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Mel Gibson: 'I Am Deeply Ashamed'

Originally posted Thursday August 03, 2006 12:00 PM EDT

Gibson (sporting a beard last year in Mexico) has entered treatment for alcoholism. "The guy is trying to stay alive," his rep told AP. Photo by: RAMEY

The sixth of the 11 children of Hutton Gibson, now 87, and Ann Reilly Gibson (who died in 1990), Gibson has always lived a life of contradiction. Raised in upstate New York until the age of 12, he and the rest of his family moved to Australia in 1968 so that the sons in the family could avoid the Vietnam draft. There, life was defined by an ultraconservative brand of Catholicism embraced by Hutton, a former railroad brakeman, in reaction to the 1962-65 reforms of Vatican II. The self-published author of three books critical of the contemporary church, Hutton Gibson, who now lives in West Virginia, has denied the Holocaust, telling a New York Times reporter: "Go ask . . . a guy who operates a crematorium what it takes to get rid of a body. Now, 6 million?" Mel Gibson has denied he shares such views but refuses to rebuke his father publicly, citing their close relationship.

One thing he has been far more outspoken about is his battle with alcohol, which dates back to his Australian youth. Gibson's early Hollywood career was marked by enormous success – and drunken binges. On the set of the 1984 movie The Bounty, Gibson reportedly feuded with Anthony Hopkins because his costar, a recovering alcoholic, did not drink. Also that year, he was arrested for driving drunk in Toronto, and his drinking once prompted an intervention from Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome costar Tina Turner, who sent Gibson a photograph of himself with the message "Don't F--- This Up."

The tough talk – and a few long stints in rehab – helped for a while. But Gibson has said his marriage and return to the Church got him to turn a corner. "The real medal goes to my wife, who's a wonderful woman," he told Sawyer in '04. During his recent Apocalypto shoot in Mexico, "Mel came home on the weekends, Robyn visited him," says a friend. The recent controversy hasn't changed that. "She's as supportive a wife as you'll see. His marriage is as strong as ever."

Despite her support, there were moments, Gibson told The New Yorker in 2003, "when you get to that point where you don't want to live and you don't want to die – it's a desperate, horrible place to be." In that instant, Gibson, alone, raised himself up, using his faith. "I just hit my knees. And I had to use the Passion of Christ and [His] wounds to heal my wounds. And I've just been meditating on it for 12 years." That moment of healing led to Gibson's commitment to put the Passion on film – a movie some critics saw as blaming Jews for Christ's crucifixion even as it took in more than $600 million worldwide from a grateful, mostly Christian audience.