Russell Crowe was born on 7 April 1 964. Seldom does a single actor change Hollywood's perception of the perfect man, the kind of man men want to be and women just plain want. Yet Russell Crowe - a quiet, moody, hard-bitten New Zealander - appears to have done exactly that. With a mere four roles - in LA Confidential, The Insider, Gladiator, and A Beautiful Mind - he has knocked the pretty boys into a cocked hat, done away with smug, wisecracking shooters, and single-handedly forced rough-yet-sensitive masculinity back onto the agenda.
Russell Ira Crowe was born on April 7th, 1964, in Strathmore Park, a suburb of Wellington, New Zealand (he has Maori blood from his mother's side of the family and claims Norwegian ancestry too). If the surname rings a bell, that's because he's the cousin of famous cricketing brothers Martin and Jeff Crowe. The cinema was in Russell's blood. His mother's father, Stan Wemyss, was an award-winning cinematographer during World War 2, while Russell's parents - mother Jocelyn and father Alex - were set caterers (they also ran the occasional inn, one earning such a reputation for boisterousness it became known as The Flying Jug).
Due to his parents' profession and world-view, Russell's life has been fairly nomadic. His family moved to Australia when he was just four, and he didn't live in a house proper till he was fourteen. Precociously confident and fascinated by the film-sets his parents frequented, he began acting at the tender age of six. He played an orphan in the Australian TV series Spyforce, and had a part in The Young Doctors, the hit soap-opera which ran from 1976 to 1981 (he'd later also appear in Neighbours). At age fourteen, he returned with his family to New Zealand (he says his father is "very much a New Zealander") to finish High School, and it was here that he met Dean Cochran, with whom he formed the band Roman Antix - an oddly prophetic moniker, given that Crowe would later achieve worldwide recognition in a film called Gladiator. In his spare time, he still plays rock'n'roll with Cochran, in their band 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts. For their first gig (in Austin, Texas) after Gladiator took off, tickets were changing hands at $500 a pop. They'd also produce a best-selling documentary of their 2000 tour, heavily covering their gigs in London and Austin, and called Texas.
Crowe's first real assault on the Big Time was, in fact, musical. At the age of 16, he was recast as Russ Le Roc, and released a couple of novelty singles, one having the similarly prophetic title I Want To Be Like Marlon Brando. When this burst of fame died out, he took on all manner of jobs to pay his way. He was entertainments manager on a resort island off of Auckland, as well as a waiter, a bartender, a fruit picker, a DJ, a horse wrangler, an insurance salesman and a bingo-number caller - in anyone's books an all-round education. But he had both the acting and the musical bugs, and worked hard to forge a career on the stage. He performed in Grease, Blood Brothers, Simpson J. 202, and an Official Tribute To The Blues Brothers, and between 1986 and 1988, acted in the Rocky Horror Show no fewer than 415 times. Here he mostly played Eddie (Meat Loaf's role in the movie version) but occasionally starred as the transvestite, transexual Frank-N-Furter (Crowe has stated that Tim Curry, again in the movie version of Rocky Horror, is his favourite screen villain).
Though this combination of acting and music was fun, Crowe eventually found himself drawn towards more "serious" and challenging roles. First came Blood Oath, then the coming-of-age drama The Crossing, for which Crowe was forced to change his appearance. Having long before lost a front tooth playing rugby, he'd hitherto refused to have it fixed - until the film's frustrated director agreed to pay for the operation. Crowe's profile now began to rise with Proof (where he gave an excellent performance as a gullible young man befriended by a manipulative, and blind photographer), the comedy The Efficiency Expert (where he played alongside Anthony Hopkins, who said of Crowe "He reminds me of myself as a young actor")), and then his big breakthrough - Romper Stomper. This was a very dark slice of cinema verite, where Crowe played Hando, the head of a gang of neo-Nazi skinheads, warring with the local Asian community. Beatings were frequent and exceptionally violent, and the film caused a major furore, both in Australia and abroad.
More positively, Romper Stomper brought Crowe to the attention of Sharon Stone, then riding high after her notorious showing in Basic Instinct. Stone loved Crowe's "fearlessness" as an actor and demanded that he appear in her next picture, The Quick And The Dead, a cowboy caper to be directed by Evil Dead helmsman Sam Raimi. Indeed, she wanted Crowe so badly she held up production to allow him to finish filming his next movie, The Sum Of Us, wherein he played a homosexual coming to terms with his father and his father's new (and disapproving) girlfriend. Once finished, he went directly on to The Quick And The Dead where, as a sullen, terrifying gunslinger, he proceeded to outshine both Stone and co-star Leonardo DiCaprio. Famously, he also shared some pretty fearless sex scenes with Stone which never made the final cut. They did though appear in an uncut version of the movie, which has done more-than-brisk business in Australia.
Beware of a silent dog and still water - В тихом омуте черти водятся
Раздел: Пословицы и поговорки
