Mel Gibson Biography . . . Part Two!
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Hi Friends,
I thought I should start my blogging about Mel Gibson with his biography (I found it here). I think you will love it because it shows how much he suffered before he became this famous actor. I really admire his persistence and hard work.
Mel Gibson Biography is very long so, I had to cut it into 4 parts. Please read it. I hope you will enjoy it as much as I did.
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Born: 3 January 1956 Where: Peekskill, New York, USA Awards: Won 2 Oscars, 1 Golden Globe Height: 5′ 11″ |
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Now came more stage-work, and then the war movie Attack Force Z, a bad experience. Mel was disappointed that director Philip Noyce (later to make Dead Calm and Patriot Games) had left the project and, like the rest of a cast including Sam Neil, was also annoyed at the star-treatment meted out to John Philip Law. After filming ended in Thailand, he returned to Australia and, now married and needing the money, took a part in the prison drama Punishment.
Thank the Lord, matters quickly improved. Peter Weir, who’d helped re-generate the Aussie film industry with his marvellous Picnic At Hanging Rock, wanted Mel to star alongside newcomer Mark Lee in the war drama, Gallipoli. The pair would play young sprinters whose athletic careers are halted when they’re sent into action in Turkey during WW1. The army uses their talents by having them race through the trenches with important messages, while the British commanders are foolishly and mercilessly sending troops over the top into unanswerable machine-gun fire. It was an extremely moving movie, and not the last time Mel would be involved in Brit-bashing. Both Braveheart and The Patriot would also portray the denizens of this sceptred isle, this earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, this other Eden – DEMI-PARADISE – as a gang of plummy-voiced butchers. He’d answer outraged complaints with a cute and funny “Hey, we’re giving the Germans a break”. In Australia, of course, it didn’t matter. Gallipoli won Gibson a second Best Actor Award.
Next came another monster hit, as he returned to Mad Max. In The Road Warrior, we see Max years after the original killing and revenge, wandering the desolate landscape with a hound whose food he selfishly gobbles himself. No semblance of law remains and a community of nice people is under siege by a fantastically dangerous horde of punky marauders. Will Max help them escape with their fuel? Not a chance. At least not until – thanks to the marauders – all his bones are broken and his eyes are popping out of his head.
Mad Max 2, undoubtedly one of the best and most exciting action films ever made, was another massive hit and made Gibson a star in America. But, rather than go down the action hero route (he’d turn down a part in The Running Man), he chose to play a reporter in Indonesia when revolution struck in 1965, in Peter Weir’s The Year Of Living Dangerously. Here he had an onscreen affair with Sigourney Weaver (they had to raise his shoes for this, though Mel, at 5′9″, is not short). Linda Hunt, as his crazy, tiny photographer, would win an Oscar. From here, Mel moved on to The Bounty, playing Fletcher Christian to Anthony Hopkins’ Captain Bligh. The cast featured the cream of the British and Irish crop – Laurence Olivier, Edward Fox, Liam Neeson, Daniel Day-Lewis, plus stalwarts like Bernard Hill and Philip Davis and, further down the bill, John Sessions and Neil Morrissey.
The movie was filmed on Moorea, an island near Tahiti, and the shoot was marked by some serious drinking sessions. When away from his family (the kids were coming regularly now), Mel would hit the sauce with abandon. It was reported that, on one occasion, he got into another bar brawl and was so badly bruised they had to change the order of shooting. A year or so later, he’d be charged with drinking and driving, receiving a three month ban and a $300 fine. Like many very shy people, Mel found life to be more fun and himself to be more gregarious after a few drinks. But it became a problem and, by the early Nineties, he’d entered a programme to sort himself out.
After The Bounty came the first movie where Mel adopted an American accent, when he and Sissy Spacek battled to keep their farm in The River (Spacek would be Oscar-nominated). Then, once again trying to steer clear of action parts, he played a jailbird helped to escape by besotted warden’s wife Diane Keaton in Mrs Soffel (helmed by Aussie director Gillian Armstrong). After this came Mad Max 3: Beyond Thunderdome, a fairly weak sequel that featured Tina Turner and, more interestingly, Angelo Rossitto – a dwarf from the brilliant Freaks – as The Master.
Now came another monster, Lethal Weapon, the first of a series of four. This was a superior buddy movie, with Gibson playing maverick cop Martin Riggs, constantly taunting the more conservative partner, family man Danny Glover. But it wasn’t JUST a buddy movie. One of the opening scenes, where Riggs has lost his wife and is contemplating suicide, saw Mel deliver a truly moving performance, excellent by anyone’s standards. With the financial proceeds from his last two movies, Mel bought a 300-acre cattle ranch in the Kiewa Valley in northern Victoria, then a house in Malibu, so he wouldn’t have to be away from his family so much, and the kids could stick to the same school.
After Lethal Weapon came Tequila Sunrise, where Mel played a drug dealer pursued by an old friend, now a policeman (played by Kurt Russell), with the pair of them falling for restauranteuse Michelle Pfeiffer. Gibson and Russell would become great friends and Mel, who’d been seeking a strong comedy for some years, now made Bird On A Wire with Russell’s wife, Goldie Hawn. Then came another war flick, Air America.
Wait for more about . . . Mel Gibson
Best regards,
Tony Sticks.
