Geoffrey Rush Biography
Summary
"Geoffrey Roy Rush" (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor. He moved to Melbourne in the early 1990s via Brisbane and Sydney and currently lives in the suburb of Camberwell, Victoria. He is one of 20 () people to have won the 'Triple Crown of Acting': an Academy Award, a Tony Award, and an Emmy Award, and has also won the Golden Globe, the BAFTA, the Screen Actors Guild, and the Australian Film Institute awards.
Early life
Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia, the son of Merle (née Kiehne), a department store sales clerk, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force. His parents divorced when he was five, and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in the suburbs. Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He also has an Arts Degree from the University of Queensland. While at university he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane, where he began his career. In 1975, Rush took off for Paris for a couple of years, and studied mime and pantomime at the famous L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq School of Mime, before returning to Australia to resume his stage career. In 1979, he shared an apartment with actor Mel Gibson for four months, while they co-starred in a stage production of "Waiting for Godot".
Stage career
Geoffrey Rush made his theatre debut in Queensland Theatre Company's production of "Wrong Side of the Mood". He worked with the company for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays to pantomime, from "Juno and the Paycock" to "Hamlet on Ice". Following these early years in Brisbane, Rush left to Paris where he studied further.
Rush has appeared on stage for Company B, and for the Queensland Theatre Company and the Brisbane Arts Theatre, as well as in many other theatre venues, and has worked as a theatre director.
His credits include William Shakespeare's plays, "The Winter's Tale" (with the South Australia Theatre Company in 1987 at The Playhouse in Adelaide), and "Troilus and Cressida" (at the Old Museum Building in 1989). He also appeared in an on-going production of "The Importance of Being Earnest" as John Worthing (Ernest) (in which his wife, Jane Menelaus, appeared as Gwendolen).
In September 1998, Rush played the title role in the Beaumarchais play "The Marriage of Figaro" for the Queensland Theatre Company. This was the opening production of the Optus Playhouse, at the Queensland Performing Arts Centre at South Bank in Brisbane. A pun on Geoffrey Rush's name (and the circumstances), was used in the opening prologue of the play with the comment that the "Optus Playhouse was opening with a Rush".
In 2007, he starred as King Berenger in a production of Eugène Ionesco's "Exit the King" at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Company B in Sydney, directed by Neil Armfield.
Geoffrey Rush made his Broadway debut in a restaging of "Exit the King" under Malthouse Theatre'stouring moniker Malthouse Melbourne. This restaging featured a new American cast including Academy Award-winning actress Susan Sarandon. The show opened on March 26, 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre.
Other cast includes Lauren Ambrose, Andrea Martin, William Sadler, and Brian Hutchison. Geoffrey won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, and Drama Desk Award, as well as the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League Award, and was the winner of the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.
Film career
Rush's film debut was in the Australian film "Hoodwink" in 1981. His next film was Gillian Armstrong's "Starstruck", the following year. In 1996, he starred in "Shine", for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Australian-born actor to win an Oscar (20 Years after Peter Finch won the Oscar he was born in London). From that point on, his film career skyrocketed.
In 1998, he appeared in three major films: "Les Misérables", in which he played Inspector Javert; "Elizabeth", in which he played the suspicious Sir Francis Walsingham, for which he won a BAFTA Award; and "Shakespeare in Love" in which he played Philip Henslowe, the acting company manager who remained calm in the midst of chaos (and received an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor).
In 1999, Rush departured from his usual dramatic stint and took the lead role as Steven Price in the horror flick "House on Haunted Hill". In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for "Quills", in which he played the Marquis de Sade.
Rush at the premiere of ", May 2007
Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 through 2003. He starred in the film "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl", as Captain Hector Barbossa, also appearing in its sequels, "Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest" and "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End".
Rush reprised his character's voice for the enhancements at the Pirates of the Caribbean attractions at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom theme parks, which involved an Audio-Animatronic with Rush's likeness being installed (including one at Tokyo Disneyland). He also voiced Nigel the pelican in "Finding Nemo".
Rush played actor Peter Sellers in the television film "The Life and Death of Peter Sellers". For this performance, he won an Emmy Award for Best Actor in a Mini-series or Movie, a SAG Award for Best Performance by an Actor in a Television Movie or Miniseries, and a Golden Globe Award for Best Actor in a Miniseries or Motion Picture made for Television. In 2005, he starred in Steven Spielberg's film "Munich" as Ephraim, a cold Mossad officer.
In 2006, Rush hosted the Australian Film Institute Awards for the Nine Network. He was the Master of Ceremonies again at the 2007 AFI Awards.
Rush is interested to return as Captain Hector Barbossa in "Pirates of the Caribbean 4", starring Johnny Depp, who has signed on as of September 2008. If he does a probable story will be them going to find the fountain of youth, a prospect raised in "World's End".
In the beginning of 2009, Rush appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps featuring some of Australia's great actors. He, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series: once as themselves and once as their Academy Award-winning character.
He is the third actor from the British Commonwealth to win the Academy Award for Best Actor after Sir Sidney Poitier, Peter Finch and in 2000 Russell Crowe.
Personal life
Rush lives in Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. He has become involved in the preservation of heritage and architecture, becoming a figurehead for a campaign for the preservation of Camberwell Railway Station from demolition by developers and championing a National Trust of Australia (Victoria) poll for the Victorian Heritage Icons Awards.
He is also Patron of the Spina Bifida Foundation of Victoria, a charity which was co-founded by his late father-in-law, Malcolm Menelaus, a well-respected Australian orthopaedic surgeon.
Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992) and a son, James (born 1995).
Australian stamp honour
Geoffrey Rush is among the people who are featured on the series of 'Australian Legends' 55 cent stamps.
External links
(Geoffrey Rush) — Australian Film Commission
(Geoffrey Rush) - Stage acting credits
(The Cinematic Hats of Geoffrey Rush)
(Professional photographs of Geoffrey Rush) — National Library of Australia
Credit
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article about Geoffrey Rush.
