Russell Ira Crowe (born 7
April 1964) is a New
Zealand
actor and musician. His acting career began
in the early 1990s with roles in Australian TV series such as
Police Rescue and films such
as
Romper Stomper. In the
late 1990s, he began appearing in US films such as the 1997 movie
L.A. Confidential. He has been
nominated for three Oscars, and in 2001, he won the
Academy Award for Best Actor for his starring
role in the film
Gladiator. Crowe is also co-owner
of
National Rugby League team
the
South Sydney Rabbitohs.
Early life
Crowe was
born in Wellington
, New Zealand, the son of Jocelyn Yvonne (nΓ©e
Wemyss) and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were movie set
caterers; his father also managed a hotel. Crowe's maternal
grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who, according to
Crowe, produced the first film by New Zealander
Geoff Murphy, and was also named an
MBE for filming
footage of World War II. Crowe's maternal great-great grandmother
was
MΔori.
Crowe's grandfather
was from Wrexham
, so has
Welsh ancestry and he also has Scottish, Norwegian, English and
Irish ancestry. Two of Russell Crowe's cousins,
Martin and
Jeff Crowe
are former
New
Zealand national cricket captains.
When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Australia, where
his parents pursued a career in film set catering. The producer of
the Australian TV series
Spyforce
was his mother's godfather, and Crowe at age five or six was hired
for a line of dialogue in one episode, opposite series star
Jack Thompson, who years later
played Crowe's father in
The Sum of
Us and who coincidentally had been educated at the same
school which Crowe was to attend for two years:
Sydney Boys High School.
From his youth to the present, Crowe has had a special love of
horses. "They're just like people," he told
CraveOnline, "there are some horses that you
have a deeper connection with immediately, and you can work on that
over time." He has also noted that he sometimes finds it difficult
to part with his
equine co-stars when a film
wraps.
When he
was 14, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he (along
with his brother Terry) attended Auckland Grammar School
with cousins Martin
Crowe and Jeff Crowe.
He then
continued his secondary education at Mount Roskill
Grammar School
, which he left at age 16 to chase his dreams of
becoming a musician or actor. A classmate and friend from
that time, John Maloney, remembers Crowe as a "sombre, misshapen"
boy who was "frequently shirtless and even more frequently sans
culottes".
In the mid-1980s Russell, under guidance from his good friend Tom
Sharplin, performed as a rock 'n' roll revivalist, under the stage
name
Russ Le Roq, and had a New Zealand single with "
I
Just Want To Be Like Marlon
Brando." In 1986 he was given his first professional role
by director
Daniel Abineri in a
production of
The Rocky Horror
Show. He played the role of Eddie/Dr Scott. He repeated this
performance in a further Australian production of the show. In the
1988 Australian production of Blood Brothers, Crowe played the role
of Mickey. He was also cast again by
Daniel Abineri in the role of Johnny in the
stage musical of
Bad Boy Johnny and the
Prophets of Doom in 1989.
Crowe returned to Australia at age 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.'" In 1987 Crowe spent a six-month stint as a
busker when he couldn't find other work.
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 protegΓ© of Ogilvie's, Steve
Wallace, hired Crowe for the film
Blood Oath (1990) (aka
Prisoners
of the Sun) which was released a month earlier than
The
Crossing, although actually filmed later. In 1992, Crowe
starred in the first episode of the second series of
Police Rescue. Also in 1992 Crowe starred
in
Romper Stomper, an
Australian film which follows the exploits and downfall of a racist
skinhead group in blue-collar suburban Melbourne, directed by
Geoffrey Wright, for which Crowe won
an
Australian Film
Institute award for Best Actor, following up from his Best
Supporting Actor award for
Proof in 1991.
Hollywood
After initial success in Australia, Crowe began acting in American
films. He first co-starred with
Denzel
Washington in
Virtuosity,
and with
Sharon Stone in
The Quick and the Dead in
1995. He went on to become a three-time Oscar nominee, winning the
Academy Award as
Best Actor in 2001 for
Gladiator. Crowe wore
his grandfather Stan Wemyss's
Member of the Order of
the British Empire medal to the ceremony.
