Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson (born January 3, 1956) is an American-Australian actor, Academy Award winning director and producer. Born in the U.S., he moved to Australia when he was 12 years old and he later studied acting at the National Institute of Dramatic Art in Sydney. After establishing himself as a household name with the Mad Max and Lethal Weapon series, Gibson went on to direct and star in the Academy Award-winning Braveheart. Gibson's direction of Braveheart made him the sixth actor-turned-filmmaker to receive an Oscar for Best Director.[1] In 2004, he directed and produced The Passion of the Christ, a blockbuster movie[2] that portrayed the last hours of the life of Jesus. Gibson is an honorary Officer of the Order of Australia and was ranked the world's most powerful celebrity in the annual list by Forbes magazine in 2004.

User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License and may also be available under the GNU FDL.