Russell Crowe

Russell Ira Crowe is an Academy Award-, BAFTA-, Golden Globe-, and Screen Actors Guild Award -winning New Zealand and Australian actor.

Early life Crowe was born in Wellington, North Island, New Zealand to Jocelyn Yvonne Wemyss and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were caterers; he has a brother, Terry. His 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 grandfather's grandmother was a Māori, and as a result Crowe is registered on the Māori voting poll in New Zealand; Crowe also has Norwegian, Scottish and Welsh ancestry. When Crowe was four years old, his family moved to Australia, where his parents pursued a career in filmset 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. When he was 14, however, Crowe's family moved back to New Zealand, where he attended Auckland Grammar School with his cousins Martin Crowe and Jeff Crowe. He did not complete secondary school, leaving early to help his family financially. In the mid-1980's Russell, under guidance from his good mate Tom Sharplin, performed as a rock 'n' roll revivalist, under the stage name Russ Le Roq, and had a New Zealand single with "I wanna be like Marlon Brando". 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 protege of Ogilvie's, Steve Wallace, hired Crowe for the film Blood Oath (1990) (a.k.a. Prisoners of the Sun) which was released a month earlier, although actually filmed later. In 1992, Crowe starred in the first episode of the second Series of Police Rescue On April 7, 2003, his 39th birthday, Crowe married Australian singer and actress Danielle Spencer. Crowe met Spencer while filming The Crossing (1990). Crowe also dated American actress Meg Ryan after they had an admitted affair while filming Proof of Life (2000) and in the past, he has been linked to Erica Baxter, Peta Wilson and Courtney Love. Crowe and Spencer have two sons: Charles "Charlie" Spencer Crowe (born December 21, 2003) and Tennyson Spencer Crowe (born July 7, 2006). Two of Russell Crowe's cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe are former New Zealand national cricket captains. Most of the year, Crowe resides in Australia at both his Sydney home in Woolloomooloo and his 320 hectare rural property in Nana Glen near Coffs Harbour, New South Wales, but he rented a house for Summer 2006 in Nyack, New York while he worked on a movie being shot in New York City.