| Mel Gibson |
Mel Gibson at the 1990 Air America premiere.(photo by Alan Light). |
| Birth name |
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson |
| Born |
January 3 1956 (1956--) (age 51)
Peekskill, New York, U.S. |
| Occupation |
Actor,
Director,
Producer |
| Spouse(s) |
Robyn Moore (1980-) |
| Children |
Seven |
|
|
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3 1956) is
an American-born actor, director, and producer. Born in the U.S., he moved to
Australia when he was 12 years old and he later studied acting at the National Institute of
Dramatic Art in Sydney. After establishing himself as a household name with 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 Oscar for
Best Director.[1] In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the
Christ, a blockbuster movie[2] that portrayed the last hours of the life of Jesus. Gibson is an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia and was
ranked the world's most powerful celebrity in the annual list by Forbes magazine in
2004.[3]
Early life
Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the
sixth of eleven children. He is the second son of Hutton Gibson and Irish-born Anne Reilly
Gibson. His paternal grandmother was the Australian opera singer, Eva
Mylott. One of Mel's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name
comes from a 5th century Irish saint, Mel, founder of the diocese of Ardagh which contains most of his mother's native county, while his second name,
Columcille is also linked to an Irish saint.[4] Columcille is the name of the parish in County Longford where Anne Reilly was born and raised.
Hutton Gibson relocated his family to Sydney, Australia in 1968, after winning a work related
injury lawsuit against New York Central. After a seven day trial on February 14,
1968, the jury awarded him $145,000.[5][unreliable source?] The family
moved when Gibson was twelve. The move to his 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.
[6]
Film career
Gibson graduated from the National Institute of Dramatic Art in
Sydney in 1977. His acting career began in Australia with appearances in television series,
including The Sullivans, Cop Shop and
Punishment. He made his film debut in the 1977 Australian film
Summer City.
Gibson's good looks 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 greatest 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, 2004's Passion of the Christ and 2006's Apocalypto.
Gibson was considered for roles in Batman, GoldenEye, Amadeus, Gladiator, The Golden Child, X-Men, Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,
Runaway Bride and Primary
Colors.[7] 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.[8]
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.[9][10] Gibson
is the first person awarded People magazine's "Sexiest Man Alive". 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.[11] 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.[12]
Landmark films
Mad Max
-
Main article: Mad Max
Gibson got his breakthrough role as the leather-clad post-apocalyptic survivor in George
Miller's Mad Max. The film was independently financed and had a reported budget of
$300,000 AUD — of which $15,000 was paid to Mel Gibson for his performance. The film achieved incredible success, earning $100
million world wide. It held a record in Guinness Book of Records as the
highest profit-to-cost ratio of a motion picture, and only lost the record in 2000 to The Blair Witch Project. The film was awarded four Australian Film Institute Awards in 1979.
Gibson almost did not get the role that made him a star. His agent got him an audition for Mad Max, but the night
before, he got into a drunken brawl with three men at a party, resulting in a swollen nose, a broken jawline, and various other
bruises. Mel showed up at the audition the next day looking like a "black and blue pumpkin" (his own words). Mel did not expect
to get the role and only went to accompany his friend. However, the casting agent told Mel to come back in two weeks, telling him
"we need freaks." When Mel did come back, he was not recognized because his wounds had healed almost completely, and received the
part. This incident is listed in Ripley's Believe It or Not![13]
When the film was first released in America, all the voices, including that of Mel Gibson's character, were dubbed with U.S.
accents at the behest of the distributor, American International
Pictures, for fear that audiences would not take warmly to actors speaking entirely with Australian 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, has been considered but has not been produced.
The Bounty
-
In 1984, starred as Fletcher Christian in
The Bounty. Reportedly, Gibson and Anthony
Hopkins, his costar on the film, did not get along during the shoot. At the time, Anthony Hopkins was a teetotaler[citation needed], and Mel Gibson was struggling with alcoholism. Gibson frequently spent his evenings in local saloons and took to mixing two shots of
Scotch with his beer. He dubbed the concoction
"Liquid Violence". In one incident, Gibson's face was severely cut up in a bar room brawl and the film's shooting schedule had to
be rearranged while he was flown to a hospital in Papeete.[citation needed]
Lethal Weapon
-
Gibson moved into more mainstream commercial filmmaking with the popular buddy cop
Lethal Weapon series, which began with the 1987. In the films he played LAPD Detective Martin Riggs, an emotionally unstable
Vietnam veteran with a death wish and a penchant for violence and gunplay. In the films, he
is partnered with the elder and more reserved Roger Murtaugh (played by Danny Glover). This series would come to exemplify the action genre's so-called buddy film.
The two actors were trained in two different schools of acting. Gibson is classically trained and Glover is a method actor. Three sequels were produced in 1989, 1992 and 1998.
Hamlet
-
Gibson made the unusual transition from the action to classical genres, playing the melancholy 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
-
Gibson stated that when the Braveheart script arrived and was recommended by his agents, he rejected it outright
because he thought he was too old to play the part. After careful thought, he decided to not only act in the film, but to direct
it as well.
