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Geoffrey Rush
Rush at the premiere of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End, May 2007
Born	Geoffrey Roy Rush 6 July 1951 (1951-07-06) (age 57) Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia
Spouse(s)	Jane Menelaus (1988-)
Awards won Academy Awards Best Actor 1996 Shine Australian Film Institute Awards Best Actor in a Leading Role 1996 Shine Global Achievement Award 2003 Lifetime Archievement BAFTA Awards Best Actor 1996 Shine Best Supporting Actor 1998 Elizabeth Emmy Awards Outstanding Lead Actor in a Mini-Series or a Movie 2005 The Life and Death of Peter Sellers Golden Globe Awards Best Actor - Motion Picture Drama 1997 Shine Best Actor - Mini-series 2005 The Life and Death of Peter Sellers Screen Actors Guild Awards Best Cast - Motion Picture 1998 Shakespeare in Love Best Actor - Motion Picture 1996 Shine

Geoffrey Roy Rush (born 6 July 1951) is a Golden Globe-, BAFTA-, Emmy-, AFI- and Academy Award-winning Australian actor. He is the first Australian-born person to win an Academy Award for acting. He is also the only Australian person to win it playing an Australian character (although American Linda Hunt won one for playing an Australian character in The Year of Living Dangerously).

Originally a Queenslander from regional Toowoomba, Rush moved to Melbourne in the early 1990s via Brisbane and Sydney¹ and currently lives in the suburb of Camberwell, Victoria.²

Biography

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.³⁴ His parents divorced when he was five, and his mother subsequently took him to live with her parents in the suburbs.⁵ Before he began his acting career, Rush attended Everton Park State High School. He began his acting career with the Queensland Theatre Company in Brisbane. 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.⁴ He also has an Arts Degree from the University of Queensland.⁶ 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.⁴⁵⁶

Stage career

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^{citation needed}.

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 Eugene Ionesco's Exit the King at the Malthouse Theatre in Melbourne and Company B in Sydney, directed by Neil Armfield.

Film career

Rush is Captain Hector Barbossa in Pirates of the Caribbean

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 actor to win an Oscar since Peter Finch. 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; 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's career continued at a fast pace, with nine films released from 2001 through 2003. He starred in the movie 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).^{citation needed} 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. 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 in Pirates of the Carribean 4 as Captain Hector Barbossa 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.

Personal life

Rush lives in Camberwell, a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.² 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 developers⁷ and championing a National Trust of Australia (Victoria) poll for the Victorian Heritage Icons Awards.⁸

Since 1988, Rush has been married to actress Jane Menelaus, with whom he has a daughter, Angelica (born 1992) and a son, James (born 9th Sep 1995).^{9 10 11 12 13}

Filmography and awards

References

External links

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 — Australian Film Commission
• Geoffrey Rush - Stage acting credits
• http://www.93950.com/rush/ - The Cinematic Hats of Geoffrey Rush