Pamela Anderson boycotts the Kentucky Derby. Madonna shops for orphans in Malawi. Yup, everyone's got a feelgood social cause these days. There's a time and place for taking a stand. And for Richard Gere, well, that time was live at the Academy Awards. It was 1993 (Best Picture: Unforgiven) when Gere stepped out to present the trophy for art direction. Rather than read from the teleprompter, he used his thirty seconds to make a sober, intelligent appeal for the humanrights campaign in China. It's worth noting that Gere hasn't been invited back to present since, though the Oscar folks insist there's no bad blood. "We don't ban presenters," the Academy's press office told GQ. "There's no such thing as a ban."
Having uncovered the bit Gere was supposed to read, we're pretty sure he did the right thing.
What Gere was supposed to say at the SixtyFifth Annual Academy Awards on March 29, 1993:
Rubens and Rembrandt. Michelangelo and Monet. Da Vinci and Degas. If they were around today, they would be art directors for films—if their agents could get them work. Art direction demands taste, talent, and the diplomacy to convince producers they also have taste and talent. Five widely different imaginative examples of their work are these nominees for best achievement in art direction.
**What Gere did say at the SixtyFifth Annual Academy Awards on March 29, 1993: **
To my friends, I want to say hello up in Vancouver—right now we are doing Intersection up there. Hi, guys. I'll see you later tonight. I had a thought about something, actually, before I came out. I want to share it with you. It's going to be short. I was really struck by this idea that there were one billion people watching this thing. It's astonishing—one billion people watching. And I was curious about what countries this was actually going to. And it is in fact being seen in China right now. And the first thought that came to me was, I wondered if Deng Xiaoping is actually watching this right now, with his children and his grandchildren, and with the knowledge that—that—that—what a horrendous, horrendous humanrights situation there is in China, not only towards their own people but to Tibet as well. And when it was this kind of…if something miraculous, really kind of movielike, could happen here, where we could all kind of send love and truth and a kind of sanity to Deng Xiaoping right now in Beijing, that he will take his troops and take the Chinese away from Tibet and allow people to live as free independent people again. So, thought… We send this thought—we send this thought out. Send this thought. Anyhow…art direction demands taste…