Gibson received two Academy Awards, Best Director and Best Picture,
for his 1995 direction of Braveheart. In the
movie, Gibson starred as Sir William Wallace, a thirteenth-century Scottish freedom fighter.
He said in interviews that he was attempting to make a film similar to the epics he had loved as a child, such as
Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus and
The Big Country. The filming began in the Scottish Highlands. After learning that the intended filming locations were among the rainiest spots
in Europe, the shooting was moved to the Republic of Ireland, where members of the
Irish Army Reserve worked as extras in the battle scenes. The Battle of Stirling sequence in Braveheart is
considered one of the best directed fight scenes in all of film history.[14]
The Passion of the Christ
-
In 2004 Gibson directed The Passion of the Christ which was based on
the last twelve hours of the life of Jesus Christ according to the Four Evangelists and Roman Catholic Sacred Tradition. It was
rendered multilingually in Aramaic, Hebrew,
and Latin.
Gibson co-wrote the screenplay with writer Benedict
Fitzgerald and financed the film himself, spending an estimated $40-$50 million of his own money. The filming took place
on location in Matera, Italy and Cinecittá Studios in
Rome. Prior to making the film, Gibson constructed a traditionalist Catholic chapel on his California estate.
Reviews were mixed, with critics ranging from praising the film for its realistic depiction of Jesus' final hours from a
Catholic point of view and criticism of violence, manipulation and charges of anti-Semitism.[15][16]
Asked if his movie would "upset Jews", Gibson responded, "It's not meant to. I think it's meant to just tell the truth. I want
to be as truthful as possible."[17] Accusations of
anti-Semitism were fueled by news reports that Mel Gibson's father, Hutton Gibson, is a
vocal Holocaust denier who has alleged that much of the Holocaust is "fiction".[18]
After Frank Rich of the New York Times
wrote against the unreleased film and called Gibson's publicist a “Holocaust denier
defender,” Gibson was overheard by The New Yorker telling his publicist, "I want
to kill him. I want his intestines on a stick. I want to kill his dog."[19]
On his decision to cut the scene in which Caiaphas says "his blood be on us and on our
children" soon after Pontius Pilate washes his hands of Jesus, Gibson said in
mid-2003:
- I wanted it in. My brother said I was wimping out if I didn't include it. But, man, if I included that in there, they'd be
coming after me at my house. They'd come to kill me.[20]
In 2004, he further commented:
- It's one little passage, and I believe it, but I don't and never have believed it refers to Jews, and implicates them in any
sort of curse. It's directed at all of us, all men who were there, and all that came after. His blood is on us, and that's what
Jesus wanted. But I finally had to admit that one of the reasons I felt strongly about keeping it, aside from the fact it's true,
is that I didn't want to let someone else dictate what could or couldn't be said.[21]
The movie grossed US$611,899,420 worldwide and $370,782,930 in the US alone, a
figure, at that time, surpassed any motion picture starring Gibson. It became the eighth highest-grossing film in history and the
highest-grossing rated R film of all time. The film was nominated for an
Academy Award for Original Music Score, Best Cinematography, and Best
Makeup at the 77th Academy Awards and won the People's Choice Award for Best Drama.
Apocalypto
-
Gibson's next historical epic, Apocalypto, was released to theaters on
December 8, 2006. The film is set in Mesoamerica, during the period immediately before the Spanish conquest. It focuses on the decline of
the Maya civilization which reached its zenith around 600 AD. Dialogue is spoken in the Yucatec Maya language. It features a cast of actors from
Mexico City, the Yucatán, and some Native Americans from the United
States.
While Gibson financed the film himself, Disney released it in specific
markets.
The film is set against the turbulent end times of the once great Maya civilization.
The title is a Greek term which means "an unveiling" or "new beginning", but the movie
is not religiously themed or connected to the biblical Apocalypse.
Gibson pre-screened Apocalypto to two predominantly Native
American audiences in Oklahoma, at the Riverwind Casino in Goldsby, owned by
the Chickasaw Nation, and at Cameron
University in Lawton.
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.[22] Gibson has dismissed[23] the rumors[24][25] that he is considering
directing a film about Spanish explorer Vasco Núñez de Balboa. 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.[26]
Family & personal life
Gibson met his wife Robyn Moore in the late 1970’s soon after filming Mad Max when they were
both tenants at the same house in Adelaide. At the time, Robyn was a dental nurse and Mel was
an unknown actor working for the South Australian Theatre Company. On June 7 1980, they married in a Catholic Church in Forestville, New South
Wales.[27] Gibson has referred to his wife as "my
Rock of Gibraltar, only much prettier" and said, "life is about love and commitment
and screw anyone who thinks that's a cliché." They have seven children; one daughter and six sons: 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.[28][29] Mel Gibson's spokesman had previously denied the rumor that Hannah was planning to become a
nun.[30]
Gibson has an avid interest in real estate investments, with multiple properties in Malibu, CA, a ranch in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, a private island in Fiji and properties in Australia.[31][32] In December 2004, Gibson sold his 300-acre Australian ranch in the
Kiewa Valley for $6 million.[33] Also in December 2004, Gibson purchased Mago Island in Fiji
from Tokyu Corporation of Japan for $15 million.
