Mel Gibson Mel Colm-Cille Gerard Gibson, AO (born January 3, 1956) is an American Australian actor, film director and producer and screenwriter. Born in Peekskill, New York, Gibson moved with his parents to Sydney when he was 12 years old and later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art. After appearing in the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, Gibson went on to direct and star in the Academy Award-winning Braveheart. Gibson's direction of Braveheart made him the sixth actor-turned-filmmaker to receive an Academy Award for Best Director. In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ, a controversial but successful film that portrayed the last hours of the life of Jesus Christ. The movies he has acted in have grossed more than two billion dollars in the US alone.

Gibson was born in Peekskill, New York, the sixth of eleven children, and the second son of Hutton Gibson and Irish-born Anne Reilly. His paternal grandmother was the Australian opera soprano, Eva Mylott (1875–1920). One of Gibson's younger brothers, Donal, is also an actor. Gibson's first name comes from Saint Mel, fifth-century Irish saint, and founder of Gibson's mother's native diocese, Ardagh, while his second name, Colm-Cille, is shared by an Irish saint and is name of the parish in County Longford where Anne Reilly was born and raised. Because of his mother, Gibson holds dual Irish and American citizenship.

Soon after being awarded $145,000 in a work-related-injury lawsuit against New York Central Railroad on February 14, 1968, Hutton Gibson relocated his family to Sydney, Australia. Gibson was 12 years old at the time. The move to Hutton's mother's native Australia was for economic reasons, and because Hutton thought the Australian military would reject his oldest son for the Vietnam War draft.

Gibson was educated by members of the Congregation of Christian Brothers at St. Leo's Catholic College in Wahroonga, New South Wales, during his high-school years.

Mel Gibson and Bipolar Disorder

Mel Gibson has said that he started drinking at the age of thirteen. In a 2002 interview about his time at NIDA, Gibson said, "I had really good highs but some very low lows. I found out recently I'm manic depressive." Gibson has not made any other public mention of having bipolar disorder.

Gibson was arrested in Toronto in 1984 for driving with a blood alcohol level between 0.12%-0.13% after he rear-ended a car. Gibson pled guilty and was fined $300 and banned from driving in Ontario for 3 months. This led to a retreat to his Australian farm for over a year to recover, but he continued to struggle with drinking. Despite this problem, Gibson gained a reputation in Hollywood for professionalism and punctuality, so that Lethal Weapon 2 director Richard Donner was shocked when Gibson confided that he was drinking five pints of beer for breakfast. Reflecting in 2003 and 2004, Gibson said that despair in his mid-30s led him to contemplate suicide, and he meditated on Christ's Passion to heal his wounds. He took more time off acting in 1991 and sought professional help. That year, Gibson's attorneys were unsuccessful at blocking the Sunday Mirror from publishing what Gibson shared at AA meetings. In 1992, Gibson provided financial support to Hollywood's Recovery Center, saying, "Alcoholism is something that runs in my family. It's something that's close to me. People do come back from it, and it's a miracle." Main article: Mel Gibson DUI incident

On July 28, 2006, Gibson was arrested for DUI while speeding in his vehicle with an open container of alcohol. He admitted to making anti-Semitic remarks during his arrest and apologized for his "despicable" behavior, saying the comments were "blurted out in a moment of insanity" and asked to meet with Jewish leaders to help him "discern the appropriate path for healing." When pressed for what his thoughts were at the time in a later interview with Diane Sawyer, he cited the vitriolic attacks on his film The Passion of the Christ and Israel-Lebanon conflict. After Gibson's arrest, his publicist said he had entered a recovery program to battle alcoholism. On August 17, 2006, Gibson pleaded no contest to a misdemeanor drunken-driving charge and was sentenced to three years on probation. He was ordered to attend self-help meetings five times a week for four and a half months and three times a week for the remainder of the first year of his probation. He was also ordered to attend a First Offenders Program, was fined $1,300, and his license was restricted for 90 days. He also volunteered to record a public service announcement.

In a October 12, 2006 interview with Diane Sawyer, Gibson spoke on his struggle to remain sober.

"The risk of everything - life, limb, family - is not enough to keep you from it… You cannot do it of yourself. And people can help, yeah. But it's God. You've got to go there. You've got to do it. Or you won't survive…This whole experience in a way, for me, I'm sort of viewing it now as a kind of a blessing because, firstly, I got stopped before I did any real damage to anyone else. Thank God for that. I didn't hurt myself, you know. I didn't leave my kids fatherless… The other thing is sometimes you need a cold bucket of water in the face to sort of snap to because you're dealing with a sort of a malady of the soul, an obsession of the mind and a physical allergy. And some people need a big tap on the shoulder. In my case, public humiliation on a global scale seems to be what was required."

At a May 2007 progress hearing, Gibson was praised for his compliance with the terms of his probation, his extensive participation in a self-help program, beyond what was required.

Mel Gibson. (2009, October 24). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 19:22, October 24, 2009, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Mel_Gibson&oldid=321741141

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