Crowe received three consecutive best actor Oscar nominations for
The Insider,
Gladiator and
A Beautiful Mind.
Crowe won the
best actor
award for
A Beautiful Mind at the 2002
BAFTA award ceremony. However he failed to win the
Oscar that year, losing to
Denzel
Washington. It has been suggested that his attack on television
producer Malcolm Gerrie for cutting short his acceptance speech may
have turned voters against him.
All three films were also nominated for best picture, and both
Gladiator and
A Beautiful Mind won the award.
Within the six year stretch from 1997-2003, he also starred in two
other best picture nominees,
L.A. Confidential and
Master and
Commander: The Far Side of the World, though he was
nominated for neither. In 2005 he re-teamed with
A Beautiful
Mind director Ron Howard for
Cinderella Man. In 2006 he re-teamed
with
Gladiator
director
Ridley Scott for
A Good Year, the first of two consecutive
collaborations (the second being
American Gangster co-starring
again with Denzel Washington, released in late 2007). While the
light romantic comedy of
A Good Year was not greatly
received, Crowe seemed pleased with the film, telling
STV in an interview that he thought it would be enjoyed
by fans of his other films.
On 9 March
2005, Crowe revealed to GQ magazine that Federal Bureau
of Investigation
agents had approached him prior to the 73rd Academy Awards on 25 March 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. 'Weβve 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-destabilisation 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."
Crowe will appear in
Robin
Hood, an upcoming film based on the
Robin Hood legend, directed by
Ridley Scott, due for release on May 14,
2010.
Crowe is slated to appear in the
Paul
Haggis film
The Next Three Days, an adaptation of the
2008 French film
Pour Elle.
Charities
Crowe, who was in Toronto filming
Cinderella Man with
director Ron Howard, learned of a fire-bombing at a
Jewish elementary school
that took place in Montreal. Police said a note with anti-Semitic
comments was found on the outside wall of the gutted library. He
was so distraught that he offered (a reported $250,000 donation) to
help rebuild the school's library. Montreal resident Shelley Paris
says, "It was a huge morale boost for the school community. He said
he was very upset about what had happened that a place of learning
should be attacked that way. He wanted to make sure that our
students knew that he was thinking about them and that he was very
upset about the fire-bombing."
On another occasion, Crowe donated a large sum of money ($200,000)
to a struggling primary school near his home in rural Australia.
Crowe's sympathies were sparked when a pupil drowned at the nearby
Coffs Harbour beach in 2001, and he believes the pool will help
students become better swimmers and improve their knowledge of
water safety. At the opening ceremony in characteristic Crowe style
he dove into the pool fully clothed as soon as the venue was
declared open. Nana Glen principal Laurie Renshall says, "The many
things he does up here, people just don't know about. We've been
trying to get a pool for 10 years."
Personal life
On 7 April 2003, his 39th birthday, Crowe married Australian singer
and actress
Danielle Spencer.
Crowe met Spencer while filming
The Crossing (1990). Crowe and
Spencer have two sons: Charles "Charlie" Spencer (born 21 December
2003) and Tennyson Spencer (born 7 July 2006).
Prior to his marriage to Spencer, Crowe had a relationship with
Meg Ryan during and after the filming of
Proof of Life in 2000.
Most of the year, Crowe resides in Australia.
He has a home in
Sydney at the end of the Finger Wharf
in Woolloomooloo
and a 320-hectare rural property in Nana
Glen
near Coffs Harbour, New South Wales
.
Crowe
also owns a house in the North Queensland city of Townsville
: he purchased the $450,000 home in the suburb of
Douglas
on May 3, 2008.It's believed the
home is for his niece, who is studying at James Cook
University
.
Crowe stated in November 2007 that he would like to be baptised,
and feels that he has put it off for too long. "I do believe there
are more important things than what is in the mind of a man," he
says. "There is something much bigger that drives us all. I'm
willing to take that leap of faith."
In the beginning of 2009, Crowe appeared in a series of special
edition postage stamps called "Legends of the Screen", featuring
Australian actors. He,
Geoffrey Rush,
Cate Blanchett, and
Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series:
once as themselves and once as their
Academy Award-winning character.