Descendants of the original native inhabitants of Mago (who were displaced in the 1860s) have protested the purchase. Gibson
stated it was his intention to retain the pristine environment of the undeveloped island.[34] In early 2005, he sold his 45,000-acre Montana
ranch to a neighbor for an undisclosed multimillion dollar sum.[35] In April 2007 he purchased a 400-acre
ranch in Costa Rica for $26 million, and in July
2007 he sold his 76-acre Tudor estate in Connecticut (which he
purchased in 1994 for $9 million) for $40 million to an unnamed buyer. [36][37] Also that month, he
sold a Malibu property for $30 million that he had purchased for $24 million two
years before.[38]
In keeping with his interest in organic foods, Gibson has used his ranch properties to produce all-organic beef.[39]
Mel Gibson has eclectic tastes in music and is particularly fond of Italian opera. He
is a lover of Italian Renaissance art and a special admirer of the Baroque artist Caravaggio. Much of the
cinematography of The Passion of the
Christ was designed to evoke the painter's style.[40][41]
Gibson's height is disputed. Varied sources place him from 5'6" (170 cm) to 5'11" (180 cm).[42][43][44] In 2002 Gibson stood
toe-to-to with Michael Parkinson (5'11") and demonstrated that they were about the
same height.[45]
Religious and political views
Religion
Based on many of his positions, Gibson may be considered a Traditionalist
Catholic. Despite the rumors[46] on whether Gibson
shares his father’s adherence to Sedevacantism, Gibson has not spoken publicly on the
matter, and some of his public interviews give the opposite impression. As part of his response to a question on whether the
pope saw The Passion of the
Christ, Gibson said,
I’d like to hear what he has to say. I’d like to hear what anyone has to say. This film isn’t made for the elite. Anyone could
see this film, even the occupier of the chair of Peter can see this film.[47]
Gibson also referred to him as “Pope John Paul II” in a 2004 Reader’s Digest
interview,[48] and acquaintance William Fulco has said that Gibson denies neither the pope nor
Vatican II.[49] Gibson has expressed the belief that God is
pointing out his path, particularly with respect to the making of The Passion of
the Christ. In 2003, he told The New
Yorker
"There are signals. Signal graces, they are called. It's as clear as a traffic light.
Bing! I mean, it just grabs you and you know you have to listen to that and you have to follow it."[19]
At a screening of the film for clergy, he stated that the Holy Spirit was making the film
through him; "I was just directing traffic".[19]
When asked about the Catholic doctrine of "Extra Ecclesiam nulla
salus", Gibson replied,
"There is no salvation for those outside the Church … I believe it. Put it this way. My wife is a saint. She's a much better
person than I am. Honestly. She's, like, Episcopalian, Church of England. She prays, she believes in God, she knows Jesus, she
believes in that stuff. And it's just not fair if she doesn't make it, she's better than I am. But that is a pronouncement from
the chair. I go with it.”[50]
However, Gibson’s assent to this dogma does not mean he thinks that non-Catholics or non-Christians will go to hell. When
Gibson was asked at Willow Creek church whether John 14:6[51] is an intolerant position, he said that “through the
merits of Jesus' sacrifice… even people who don't know Jesus are able to be saved,
but through him.”[52][53][54]
Gibson also told Diane Sawyer that he believes non-Catholics can go to heaven.[55]
In May 2007, Mel Gibson flew to Hermosillo,
Mexico, where he attended a Tridentine Mass during which
grandchildren of his friends and two of his children received the sacrament of
Confirmation, administered by Archbishop emeritus
Carlos Quintero Arce.[56]
The same Archbishop Arce consecrated Gibson's own, private, traditional Roman Catholic church of the
Holy Family in Malibu in February, 2007.[57]
Gibson's Traditionalist Catholic beliefs have also been the target of
attacks, especially during the controversy over his film The Passion of the
Christ. When the film premiered in France, the newspaper Libération, considered the voice of French liberalism, dubbed
Gibson's religious beliefs "the Shiite version of Christianity." Gibson has recently stated in an interview with Diane
Sawyer that he feels that his "human rights were violated", by the often vitriolic
attacks on his person, his family, and his religious beliefs which were sparked by The Passion.
Politics
While largely apolitical, Mel Gibson has been called everything from “ultraconservative”[58] to “politically very liberal” by acquaintance William Fulco.[59] Although he has
denied that he is a Republican,[60] Gibson is often referred to as one in the press, and WorldNetDaily once reported that there was grassroots support among Republicans for "a presidential
run".[61]
Gibson complimented exposé director Michael Moore and his documentary film
Fahrenheit 9/11 when he and Moore were recognized at the 2005 People's Choice Awards.[62] Gibson's Icon Productions originally agreed to back
Moore's film, but abruptly sold the rights to Miramax Films. Moore has claimed that "top
Republicans" intimidated Mel Gibson into relinquishing the film.[63]
In a July 1995 interview with Playboy magazine, Gibson
said President Bill Clinton was a "low-level opportunist" and someone was "telling him what
to do". He said he thought Clinton and other politicians who had won Rhodes
Scholarships were part of a "stealth" tre
