Hollywood actor Richard Gere, who recently moved to Spain, will next month be honoured at the country's biggest film awards, the Goya Awards, the Spanish Film Academy has announced.
The 75-year-old star will receive the international Goya Award at the awards ceremony, broadcast on national television in the southern city of Granada on February 8.
The academy praised Gere, who achieved worldwide fame with films such as "Pretty Woman" and "American Gigolo," for his "outstanding contribution to the art of filmmaking, starring in some of the most iconic films in cinema history," AFP reported.
It also hailed "the social commitment he has shown both personally and professionally" to various causes, such as the plight of refugees and the homeless.
The academy highlighted Gere's "active work for Tibetan autonomy and the preservation of Tibetan culture".
Gere is a longtime Tibet advocate who has met frequently with the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader whom Beijing accuses of fomenting separatism in the Himalayan region.
China took control of Tibet in 1951 and the Dalai Lama fled into exile in 1959.
Before that, Tibet was largely autonomous after the fall of the Qing dynasty, which lasted 3 centuries.
Gere and his Spanish wife, Alejandra Silva, 41, moved to Madrid last year with their two sons.
"We are happier than ever," the actor said in an interview published in the latest edition of the Spanish Elle magazine when asked about their new life in Spain. | BGNES
