Mel Gibson story... true or false? (1 Viewer)

[Scott_lb]

I received an email today that was interesting. In short, it told the story of a young, handsome man in Australia who was basically mugged, beaten to a bloody pulp, and left for dead in the streets. The story stated that the young man's face was so bad that it basically looked like he had no face and was considering suicide as a result. The guy then turned to Catholocism and a priest had him worked on by a friend who was a plastic surgeon. The doctor fixed him up, he looked great, and he had a successful career in acting (at the end the story states that the young man was and is Mel Gibson). The story then stated that his story is the basis for his film "A Man Without A Face."

Now, I've read somewhere that Mel had some pretty rough times in his 30's - he had problems with drugs/alcohol and was considering suicide as well. However, I don't recall ever hearing about a "face story" before, although I don't consider myself to be the resident Mel Gibson expert. Given all of the crap that gets sent to my inbox, can anyone verify if this story is true (or somewhat true but totally blown out of proportion?).

 

[Malcolm R]

Urban legend.

Snopes.com

 

[Joe Schwartz]

I always use snopes.com to check stuff like that:

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/noface.htm

[Whoops, Malcom beat me to it.]

 

[Paul McElligott]

For those wanting the Reader's Digest version:

Gibson did get into a fight before auditioning for Mad Max and he was looking kind of the beat up that day, which may have helped him get the part.

Man Without A Face was based on book that had nothing to do with Gibson's life.

 

[Peter-PP]

Mel Gibson is actually an American. His family left the states in the late 60s to avoid the war and moved to Australia.