet, Gibson took another hiatus from Hollywood.

1990s

During the 1990s, Gibson used his boxoffice power to alternate between commercial and personal projects. His films in the first half of the decade were Forever Young, Lethal Weapon 3, Maverick, and Braveheart. He then starred in Ransom, Conspiracy Theory, Lethal Weapon 4, and Payback. Gibson also served as the speaking and singing voice of John Smith in Disney’s Pocahontas.

After 2000

In 2000, Gibson acted in three films that each grossed over $100 million: The Patriot, Chicken Run, and What Women Want. In 2002, Gibson appeared in the Vietnam War drama We Were Soldiers and M. Night Shyamalan’s Signs, which became the highest-grossing film of Gibson’s acting career.^[18] While promoting Signs, Gibson said that he no longer wanted to be a movie star and would only act in film again if the script were truly extraordinary. Gibson is currently filming Edge of Darkness, which marks his first starring role since 2002.^[19]

Producer

After his success in Hollywood with the Lethal Weapon series, Gibson began to move into producing and directing. With partner Bruce Davey, Gibson formed Icon Productions in 1989 in order to make Hamlet. In addition to producing or co-producing many of Gibson's own star vehicles, Icon has turned out many other small films, ranging from Immortal Beloved to An Ideal Husband. Gibson has taken supporting roles in some of these films, such as The Million Dollar Hotel and The Singing Detective to improve their commercial prospects. Gibson has also produced a number of projects for television, including a biopic on The Three Stooges and the 2008 PBS documentary Carrier. Icon has grown beyond just a production company to an international distribution company and a film exhibitor in Australia and New Zealand.

Director

Mel Gibson has credited his directors, particularly George Miller, Peter Weir, and Richard Donner, with teaching him the craft of filmmaking and influencing him as a director. According to Robert Downey, Jr., studio executives encouraged Gibson in 1989 to try directing, an idea he rebuffed at the time.^[20] Gibson made his directorial debut in 1993 with The Man Without a Face, followed two years later by Braveheart, which earned Gibson the Academy Award for Best Director. Gibson had long planned to direct a remake of Fahrenheit 451, but in 1999 the project was indefinitely postponed because of scheduling conflicts.^[21] Gibson was scheduled to direct Robert Downey, Jr. in a Los Angeles stage production of Hamlet in January 2001, but Downey's drug relapse ended the project.^[22] In 2002, while promoting We Were Soldiers and Signs to the press, Gibson mentioned that he was planning to pare back on acting and return to directing.^[23] In September 2002, Gibson announced that he would direct a film called The Passion in Aramaic and Latin with no subtitles because he hoped to "transcend language barriers with filmic storytelling."^[24] In 2004, he released the controversial film The Passion of the Christ, which he co-wrote, co-produced, and directed. Gibson directed a few episodes of Complete Savages for the ABC network. In 2006, he directed the action-adventure film Apocalypto, his second film to feature sparse dialogue in a non-English language.

Honors

On July 25, 1997, Gibson was named an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), in recognition of his "service to the Australian film industry". The award was honorary because substantive awards are made only to Australian citizens.^[25][26] In 1985, Gibson was named "The Sexiest Man Alive" by People, the first person to be named so.^[27] Gibson quietly declined the Chevalier des Arts et Lettres from the French government in 1995 as a protest against France's resumption of nuclear testing in the Southwest Pacific.^[28] Time magazine chose Mel Gibson and Michael Moore as Men of the Year in 2004, but Gibson turned down the photo session and interview, and the cover went instead to George W. Bush.^[29]

Landmark films

Mad Max series

Gibson got his breakthrough role as the leather-clad post-apocalyptic survivor in George Miller's Mad Max. The independently-financed blockbuster earned Gibson $15,000 and helped to make him an international star everywhere but in the United States, where the actors' Australian accents were dubbed with American accents. The original film spawned two sequels: Mad Max 2 (known in North America as The Road Warrior), and Mad Max 3 (known in North America as Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome). A fourth movie, Mad Max 4: Fury Road, is in development, but both Gibson and George Miller have indicated that the starring role would go to a younger actor.^[30]

Gallipoli

Gibson played the role of the cynical Frank Dunne alongside co-star Mark Lee in the 1981 Peter Weir film. Gallipoli is about several young men from rural Western Australia who enlist in the Australian Army during the First World War. They are sent to Turkey, where they take part in the Gallipoli Campaign. During the course of the movie, the young men slowly lose their innocence about the purpose of war. The climax of the movie occurs on the ANZAC battlefield at Gallipoli and depicts the brutal attack at the Nek. The critically-acclaimed film helped to further launch Gibson's career. He won the award for Best Actor in a Leading Role from the Australian Film Institute.

The Year of Living Dangerously

Gibson played a naïve but ambitious journalist opposite Sigourney Weaver and Linda Hunt in Peter Weir’s atmospheric 1982 film The Year of Living Dangerously, based on the novel of the same name by Christopher Koch. The movie was both a critical and commercial success, and the upcoming Australian actor was heavily marketed by MGM studio. In his review of the film, Vincent Canby of the New York Times wrote, "If this film doesn't make an international star of Mr. Gibson, then nothing will. He possesses both the necessary talent and the screen presence."^[31]

Gibson was initially reluctant to accept the role of Guy Hamilton. "I didn't necessarily see my role as a great challenge. My character was, like the film suggests, a puppet. And I went with that. It wasn't some star thing, even though they advertised it that way."^[32] Gibson saw some similarities between himself and the character of Guy. "He's not a silver-tongued devil. He's kind of immature and he has some rough edges and I guess you could say the same for me."^[12] Gibson has cited this screen performance as his personal favorite.

