Geoffrey Rush
Geoffrey Rush at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival
Born	Geoffrey Roy Rush (1951-07-06) 6 July 1951 (age 60) Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Residence	Camberwell, Victoria
Nationality	Australian
Education	Everton Park State High School
Alma mater	University of Queensland
Occupation	Actor
Years active	1971–present
Home town	Brisbane
Spouse	Jane Menelaus (m. 1988) «start: (1988)»"Marriage: Jane Menelaus to Geoffrey Rush" Location: (linkback:http://en-wiki.pop.wn.com/index.php/Geoffrey_Rush)

Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is an Australian actor and film producer. He is one of the few people who has won the "Triple Crown of Acting": an Academy Award, a Tony Award and an Emmy Award. He has won one Academy Award for acting (from four nominations), three British Academy Film Awards (from five nominations), two Golden Globe Awards and four Screen Actors Guild Awards. He is the foundation President of the Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts. He is the 2012 Australian of the Year.^[1][2]

Early life[link]

Rush was born in Toowoomba, Queensland, to Merle (née Kiehne), a department store sales assistant, and Roy Baden Rush, an accountant for the Royal Australian Air Force.^[3][4] His parents divorced when he was five and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in suburban Brisbane.^[5] Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He also has an arts degree from the University of Queensland.^[6] While at university, he was talent-spotted by Queensland Theatre Company (QTC) in Brisbane. Rush began his career with QTC in 1971, appearing in 17 productions.

In 1975, Rush went to Paris for two years and studied mime, movement and theatre at the L'École Internationale de Théâtre Jacques Lecoq, before returning to resume his stage career with QTC.^[4] 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.^[4][5][6]

Stage career[link]

Rush made his theatre debut in the QTC's production of Wrong Side of the Moon. He worked with the QTC for four years, appearing in roles ranging across classical plays & pantomime, from Juno and the Paycock to Hamlet on Ice. Following these, Rush left for Paris where he studied further.

Rush's acting credits include Shakespeare's plays, The Winter's Tale (with the State Theatre Company of South Australia 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 Oscar Wilde's 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 QTC. 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".

Rush has appeared on stage for the Brisbane Arts Theatre and in many other theatre venues. He has also worked as a theatre director.

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. For this performance, he received a Helpmann Award nomination for best male actor in a play.

Rush made his Broadway debut in a restaging of Exit the King under Malthouse Theatre's touring moniker Malthouse Melbourne. This restaging featured a new American cast including Susan Sarandon. The show opened on 26 March 2009 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre. Rush won the Outer Critics Circle Award, Theatre World Award, Drama Desk Award, the Distinguished Performance Award from the Drama League Award and the 2009 Tony Award for Best Performance by a Leading Actor in a Play.

In 2011, Rush played the lead in a theatrical adaptation of Nikolai Gogol's short atory The Diary of a Madman at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. Rush won for this role Helpmann Award and was nominated for the Drama Desk Award.^[7]

From November 2011, Rush played the role of Lady Bracknell in the Melbourne Theatre Company production of The Importance of Being Earnest.^[8] Other actors from the 1988 production include Jane Menelaus, this time as Miss Prism, and Bob Hornery, who had played Canon Chasuble, as the two butlers.^[9]

Film career[link]

Rush at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival.

Rush made his film debut in the Australian film Hoodwink in 1981. His next film was Gillian Armstrong's Starstruck, the following year. In the coming years he appeared in small roles on television dramas, including a role as a dentist in a 1993 episode of the British television series Lovejoy. He made his breakthrough performance in 1996 with Shine, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor, becoming the first Australian-born actor to win an Oscar.

In 1998, he appeared in three major films: Les Misérables, Elizabeth, and Shakespeare in Love.

In 1999, Rush took the lead role as Steven Price in the horror film House on Haunted Hill. In 2000, he received his third Academy Award nomination, for Quills, in which he played the Marquis de Sade.

Rush's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 to 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, Dead Man's Chest, At World's End and On Stranger Tides.

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 at the Sydney premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides in May 2011

Rush played actor Peter Sellers in the television film The Life and Death of Peter Sellers. For this performance, he won an Emmy Award^[10] 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 Munich as Ephraim, a Mossad agent.

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.

In 2010, Rush played speech therapist Lionel Logue in The King's Speech, a part that earned him a BAFTA and nominations for the Academy Awards and Golden Globe Awards for Best Supporting Actor.

Rush returned as Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, starring Johnny Depp. Rush is also preparing for a film version of The Drowsy Chaperone, an award-winning stage musical.^[11] In addition, he voiced the alien Tomar-Re in the film adaptation of the Green Lantern comic book series.^[12]

In the beginning of 2009, Rush appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps featuring some of Australia's internationally recognised actors. He, Cate Blanchett, Russell Crowe, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series. Rush's image is taken from Shine.^[13]

In 2011, Rush made a cameo in a commercial, The Potato Peeler, for the Melbourne International Film Festival (MIFF), playing a Polish peasant. He spoke his lines in Polish for the part.^[14]

In August 2011 he was appointed the foundation President of the newly formed Australian Academy of Cinema and Television Arts.^[15]

Personal life[link]

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). Geoffrey Rush lives in the eastern suburbs of Victoria, Australia.^[3]

Filmography[link]

Other awards[link]

• Awarded an Honorary Doctorate of Letters by the University of Queensland, in Australia.
• Awarded the Australian Centenary Medal in the 2001 Queen's New Year's Honours List for his services to the arts especially through a distinguished acting career.
• 2012: Australian of the Year
• 2011: Santa Barbara International Film Festival – Montecito Award
• 2009: Australian Film Institute Longford Life Achievement Award
• 2003: Australian Film Institute Awards – Global Achievement Award
• 2004: Brisbane International Film Festival – Chauvel Award
• 2003: Hollywood Film Festival for Supporting Actor of the Year
• 1994: Sidney Myer Performing Arts Awards

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Geoffrey Rush

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Geoffrey Rush

• Geoffrey Rush at the Internet Movie Database
• Geoffrey Rush at the Internet Broadway Database
• Geoffrey Rush – Stage acting credits
• Professional photographs of Geoffrey Rush – National Library of Australia