The Naval Hamster Cross
Posted on 05/03/2005 6:22:51 AM PDT by Happy Valley Dude
Did Richard Gere dis two teens in wheelchairs at Saturday's White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington? Fifteen-year-old Brian Glassmacher - who, with his 17-year-old sister, Kailyn, suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy so rare it's known as Glassmacher syndrome - says the movie star was snippy when he was asked to pose for a snapshot.
"I really liked 'Chicago' and I wanted to meet him. I thought he would be a very nice person," Brian told me yesterday. "But I thought he was very rude. I was very disappointed."
"No," Brian answered when asked if he'll ever see another movie starring Gere.
But Newsweek senior editor Lally Weymouth - who invited Gere to the dinner - insisted that her guest was "charming and accommodating and lovely to everyone" who approached him during the long night at the Hilton Washington.
Brian - a Fairfax, Va., middle school student who is deaf - spoke with me yesterday by phone with the aid of a sign-language interpreter.
"My sister" - who is also deaf and breathes with the aid of a trachea tube - "was also there, and she really loves all of his movies - even more than I do," Brian told me. "She really wanted him to come to the table, but it was really disappointing."
According to Brian and others at his table - all guests of Internet colossus Google.com - one of his tablemates approached Gere at the Newsweek table to ask if he could walk over and pose with his two severely disabled fans.
"Maybe later," the 55-year-old Gere was quoted as saying. "I'm hard of hearing and I have a bad hip. We all have problems."
Despite a second request an hour later, Gere still didn't come over. "May I please finish my dinner?" he pleaded with another fan who came up and asked for a photo.
When the dinner ended, Gere fielded a third request and finally posed hurriedly with Brian when his wheelchair happened to be blocking Gere's path to the exit, Brian said.
Meanwhile, such celebs as Donovan McNabb and Constantine Maroulis from "American Idol" happily posed and signed autographs for the Glassmacher siblings.
Yesterday Gere's publicist, Alan Nierob, told me: "I'm sure Richard conducted himself as he always does - in the most gracious and respectable manner."
These kids in wheelchairs should know ... He speaks for the world!
A pox on all of them!
And yes, that is the compassionate liberal left of hollywood
God, how I hate the use of this non-word.
She forgot that she is just one of the little people that Gere and Tereezaaa personally loathe but at the same time love for their financial support.
This isn't the first time Richard Gere has acted poorly. Who has a list of his films?
Huh?
Richard Gere is a penis.
DIS
My new response to everything: "I'm hard of hearing and I have a bad hip. We all have problems."
Richard Gere is a self-important, self-centered moron, just like 98% of the actors in Hollywood.
I like it. Mind if I borrow it?
Ok, so Gere may not have gushed all over them with the lavish amounts of pity and preferential treament that they have become used to and now seem to demand. He wasn't rude either. So What? This is a non-story.
Sounds like these kids just got a first-hand introduction into the plastic, fake and rude world of Hollywood actors.
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