Mel Gibson
Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson
AO (Order of Australia)
b. January 3, 1956
American actor, film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is best known for his action hero roles, particularly his breakout role as Max Rockatansky in the first three films of the post-apocalyptic action series Mad Max and as Martin Riggs in the buddy cop film series Lethal Weapon.
He studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Australia (NIDA), where he starred opposite Judy Davis in a production of Romeo and Juliet.
During the 80s, he founded Icon Entertainment with long-time producing partner Bruce Davey.
Director Peter Weir cast him as one of the leads in the World War I drama Gallipoli (1981), which earned Gibson a Best Actor Award from the Australian Film Institute (AFI), as well as a reputation as a serious, versatile actor.
In 1995, Gibson produced, directed, and starred in Braveheart, a historical epic, for which he won the Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the Academy Award for Best Director, and the Academy Award for Best Picture.
Mel is apparently proud of his Irish and Scottish heritage; and is proud to wear the Buchanan tartan:
We (the Clan Buchanan) is currently working to establish the link between the Irish Gibson and Septs of Clan Buchanan.
Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York as the sixth of eleven children.
His Father: Hutton Gibson, a writer.
And Mother: Irish-born Anne Patricia (née Reilly, died 1990).
Gibson's paternal grandmother was opera contralto Eva Mylott (1875–1920), who was born in Australia, to Irish parents, while his paternal grandfather, John Hutton Gibson, was a millionaire tobacco businessman from the American South.
Gibson's father was awarded US$145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against the New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968, and soon afterwards relocated his family to West Pymble, Sydney, Australia. Mel was twelve years old at the time.
Reference Wikipedia