South Sydney Rabbitohs
On 19 March 2006, the voting members of the
South Sydney Rabbitohs National Rugby League club voted (in a
75.8% majority) to allow Crowe and businessman
Peter Holmes Γ Court to purchase
75% of the club, leaving 25% ownership with the members. It has
cost them A$3 million, and they will receive four of eight seats on
the board of directors.
Crowe has been a major supporter of the Rabbitohs
rugby league club for many years, appearing at
many home games, and supporting the club during its time when they
were forced from the
National
Rugby League competition for two years. Crowe paid $40,000 for
a brass bell used to open the
inaugural rugby
league match in Australia in 1908, which he then returned to
the club. In 2005, he made them the first club team in Australia to
be sponsored by a film, when he negotiated a deal to advertise his
movie
Cinderella Man on
their jerseys.
He is friends with many current and former players of the club, and
currently employs former South Sydney forward
Mark Carroll as a
bodyguard and personal trainer. He has encouraged other actors to
support the club, such as
Tom Cruise and
Burt Reynolds. Business and television
personality
Eddie McGuire has been
offered a seat on the Rabbitohs board.
South Side Story, a mini-series documenting the takeover
of the club, revealed Crowe urging Souths players to profess their
love for one another during training.
Crowe
helped to organise a rugby league game that took place in Jacksonville
, Florida between the South Sydney Rabbitohs and the
English Super League champions Leeds Rhinos on 26
January 2008 (Australia Day).
The game
was played at the University of North Florida
. Crowe told
ITV
Local Yorkshire the game wasn't a marketing exercise.
Crowe wrote a letter of apology to a Sydney newspaper following the
sacking of South Sydney's coach
Jason Taylor and one of their
players
David Fa'alogo after a
drunken altercation between the two.
Other sporting interests
Crowe is a big cricket fan. He played cricket in school and his
cousins
Martin Crowe and
Jeff Crowe are former
Black
Caps Captains. Russell Crowe also captained the 'Australian'
Team containing
Steve Waugh against an
English side in the 'Hollywood Ashes' Cricket Match. On 17 July
2009, Crowe took to the commentary box for the British sports
channel, Sky Sports, as the 'third man' during the second test of
the 2009 Ashes series, between England and Australia.
He is also a fan of the
Richmond
Football Club in the
Australian Football League and a
supporter of the
Leeds Rhinos in the
Super League.
Crowe is a big supporter of the
University of Michigan Wolverines
American football team, an interest that stems
from his friendship with former Wolverines coach
Lloyd Carr. Carr used Crowe's movie
Cinderella Man to motivate his team in
2006
following a disappointing 7-5 season the previous year. Upon
hearing of this, Crowe called Carr and invited him to Australia to
address his Rugby league team the
South Sydney Rabbitohs, an offer Carr
took Crowe up on the following summer.
In September 2007,
after Carr came under fire following the Wolverines' 0-2 start, Crowe
traveled to Ann
Arbor, Michigan
for the Wolverines' 15 September game against
Notre Dame to
show his support for Carr. He addressed the team before the
game and watched from the sidelines as the Wolverines defeated
the
Irish 38-0.
Crowe is also a fan of the
National Football League, and on 22
October 2007, appeared in the booth of a Monday Night game between
the
Indianapolis Colts and the
Jacksonville Jaguars.
He is
also a devout fan of the Toronto
Maple Leafs which stems from his shooting of Cinderella
Man at Maple
Leaf Gardens
.
Altercations
Russell Crowe en route to his
arraignment for the phone throwing incident
Crowe has been involved in a number of altercations in recent years
which have given him a reputation for having a bad temper.
In 1999,
Crowe was involved in a scuffle at the Plantation Hotel in Coffs
Harbour, Australia, which was caught on security
video. Two men were acquitted of using the video in an
attempt to blackmail Crowe.
