Russell Crowe Trivia

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Birth name: Russell Ira Crowe 

Date of birth: 7 April 1964 

Place of birth: Wellington, North Island, New Zealand 

Nickname: Rusty Height: 5′ 11½” (1.82 m) 

Spouse: Danielle Spencer (7 April 2003 – present) 1 child 

• Cousin of former New Zealand international cricketers Jeff and Martin Crowe.
• Lost his front tooth playing rugby when he was ten. Never got it fixed until, at the insistence of the director for “The Crossing”, who paid for it out of his own pocket.
• First lead role when he was 25.
• Tried a music career as a rockabilly singer sporting a large pompadour hairdo, playing under the name Russ Le Roq. Titled his first single “I Want to Be Like Marlon Brando.” Later admitted that he had never even seen a Brando movie when he wrote and recorded the song.
• After filming Gladiator (2000), he and some friends took a 4,000 mile motorcycle trip around Australia.
• Owns a 560-acre farm in 7.5 hours North-West from Sydney, Australia
• Dropped out of high school.
• Performed on stage in “Grease” and “The Rocky Horror Show”.
• Russell’s rock group is named 30 Odd Foot of Grunts. They played their first US concert following Russell’s success in Gladiator (2000) in Austin, Texas in August 2000. The tickets for the concert were selling for over $500 on e-bay.com.
• Suffered a shoulder injury, which will require surgery, while filming Jodie Foster’s  Flora Plum (2004) . It is uncertain if the film will have to be recast. [5 September 2000]
• Has starred in two films based on articles from Vanity Fair magazine. The Insider (1999) was based on a story by Marie Brenner named “The Man Who Knew Too Much”. Proof of Life (2000) is based on the article “Adventures in the Ransom Trade” by William Prochnau.
• Dated Meg Ryan. [2001]
• Turned down the role of Logan/Wolverine in X-Men (2000).
• He and his band, 30 Odd Foot Of Grunts, performed on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” (1992). [16 August 2001]
• Proudly displayed his grandfather’s British Honours medal (MBE) while making his Oscar Winner speech in 2001.
• Has indicated an interest in taking out Australian citizenship due to the amount of time and energy he spends Down Under (keeping his New Zealand citizenship as well).
• Although his surname is of Irish extraction, he lists his background as “Norwegian and Maori.”
• When Crowe’s acceptance speach for his Best Actor award during the British Film Awards was edited, Crowe shoved the producer of the show, Malcolm Gerrie, against a wall and cursed at him, telling him: “Who on Earth had the … audacity to take out the best actor’s poem? I’ll make sure you never work in Hollywood.” He later issued a full apology.
• His grandfather was from Wrexham, Wales
• Ranked #28 in Premiere’s 2002 annual Power 100 List.
• At The Orange British Academy Film Awards on Monday January 28th 2002 was nominated for the Performance by an actor in a leading role Award for his role in A Beautiful Mind.
• Following his involvement in a brawl in a London restaurant, Russell stated that he was under a lot of stress and announced that he was going back to Australia to relax and spend more time with his father and his long-time girlfriend singer Danielle Spencer. [November 2002]
• Discovered by British actor and musical director/writer Daniel Abineri, who gave Crowe his first professional acting role in a New Zealand tour of ‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show.’ Abineri later awarded Crowe the title role in his first stage musical, ‘Bad Boy Johnny and the Prophets of Doom,’ which premiered in Melbourne in 1989.
• Ranked #30 in Premiere’s 2003 annual Power 100 List.
• Met spouse, Danielle Spencer in 1989 when they co-starred in the 1990 film, The Crossing (1990). Their co-star of the film, Robert Mammone (The Matrix Reloaded (2003), _Matrix Revolutions, The (2003)_ ), was one of Crowe’s groomsmen at their wedding.
• Son-in-law of actor Don Spencer.
• Took violin lessons in preparing for Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003) because his character, Jack Aubrey, played the violin several times during the movie.
• Favorite toy growing up was Action Man.
• First child with Danielle, a boy named Charles Spencer Crowe, born in Sydney (21 December 2003)
• He wrote a song about Jodie Foster called “Other Ways of Speaking” with his band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts.
• Jodie Foster considers him a very good friend.
• Plans to donate his brain to medical science when he dies.
• 29 January 2004 – Dislocated his shoulder while training for his upcoming boxing movie, _Cinderella Man, The (2005)_ . The injury delayed filming for two months.Supports the NRL team, South Sydney Rabbitohs
• Was accepted to The National Institute of Dramatic Arts (NIDA), in Sydney, Australia.
• Ranked #97 on VH1′s 100 Hottest Hotties
• Good friends with Nicole Kidman. She also mentioned him in her oscar acceptance speech when she won ‘Best Actress in a Leading Role’ for The Hours (2002).
• He was voted the 49th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Premiere Magazine.
• Shares a birthday with Jackie Chan.
• Once he was cast as Bud White in ‘L.A. Confidential’ (1998), he read in the book that his character was the largest cop on the police force, off-putting for him due to his medium-sized frame (just under 6 feet). To capture a “big guy” presence, Crowe lived in a tiny flat in which he could barely fit through any of the doors. This experience, he said, made him come to the set feeling like a giant.
• Is an avid supporter of the AFL team Richmond Tigers.
• His former band, 30 Odd Foot of Grunts, used to cover a song by Newfoundland band Great Big Sea. While filming Cinderella Man in Toronto, Russell Crowe met the Alan Doyle, lead singer of Great Big Sea. The two ended up composing several songs together, working in Toronto and Australia, and Doyle produced Crowe’s 2005 album My Hand, My Heart.
• When his wife was pregnant with his child, he gave up drinking alcohol with her.
• Is friends with Richard Tognetti, who gave him violin lessons for _Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
• Crowe was guarded by Secret Service agents for the next few months, both while shooting films and at award ceremonies (Scotland Yard also guarded Crowe while he was promoting Proof of Life in London in February 2001).
• In the beginning of 2009, Crowe appeared in a series of special edition postage stamps called “Legends of the Screen”, featuring Australian actors. He, Geoffrey Rush, Cate Blanchett, and Nicole Kidman each appear twice in the series: once as themselves and once as their Academy Award-winning character.
• Crowe is slated to appear in the Paul Haggis film The Next Three Days, an adaptation of the 2008 French film Pour Elle.
• Crowe appeared in Robin Hood, a film based on the Robin Hood legend, directed by Ridley Scott and released on May 14, 2010.

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