Does anybody have links for the Gere/Gerbil connection? Just want to get my facts straight.
It was an urban myth. The first I heard of this story was one of Darryl Wayne a news reader in Jax, FL (1985). The story was that a gerbil had to be removed from his butt. Wayne left the station shortly after the rumor spread.
A few years later (1991) a newscaster in Phila. PA (Jerry Penacoli) had similar rumors told about him. Now the target has shifted to Gere...
GERE AND THE GERBILS: Here’s the story as I remember it from a friend of mine who worked in the ER at Beverly Hills Hospital: All through the 80s and 90s Gere, often in heavy disguise , would show up (sometimes at 2 or 3 in the morning), needing to be attended to for various ‘problems’.
They were always rectal-—at first it involved the basic machinery like the five dollar “personal massagers”, then eventually it was GERBILS that had to be extracted, yes, still alive and in very compromised condition. After about the 10th time the head of the ER gave him a stiff lecture, and Gere sheepishly assured all ER staffers he would give up on his new obsession.
Sarcasm? You be the judge!
Actually, AD, this is an urban legend....there were never any gerbils......it was always hamsters.
Actually, I made the whole thing up.
It was San Fernando Valley Hospital , anyway.
And it wasn’t Richard Gere, it was Will Geer.