When part of Crowe's appearance at the 2002
BAFTA awards was
cut out to fit into the
BBC's tape-delayed
broadcast, Crowe used strong language during an argument with
producer Malcolm Gerrie. The part cut was a poem in tribute to
actor
Richard Harris who was then
terminally ill, and was cut for copyright reasons. Crowe later
apologised, saying "What I said to him may have been a little bit
more passionate than now, in the cold light of day, I would have
liked it to have been." Later that year, Crowe was alleged to have
been involved in a "brawl" with a fellow New Zealander,
high-profile businessman
Eric Watson,
inside a trendy Japanese restaurant in London. The fight was broken
up by British television actor
Ross
Kemp.
In June 2005, Crowe was arrested and charged with second-degree
assault by
New York City
police, after he threw a telephone at an employee of the Mercer
Hotel who refused to help him place a call when the system did not
work from his room, and was charged with fourth-degree criminal
possession of a weapon (the telephone). The employee, a
concierge, was treated for a facial
laceration.Crowe described the incident as "possibly the most
shameful situation that I've ever gotten myself in... and I've done
some pretty dumb things in my life". He was sentenced to
conditional release, and paid US$100,000 to settle a civil lawsuit
out of court.
Musician
Crowe, going under the name of "Rus le Roq", recorded a 1980s tune
titled "I Want To Be Like Marlon Brando".
Crowe and a friend formed a band, "Roman Antix", which later
evolved into the Australian pub rock band
30 Odd Foot Of Grunts (TOFOG). Crowe
performed lead vocals and guitar for the band, 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. The
band's web site indicates that group has "dissolved/evolved" and
states that Crowe's music would take a new direction.
He continued with a collaboration with
Alan
Doyle of the Canadian band
Great Big
Sea in early 2005, which also involved members of his previous
band. A new single,
Raewyn, was released in April 2005 and
an album entitled
My Hand, My Heart has been released for
download on
iTunes. The album includes a
tribute song to actor
Richard
Harris, who became Crowe's friend during the making of
Gladiator. In 2002,
he directed the music video clip (which starred former child actor
Duy Nguyen) for his wife
Danielle Spencer's
single 'Tickle Me' from her 'White Monkey' album. On 10 March 2006,
Russell Crowe performed with his new band
The Ordinary Fear of God on
The Tonight Show with
Jay Leno.
Crowe landed a role in a musical,
Grease, in 1983. From 1986-1988, Crowe
headlined in the touring production of
The Rocky Horror Show.
Filmography
References
- Inside The Actors Studio With Russell Crowe. 4
January 2004 - Transcript
- Russell Crowe Biography (1964β)
- JOURNALISM > NY Newsday 3
- "Russell Crowe." BBC. 30 June 2006.
- BBC NEWS | Entertainment | Film | Russell Crowe: Hollywood
livewire
- 3:10 to Yuma: Christian Bale vs Russell
Crowe
- Ewbank/Hildred: Russell Crowe - The Biography, Carlton
Publishing, London, 2001, page 23
- Newsday (Aug. 6, 1995): "Russell Crowe Has Enough
Ego to be a Bad Guy You'll Remember", by Frank Lovece
- Russell Crowe ~ Russell ... Somethng to Crowe
About!
- Milmo, Dan. Crowe gets heavy after Bafta speech, The
Guardian, 26 February 2002. Accessed 12 July 2008.
- Did Russell Crowe commit Oscar suicide, EW.Com,
retrieved 8 November 2007
- O'Riordan, Bernard. How Bin Laden put the word out: get Russell Crowe,
The Guardian, 9 March 2005. Accessed 12 July 2008.
- Superstars buy up Townsville | Townsville Bulletin
News
- Crowesville
- "Russell Crowe plans to be baptised", Yahoo!
News, 6 November 2007
- "Cate Blanchett, Nicole Kidman Happy to Be Licked - On
Stamps." People. February 4, 2009.
-
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-1213912/Im-embarrassed-accept-responsibility-bad-behaviour-says-apologetic-Russell-Crowe-800-word-letter-fans.html
- Russell Crowe captains cricket side | Herald
Sun
- http://www.skysports.com/story/0,19528,12940_5292427,00.html
Holding Delighted to work with Crowe
- Russell Crowe - Biography
-
http://www.darkhorizons.com/news/15263/wilde-tucker-spend-three-days-
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