No sooner has the new luxury Four Seasons Formentor Hotel opened its doors for a “soft opening” it’s legendary and historic list of illustrious guests has already grown with the arrival of Richard Gere and his family. Gere and his wife Alejandra Silva, an activist from A Coruña, with their two children, Alexander and James, and her son, Albert, have been enjoying a wonderful time on the island.
The couple, who married in 2018, have been spotted swimming and relaxing on the beach as well as enjoying the facilities of the emblematic establishment that reopened its doors last Friday. Artists and icons of the 20th century such as Winston Churchill, John Wayne, Charles Chaplin and Edward Windsor, the Dalai Lama, Elizabeth Taylor, Sir Peter Ustinov and Audrey Hepburn have stayed at the hotel. In June 1960, Princess Grace and Prince Rainier stayed at the Grand Hotel Formentor with Aristoteles Onassis, Maria Callas and Hollywood’s gossips columnist Elsa Maxwell. Grace and Rainier had spent part of their honeymoon at the same hotel in April, 1956 and loved the island spending many vacations there years later.
With an average price of more than 1,200 euros per night per room, the hotel welcomed its first guests, among them the Gere couple, last Friday, although only half of its 110 rooms will be open in an initial start-up that will last until 15 November the hotel will reopen fully on 15 March 2025.
The new Four Seasons takes over from the old Hotel Formentor after a long and costly renovation process which, added to the acquisition of the hotel from Barceló, totals some 350 million euros. Richard and Alejandra, who plan to move to Spain, were in Madrid at the beginning of July for a concert by the Mexican band Maná.
Gere began appearing in films in the 1970s, playing a supporting role in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and a starring role in Days of Heaven (1978). Gere came to prominence with his role in the film American Gigolo (1980), which established him as a leading man and a sex symbol. Gere’s other films include An Officer and a Gentleman (1982), The Cotton Club (1984), No Mercy (1986), Pretty Woman (1990), Sommersby (1993), Intersection (1994), First Knight (1995), Primal Fear (1996), Runaway Bride (1999), Dr. T & the Women (2000), Shall We Dance? (2004), I’m Not There (2007), Arbitrage (2012) and Norman (2016). For portraying Billy Flynn in the musical Chicago (2002), he won a Golden Globe Award.
Gere is also an accomplished musician, composing and performing the Pretty Woman piano theme and a guitar solo in Runaway Bride. He studied tap for three months to shoot half a day of dancing for his role as lawyer Billy Flynn in Chicago. He also studied karate for An Officer and a Gentleman. Multiple film critics and media outlets have cited Gere as one of the best actors never to have received an Academy Award nomination.