Portrait of Richard Gere

Birthday profile

Richard Gere

Richard Gere, American actor and producer

Born
August 31, 1949
Age in 2026
77
Zodiac sign
Virgo
Birth year
1949

About Richard Gere

Richard Tiffany Gere is an American actor. He began appearing in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and a starring role in Days of Heaven (1978). Gere came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. Gere's other films include An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), Internal Affairs (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Sommersby (1993), First Knight (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), Unfaithful (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), I'm Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman (2016). For portraying Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award. Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1969, where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. Gere was one of the first notable Hollywood actors to play a homosexual character, starring as a gay Holocaust victim in the 1979 Broadway production of Bent, for which he earned a Theatre World Award.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

Richard Gere timeline

  1. Gere first worked professionally at the Seattle Repertory Theatre and the Provincetown Playhouse on Cape Cod in 1969, where he starred in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead.
  2. Gere was one of the first notable Hollywood actors to play a homosexual character, starring as a gay Holocaust victim in the 1979 Broadway production of Bent, for which he earned a Theatre World Award.
  3. Gere came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol.
  4. Gere's other films include An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), Internal Affairs (1990), Pretty Woman (1990), Sommersby (1993), First Knight (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), Unfaithful (2002), Shall We Dance? (2004), I'm Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman (2016).
  5. For portraying Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award.

The world when Richard Gere was born

Richard Gere was born in 1949. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Culture in 1949

  • #1 song"Riders in the Sky" – Vaughn Monroe
  • Top movieAll the King's Men
  • Top TV showTexaco Star Theater
  • Best-selling bookThe Egyptian - Mika Waltari

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentJoe Louis retires from boxing as undefeated heavyweight champion
  • Top headlineNATO established
  • Technology milestoneFirst stored-program computer runs its first program
  • Defining fadSilly Putty
  • Notable inventionSilly Putty
  • World population2.52 billion

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderHarry S. Truman
  • Sports championNew York Yankees (World Series)
  • Also wonMinneapolis Lakers (BAA)
  • U.S. population149.2M

1949 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Richard Gere's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure19492026
Gas$0.27$3.45/gal
Average home$8,400$435,000
Average income$5,000$67,500
Minimum wage$0.40$7.25/hr (federal)
Movie ticket$0.46$11.95
Postage stamp$0.03$0.73
Population149.2M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.