Gerry Garcia

Gerald (Gerry) Garrett Garcia, born 16 March 1995 in Salt Lake City Utah is an American actor, writer, athlete, martial-artist and musician. His family is of Spanish, Italian and Sephardic Jewish heritage. He was born to a family of athletes and musicians. His parents, Adon and Tilly Garcia were national and international karate champions. They trained under big names such as Fumio Demura, Yoshi Yamazaki, Hirokazu Kanazawa, and Osamu Ozawa. As soon as he started running at 8 months of age, his parents quickly saw his athletic potential and introduced him to soccer and martial arts.By age three, he was showing great promise and he began training karate-do, iaido (drawing a live sword), kendo (sword fencing), and aikido with his parents. At this age, he went to the piano one day and plunked out "twinkle little star" and "Mary had a little lamb" without prior lessons. His parents recognized his many talents at an early age and quickly decided to invest in piano lessons for him despite their unfortunate financial situation due to a special needs sister.Two years before Gerry's birth, his mother was prescribed a harsh medication that damaged his sister Ariel, mentally, before her birth. When the doctors said she only had 24 hours to live, all that was left for them to do was to ask their family and friends to pray for her. His parents did whatever they could to keep her alive which made it difficult for them financially. Before this, his parents had a karate studio and were making good money. With his sister's past and present medical bills, and moving from their custom built house, the family has struggled to make ends meet but still found the money to invest in the betterment of their children. The family believes that it is because of the power of prayer, that Ariel is still alive today.Gerry began his competitive soccer career in 2000 with local recreation teams at the age of five and at the age of seven he became a prospect for Utah's most prestigious teams, Sparta United in Sandy, Utah. He has won several golden boot and MVP awards in his years as a striker and was a proud member of the ODP (Olympic Development Program) team. He has trained internationally with teams such as Real Madrid (Spain), Leeds United and Parsley F.C. (England.) He has been a two time state finalist with his High School soccer team, Juan Diego Catholic High School and was nominated for the UHSAA (Utah High School Activities Association) All-State team. Another notable fact about his soccer career was him being clocked at running at an incredible speed of 20 mph at the age of only 14. As he got older his speed increased 22 mph. He has had a lot of obstacles in his soccer career. Shortly after his freshman soccer season, he endured a horrific back injury that almost left him paralyzed. He said "when the injury happened, I was scared and totally helpless...I couldn't feel my legs as I felt myself collapse on the pitch. I almost broke down because I thought it was the end for me at that point. Luckily, I regained feeling back in my legs a few minutes later. At that moment I had a sigh of relief but I was still in excruciating pain." Because of this injury, he had to rehab for almost a year without running, juggling or any activity whatsoever. Surgery for his back was an option, but was highly discouraged by his family and the doctors because of how close to nerve endings in which the injury resided. Despite this almost life-changing obstacle, he recovered miraculously and was able to finish his high school career. The injury did prove to be life changing however. As he got older, the injury hurt worse game after game. He decided, instead of risking his health he would give up playing the game he loved competitively but continue to pursue acting and music, despite being scouted by professional soccer teams in both Spain and England.Gerry's music career is quite extensive despite his whole life being consumed by soccer. During a music class in elementary school, his music teacher, Vikki Maronick asked him to play a song for the class. When he went to the electric keyboard, he noticed the key he played wasn't playing the note it should have. It was at this moment, he learned something unique about himself; he has perfect pitch. Gerry at the time had no idea how rare this ability is, but his teacher was astounded that she finally had a student with such genius and talent. He began playing the piano for school church services in third grade and he would play concerts on a weekly basis at a retirement home named St. Josephs Villa, where he would many times make up difficult songs all on the spot. The events coordinator began paying young Gerry but he was later laid off and the new events coordinator director asked him to stop coming back and playing. He had a good run of 3 years playing for the elderly. One of his first notable achievements was winning the Chopin Joy Robin competition, held at Juan Diego Catholic High School in 2003. In sixth grade, his school was putting on a production called "The Pirates of Penzance," which was to be directed by the music teacher's brother, Douglas Nagel, who is a renown opera singer for the San Jose Opera. Gerry didn't plan on auditioning for it because he didn't think it would be worthwhile. When it came closer to auditions, his music teacher noticed that he hadn't signed up for them yet. Furiously, she sought out his mother who was waiting to pick him up after school and inquired as to why he hadn't signed up to audition. To Ms. Maronick's surprise, he had not told his mother about the production. When Gerry met both of them outside by his mother's car, he got an earful from both of them. Finally, he decided he would audition anyways after being bribed by his mother, which eventually lead to him landing the lead role as Fredric. This was a turning point in Gerry's drama and music career because this was his first theatre production because his school had little funding for the arts up until that year. He had the most fun working with Mr. Nagel and the rest of the cast and he said "they were moments that I will never forget and I'm glad I did it." As he got older, he was winning more and more piano competitions and festivals. However, when high school came around, it became more difficult to balance between acting, music and soccer. For a couple years he hadn't been doing many piano competitions, just local festivals. People were beginning to think that maybe he was losing his competitive edge and/or losing his abilities. To prove people wrong, he competed in the UHSAA State Solo and Ensemble Competition in 2013. During this competition he scored straight superiors in every round by playing the first movement of Ludwig Von Beethoven's Pathetique Sonate. To the public's astonishment, he made a comeback in his piano career and even more incredible, he was the only pianist to qualify for state in his school's respective region/division and the first pianist to win the competition for his school.He is currently writing screenplays and he is collaborating with various producers and actors about his upcoming project. Show less «