Richard Gere, who was honored at the 2019 City Harvest Festival Gala Tuesday, credits his dad for teaching him how to give back.
“My father, in about 10 days, is going to be 97 years old and his mind is better than mine,” the “Pretty Woman” actor said during his acceptance speech at the starry event at Cipriani 42nd Street. “He’s one of those people that his entire life … whenever someone else was suffering he was there to some degree.”
He added, “If he didn’t have money, it was a smile or an embrace or whatever he had to help out, and that was around me the whole time I was growing up.”
Gere, 69, shared that his dad started a Meals-on-Wheels in his hometown that “became a passion for the rest of his life,” and that he insisted on buying a “cheeseball car because the trunk was the right height for him to get the meals in to take around to his neighbors so he didn’t have to bend over.”
And while Gere will be helping his father celebrate his birthday in a few days, the actor also noted another milestone: his first anniversary with his 36-year-old wife Alejandra, who he secretly married last year.
“The other thing I want to celebrate, is in two days, [it] is my first anniversary with my beautiful wife Alejandra,” he said. “I must tell you, we live in the woods. An exciting day for us is to go for a walk, and so this is the first time we’ve been out in 3 months so it’s kind of been a shell shock being back in New York and part of this kind of energy.”
He also added that in two days their son, who they welcomed in February this year, is going to be 3 months old.
“This is an incredible time to celebrate,” he said.
But Gere also stressed that now is the time to take responsibility and give as much as you can.
“We’re living in a very peculiar world right now where the president of the United States doesn’t understand other peoples’ suffering,” he said. “It’s up to the people in this room, our friends, and the people who really look inside themselves and are grateful and humble and thankful for everything we have, and we should be, and keep this willingness to give back. To really be responsible for each other.”
“At the end of our lives, I’m not going to be thinking about movies, believe me. I’m going to be thinking about how much love I was able to give and receive in return. I think we all should.”
Also at the gala for City Harvest, which helps feed the hungry and stop food waste in New York, were co-hosts Chrissy Teigen and Antoni Porowski, Darren Criss, Geoffrey Zakarian, Ted Allen, Eric Ripert, and Nas.
The benefit raised $4.1 million.