RICHARD GERE : MY LIFE IN 10 Pictures

RAISED AS one of five kids near Syracuse, N.Y., Richard Tiffany Gere says his upbringing was "normal and All-American."

But over the years, his life in the Hollywood spotlight has been anything but typical, with his sex symbol status "seeming to affect everyone else but me." For Richard, he just took life as it came. "My career has never been planned out. I never engineered a career. I just have always done whatever I wanted." And yet as Richard turns 75 on Aug. 31, what he's done in the past is merely prologue. "I honestly don't look back. I'm always happy to engage the next possibility.

I have a very full and interesting and complex life.

Creativity is the center of it, but not movies."

1 1973 PART WITH While Richard was an understudy in Broadway's Grease, he got his big break when he was tapped to play the lead of Danny when the musical hit London. "I don't think I'd been out of the U.S. This happened, and it was one of those moments where you think, 'I'm starting the next part of my life."

2 1978 HEAVEN SENT Before making Days of Heaven, "I was kind of a snob about movies. I thought films were some kind of bourgeois activity that certainly wasn't artistic. It was a silly thought. Ridiculous."

3 1980 AMERICAN DREAM "After American Gigolo my life changed, and it was both wonderful and difficult," confessed Richard. "You can't take classes for how to be when you become famous."