The Bounty

Gibson followed the footsteps of Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, and Marlon Brando by starring as Fletcher Christian in a cinematic retelling of the mutiny on the Bounty. The resulting 1984 film The Bounty is considered to be the most historically accurate version. However, Gibson thinks that the film's revisionism did not go far enough. He stated that his character should have been portrayed as more of a villain and described Anthony Hopkins's performance as William Bligh as the best aspect of the film.^[32]

Lethal Weapon series

Gibson moved into more mainstream commercial filmmaking with the popular buddy cop Lethal Weapon series, which began with the 1987 original. In the films he played LAPD Detective Martin Riggs, a recently widowed Vietnam veteran with a death wish and a penchant for violence and gunplay. In the films, he is partnered with a reserved family man named Roger Murtaugh (Danny Glover). Following the success of Lethal Weapon, director Richard Donner and principal cast revisited the characters in three sequels, Lethal Weapon 2 (1989), Lethal Weapon 3 (1993), and Lethal Weapon 4 (1998). This series would come to exemplify the subgenre of the buddy film.

Hamlet

Gibson made the unusual transition from the action to classical genres, playing the melancholic Danish prince in Franco Zeffirelli's Hamlet. Gibson was cast alongside such experienced Shakespearean actors as Ian Holm, Alan Bates, and Paul Scofield. He described working with his fellow cast members as similar to being "thrown into the ring with Mike Tyson".

The film met with critical and marketing success and remains steady in DVD sales. It also marked the transformation of Mel Gibson from action hero to serious actor and filmmaker.

Braveheart

Mel Gibson directed, produced, and starred in Braveheart, an epic telling of the legend of Sir William Wallace, a 13th century martyr of Scottish nationalism. Gibson received two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Picture for his second directorial effort. Braveheart influenced the Scottish nationalism movement and helped to revive the film genre of the historical epic. The Battle of Stirling Bridge sequence in Braveheart is considered by critics to be one of the all-time best directed battle scenes.^[33]

The Passion of the Christ

Gibson directed, produced, co-wrote, and self-funded the 2004 film The Passion of the Christ, which chronicled the passion and death of Jesus Christ. The cast spoke the languages of Aramaic, Latin, and Hebrew. Although Gibson originally announced his intention to release the film without subtitles; he relented on this point for theatrical exhibition. The highly controversial film sparked divergent reviews, ranging from high praise to criticism of the violence to charges of anti-Semitism. The movie grossed US$611,899,420 worldwide and $370,782,930 in the US alone, surpassing any motion picture starring Gibson. In US box offices, it became the eighth highest-grossing film in history and the highest-grossing rated R film of all time. The film was nominated for three Academy Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Best Drama.

Apocalypto

Gibson further established his reputation as a director with his 2006 action-adventure film Apocalypto. Gibson's fourth directorial effort is set in Mesoamerica during the early 16th century against the turbulent end times of a Maya civilization. The sparse dialogue is spoken in the Yucatec Maya language by a cast of Native American descent.

Future films

In March 2007, Gibson told a screening audience that he was preparing another script with Farhad Safinia about the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary (OED).^[34] Gibson's company has long owned the rights to The Professor and the Madman, which tells the story of the creation of the OED.^[35]

Gibson has dismissed the rumors that he is considering directing a film about Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa.^[36][37][38] Asked in September 2007 if he planned to return to acting and specifically to action roles, Gibson said:

"I think I’m too old for that, but you never know. I just like telling stories. Entertainment is valid and I guess I’ll probably do it again before it's over. You know, do something that people won’t get mad with me for."^[39]

Gibson is next acting in a film adaptation of the BBC miniseries, Edge of Darkness. This will be his first starring role since Signs back in 2002.^[40] Edge of Darkness is currently in post-production and is slated for a January 29, 2010 release.

In 2005, the film “Sam and George” was announced as the seventh collaboration between director Richard Donner and Gibson. In February 2009, Donner said that this Paramount project was “dead,” ^[41] but that he and Gibson were planning another film based on an original script by Brian Helgeland for production in fall 2009.^[42]

Gibson filmed The Beaver, a film directed by former Maverick co-star, Jodie Foster in 2009.^[43]

Personal life

Family

Gibson met Robyn Denise Moore in the late 1970s soon after filming Mad Max when they were both tenants at a house in Adelaide. At the time, Robyn was a dental nurse and Mel was an unknown actor working for the South Australian Theatre Company.^[44] On June 7, 1980, they were married in a Catholic church in Forestville, New South Wales.^[45] The couple have one daughter, six sons, and two grandchildren.^[46] Their seven children are Hannah (born 1980), twins Edward and Christian (born 1982), William (born 1985), Louis (born 1988), Milo (born 1990), and Thomas (born 1999).

Daughter Hannah Gibson married blues musician Kenny Wayne Shepherd on September 16, 2006.^[47][48] Gibson's spokesman previously had denied a rumor that Hannah was planning to become a nun.^[49]

After nearly three years of separation, Robyn Gibson filed for divorce on April 13, 2009, citing irreconcilable differences. In a joint statement, the Gibsons declared, "Throughout our marriage and separation we have always strived to maintain the privacy and integrity of our family and will continue to do so."^[6]

Gibson's girlfriend, Russian musician Oksana Grigorieva, has a son with former boyfriend, actor Timothy Dalton.^[50] On October 30, 2009, Grigorieva gave birth to their daughter, Lucia. ^[51]

Investments

Gibson has an avid interest in property investments, with multiple properties in Malibu, California, several locations in Costa Rica, a private island in Next post: