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Russell Crowe: Australia
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A little-known fact: one of the earliest works by Russell Crowe, the Australian who won Best Actor in last night's Academy Awards, was a pastoral recruitment video for the Seventh Day Adventist Church. In the film, the 18-year-old Crowe played a farm worker who decides to devote his life to the church. Crowe says he did A Very Special Person only because he needed the acting experience: "I didn't have anything official showing I had studied this art form." The film's director of photography, Russell Gibbs, says the film was influential: "It was shown in colleges and high schools to encourage people to become priests. He actually spoke to real ministers in researching for the role and admitted he found the whole thing very interesting."
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Russell Crowe is of Norwegian and Maori ancestry, and was born in New Zealand, but his family moved to Australia when he was four years old. His parents were caterers for film and television productions. They often brought young Russell with them to work, and he was pressed into work as an extra at the age of six. He had his first credited role in the down-under espionage series Spyforce, when he was eight.
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Russell Crowe, who is 43, says he's planning to be baptized. "I'd like to do it this year," the Oscar-winning actor tells Men's Journal. "My mom and dad decided to let my brother and me make our own decisions about God when we got to the right age. I started thinking recently, 'If I believe it is important to baptize my kids, why not me?'" Crowe says the baptism will take place in the Byzantine chapel he built at his country ranch in Australia for his wedding to Danielle Spencer in 2003. The couple have two sons, 3-year-old Charlie and 1-year-old Tennyson.
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Russell Crowe will make his feature directorial debut on Universal and Imagine Entertainment’s “Bra Boys,” a fact-based drama about a counterculture movement in a surf community in Australia. The studio will base the film on the “Bra Boys” documentary that focuses on Sunny, Koby and Jai Abberton, three brothers who began the underground surfer movement in the inner-Sydney seaside suburb of Maroubra.
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Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is a New Zealand-Australian actor. Crowe is a recipient of an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in 2000's Gladiator. Crowe was born in Wellington, New Zealand to Jocelyn Yvonne Wemyss and John Alexander Crowe, both of whom were caterers. His maternal grandfather, Stan Wemyss, was a cinematographer who, according to Crowe, produced the first film by New Zealander Geoff Murphy, and was ... named an MBE for filming footage of World War II. Crowe's maternal great-great-great grandmother was Māori, and as a result Crowe is registered on the Māori electoral roll in New Zealand; Crowe also has Norwegian, Scottish, Irish and Welsh ancestry. Two of Russell Crowe's cousins, Martin and Jeff Crowe are former New Zealand national cricket captains.
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Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is a New Zealand-Australian[1] actor. His acting career began in the early 1990s with roles in Australian TV series such as Police Rescue and films such as Romper Stomper. In the late 1990s, he began appearing in US films such as the 1997 movie L.A. Confidential. In the 2000s, he was nominated for three Oscars, and in 2001, he won the Academy Award as Best Actor for his starring role in the film Gladiator.
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