HOLLYWOOD actor Richard Gere will appear in the Spanish Senate on Wednesday next week (December 13) to drum up support for the homeless foundation his partner, Alejandra Silva, is patron of.
Gere, who recently directed and starred in the film Norman: The moderate rise and tragic fall of a New York fixer, about a street-dweller of the same name, and played George, a homeless man in a short in 2014 titled Time out of mind, has championed Madrid's mayoress Manuela Carmena for her work with the homeless including making the city a repossession-free zone, helping arrange Christmas parties for people living rough, and redesigning public benches to allow them to be used for sleeping on.
The star will attend the final Senate meeting of the year, before it reconvenes on February 6, 2018.
He will discuss the work of the Rais Foundation, run by his Spanish girlfriend – a PR professional – in a bid to raise awareness of the plight of those without a roof over their heads.
The Pretty Woman actor is active in promoting several charities working with street-dwellers and, a year ago, signed a deal in Valencia with Sra Silva's foundation in which the city hall agreed to hand over empty homes for people sleeping rough.
Two days before attending the Senate, Gere and Silva will be in Madrid where they have sold off tickets for the showing of the former's latest film, The Dinner, at a cinema in the capital, with all proceeds going to the Rais Foundation.
The Dinner is a thriller centred on two sets of well-off parents who meet up for an evening meal to discuss what to do about a crime committed by their sons, and stars Gere as Stan Lohman and Laura Linney – Sarah in Love, Actually – as his sister-in-law Claire and Chloë Sevigny (Brandon Tina in Boys Don't Cry) as his ex-wife Barbara.
The Rais Foundation attended to 6,832 street-dwellers in 2016, and enabled 134 to find permanent homes.
