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Though perhaps best known internationally for playing tough-guy roles in Romper Stomper (1993) and L.A. Confidential (1997), New Zealand-born actor Russell Crowe has proven himself equally capable of playing gentler roles in films like Proof (1991) and The Sum of Us (1992). No matter what kind of characters he plays, Crowe's weather-beaten handsomeness and gruff charisma combine to make him constantly watchable: his Hollywood mentor Sharon Stone has called him "the sexiest guy working in movies today." Born in Auckland, New Zealand on April 7, 1964, Crowe was raised in Australia from the age of four. His parents made their living by catering movie shoots, and often brought Crowe with them to work; it was while hanging around the various sets that he developed a passion for acting. After making his professional debut in an episode of the television series Spyforce when he was six, Crowe took a twelve year break from professional acting, netting his next gig when he was eighteen. In film, he had his first major roles in such dramas as The Crossing (1990) and Jocelyn Moorhouse's widely praised Proof (1991) (for which he won an Australian Film Institute award). He then went on to gain international recognition for his intense, multi-layered portrayal of a Melbourne skinhead in George Wright's controversial Romper Stomper (1992), winning another AFI award, as well as an Australian Film Critics award. It was Sharon Stone who helped bring Crowe to Hollywood to play a gunfighter-turned-preacher opposite her in Sam Raimi's The Quick and the Dead (1995). Though the film was not a huge box-office success, it did open Hollywood doors for Crowe, who subsequently split his time between the U.S. and Australia. In 1997, the actor had his largest success to date playing volatile cop Bud White in Curtis Hanson's L.A. Confidential (1997). Following the praise surrounding both the film and his performance in it, Crowe found himself working steadily in Hollywood: in 1999 alone, he starred in three films: Gladiator, Mystery, Alaska and The Insider, the last of which featured him in an Oscar-nominated performance as the real-life tobacco industry insider who was smeared as the result of his devastating testimony in lawsuits filed against U.S. tobacco manufacturers. -- Sandra Brennan |
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