Meet Richard Gere's 4 rarely seen siblings: inside his super intellectual family

Richard is the second child of Homer and Doris Gere and was born in Philadelphia in 1949 before the family settled in New York. He is one of five siblings: he has three sisters, Susan, Laura and Joanne, and one brother, David. They were a Methodist family and championed charity, activism, and education: his parents both went to college, and all of his siblings have professional degrees—two even have PhDs!

The actor's father, Homer, was an insurance agent and became an activist for Meals on Wheels in his retirement. Richard even appeared in a national campaign with his father, a fundraiser and driver for the charity for over 25 years. Richard named his eldest son, who he shares with actress Carey Lowell, after his father.

Sadly, Homer passed away in March 2023 at 100 years old. His wife, Doris, had passed in 2016, and the couple had shared over 70 years together; the family asked for donations to be made to Meals on Wheels on behalf of their parents, their activism bleeding through even at the end of their lives. Richard's siblings all carry on their parent's legacy and are involved in activism themselves, just like the actor, who is a strong supporter of Tibet and has championed causes like AIDS awareness and environmental justice.  

Richard's sister Susan is an academic powerhouse and even has a PhD. She was the director of the Division of Counseling and Psychology at Lesley University in Boston and worked for the university for over four decades until her retirement this year. She is based in Boston and has had a long and successful academic career.

The university website describes her as "core faculty and a clinician and consultant in the community", and her research focuses on "integrative approaches to trauma treatment; understanding the impact of adverse life experience on adult learning; and mental health consultation in clinical, educational, organizational, and community settings".

Her sister, Laura, showered Susan with praise on LinkedIn this year in light of her retirement, writing, "So proud of my sister, Susan Gere, not only for her amazing leadership but how she leads with heart."

She continued, "I'm so blessed to have this trailblazer as my beloved sister. Looking forward to this amazing new chapter for you."

Laura has been the Vice President of Health Plan Partnerships at Careforth for over eight years, which aims to support caregivers in the community and improve their quality of life. She credits the business for their support after her parent's deaths; she wrote on LinkedIn that, "having lost both of my parents while working at Careforth, I'm so grateful to have benefited from the caregiving support best practices and exceptional team."

She has an MBA from Babson Graduate School of Business and, according to Susan's daughter, Caroline, remains close to all her siblings.

Joanne is the executive director and co-founder of the Westchester Biotech Project, which aims to bring together scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs across biomedicine to champion innovation. According to Westchester magazine, Joanne started the project alongside co-founder Michael Welling "after seeing a need to connect scientists in the industry".

She told the magazine that "my career has been about getting scientists to talk to each other across all the different silos." She studied a Bachelor of Fine Arts, majoring in Painting, at Bard College in the 1970s and is now based in Princeton, New Jersey.

Another academic powerhouse is Richard's brother David, a professor and the founding director of the UCLA Art and Global Health Centre. He teaches art activism at the university and also has a PhD, just like his sister. He is also a fierce AIDS activist and headed a project called Through Positive Eyes, which is a collaborative photography project aimed at telling the stories of hundreds of people living with HIV and AIDS.  

David appeared on CNN ahead of World AIDS Day in 2019 to discuss the project alongside Richard, who wrote the forward for the accompanying book. Speaking on the importance of the project, Richard gushed about his brother, saying, "I think that David has done an extraordinary job in all the work he's done; whether it's dance, or it's puppets, or it's theatre -- in this case it's photography for HIV-positive people to communicate with the world as human beings."

"We understand each other by how we feel about things and even more so, how we feel informs how we create."

David also identifies as gay and wrote about seeing his brother perform in Bent on Broadway in 1980; the play explores the persecution of gay people in Nazi Germany and helped David come to terms with his sexuality. Writing for the Center Theatre Group, he said, "I went to see the play several times, watching my straight brother play a gay man in Nazi Germany who lands in a concentration camp."

"Seeing the play would have been a harrowing experience for any viewer, but it was particularly so for me because, at that moment in my life, I was beginning to realize that I was gay.