If the true measure of a movie star is that woman want to be with him and men want to be him, then Mel Gibson -- with his sly wit, self-deprecating charm, laser blue eyes, and $25,000,000 paychecks - is certainly not just another actor. In fact, he's much more than a movie star, having won an Academy Award® for producing and directing himself in the acclaimed epic Braveheart (1995). 

On top of it all, Mel is also a devoted family man, the father of 7 children with his wife Robyn, to whom he's been married for more than twenty years (which, as far as Hollywood marriages go, makes him deserving of some honor greater than the Oscar®). It is a measure of his star power and durability that at the age of 46 he's been part of two of the biggest movies of the new millennium: the historical epic The Patriot and the animated comedy Chicken Run. 

Mel Columcille Gerard Gibson was born January 3, 1956, in Peekskill, New York. His father worked on the Harlem-Hudson line railroad and his mother was an Australian Opera singer. The Gibsons were devout Catholics and Mel was one of eleven children. In 1968, Mel's father won the jackpot on the quiz show "Jeopardy." Newly rich and fearing his sons would be drafted into the army to serve during the Vietnam War, the elder Gibson re-located the family to Australia when Mel was 12. Mel was beat up by local toughs who didn't like his American accent so he quickly learned to sound Australian. His ability to affect different accents, coupled with the fact that he was extraordinarily handsome, prompted his sister to send in an application for him to Sydney's National Institute of Dramatic Art. Mel, to his surprise, was accepted. He was on his way. 

Mel started out in Australia doing theater. After a lot of Shakespeare (where he played Romeo to Judy Davis' Juliette), he made his debut in the Australian film Summer City (1977). Mel's big break was to come just a few years later in the brutal sci-fi actioner Mad Max (1979), where director George Miller cast him despite Mel's face being bruised and bloodied from a street fight days before. Mad Max made Mel a star in Australia. Its sequel, The Road Warrior (1981), made him a star worldwide. His next film, Galilipoli (1981), directed by Peter Weir, was another international success and by the time he made another movie for Weir, The Year of Living Dangerously (1984), he was one of the biggest stars in the world. American audiences, however, raised on a heavy diet of beefcake muscle like Sly Stallone, were still skeptical of this Australian pretty-boy. That all changed with Lethal Weapon (1987), one of the seminal movies of the 1980's. It's not great art, but it is great fun, as Mel, playing the hyper-kinetic psycho cop Martin Riggs, trades one-liners with the staid family man cop played by Danny Glover. 

Lethal Weapon spawned three sequels (1989, 1992, 1998), huge moneymakers all. But Mel has not simply taken the money and run. He's used his clout to appear in more artistic projects, like Hamlet (1990) and his directing debut, Man Without a Face (1993). Mel took to the battlefield during the Vietman drama We Were Soldiers (2002), and then scored a blockbuster summer hit with M. Night Shyamalan's sci-fi thriller Signs (2002) as a family man discovers unexplainable crop circles on his farm. Sure, he's squeezed in some mediocre movies over the years (who hasn't in today's Hollywood), but while the movies may sometimes be less-than-engaging, the same can never be said for Mel Gibson. He always looks like he's having fun up there on the screen, and thanks to him, so do we. 

Credit: amctv.com