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Russell Crowe

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Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is an Oscar-winning film actor born in Wellington, New Zealand of Welsh, Norwegian and 1/16th Maori extraction. Two of his cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe are former New Zealand cricket captains.

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Russell Crowe

Early life and career

When he was four years old, his family moved to Australia where his parents pursued a career in filmset catering. His maternal grandfather, Stan Wyemss, was a cinematographer whom Crowe says [1] produced the first film by director Geoff Murphy. The producer of the Australian TV series Spyforce was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age 5 or 6 got hired for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star Jack Thompson, whom years later played Crowe's father in The Sum of Us.

Crowe attended Sydney Boys High School. When he was 14, his family moved back to New Zealand, where he then attended the Auckland Grammar School. He did not complete secondary school, leaving early to help his family financially. Crowe returned to Australia at 21, intending to apply to the National Institute of Dramatic Art. "I was working in a theater show, and talked to a guy who was then the head of technical support at NIDA," Crowe recalled. "I asked him what he thought about me spending three years at NIDA. He told me it'd be a waste of time. He said, 'You already do the things you go there to learn, and you've been doing it for most of your life, so there's nothing to teach you but bad habits' " [2].

After appearing in the TV series Neighbours and Living with the Law, Crowe was cast in his first film, The Crossing (1990), a small-town love triangle directed by George Ogilvie. Before production started, a film-student protege of Ogilvie's, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film "Blood Oath," a.k.a. "Prisoners of the Sun" (1990), which though filmed later was released a month ealier.

Hollywood

After initial success in Australia, Crowe began acting in American films. A three-time Oscar nominee, he won the Academy Award as Best Actor in 2001 for Gladiator, and he was also nominated for the Best Actor award for The Insider and A Beautiful Mind.

On April 7, 2003, his 39th birthday, Crowe married the Australian singer and actress Danielle Spencer. Their son, Charles Spencer Crowe, was born on December 21 that year. Crowe previously dated the American filmstar Meg Ryan, after they met while filming Proof of Life (2000).

He is a major supporter of the South Sydney Rabbitohs rugby league team.

On March 9, 2005, Crowe revealed to GQ magazine that Federal Bureau of Investigation agents had approached him prior to the 73rd Academy Awards on March 25, 2001 and told him that the Islamist terrorist group al-Qaeda wanted to kidnap him. Crowe told the magazine that it was the first time he had ever heard of al-Qaeda (the September 11 attacks took place later that year) and was quoted as saying:

"You get this late-night call from the FBI when you arrive in Los Angeles, and they're, like, absolutely full-on. 'We’ve got to talk to you now before you do anything. We have to have a discussion with you, Mr. Crowe.'" Crowe recalled that "it was something to do with some recording picked up by a French policewoman, I think, in either Libya or Algiers...it was about taking iconographic Americans out of the picture as a sort of cultural-destabilization plan."

Crowe was guarded by Secret Service agents for the next few months, both while shooting films and at award ceremonies (Scotland Yard also guarded Crowe while he was promoting Proof of Life in London in February 2001). Crowe said that he "never fully understood what the fuck was going on." The FBI confirmed Crowe's statement (which is uncharacteristic of the agency in that it usually does not comment to the media).

Crowe plead guilty to throwing a phone at a coincerge after being unable to contact his wife on November 18, 2005. He was sentenced to conditonal release on the basis that he not be arrested in the United States for a year and $160 in court cases.

Music Career

Crowe is also a singer and composer. He was the lead singer and guitarist of an Australian pub rock band, 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts, which formed in 1992. The band had found neither critical nor popular success but had several releases including 1998's Gaslight, 2001's Bastard Life or Clarity and 2003's Other Ways of Speaking, plus various CD releases now out of print. His early stage name was "Rus Le Roq" and he was billed as such while performing with the Australian production of Rocky Horror.

According to a message from Crowe on his band's web site, the group has "dissolved/evolved" and his music would take a new direction. He continued with a collabortion with Alan Doyle of the Canadian band, Great Big Sea, in early 2005. A new single, Raewyn, was released on April 19, 2005. Former members of his previous band have taken part in the new project. An album entitled My Hand, My Heart has been released for download on iTunes and includes a tribute song to the late actor, Richard Harris, who became a close friend when the two were making Gladiator.

According to Russell, there is no 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts without his longtime musical partner, Dean Cochran, who was absent for the recording of My Hand, My Heart. Though Dean was present for a mid-2000s show in Le Thor, France. and took part in the filming of a music video for the song Weight of a Man, the band was billed as Russell Crowe and Friends.

Filmography

References

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