Actor, director, producer and all-round Mr Nice Guy... please welcome Mel Gibson.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a living soul to offer a harsh word about Mel Gibson. The esteemed actor has touched Hollywood in the same remarkable way his heroic characters affect the landscapes of his films, inspiring awe with his singular imagination, ingenuity, moral code and good nature - not to mention his sparkling blue eyes and rugged good looks.

'He has a touch of the divine about him,' says actress Madeleine Stowe, who played his wife in We Were Soldiers, a film based on the true story of a young general, played by Gibson, who leads his troops into the devastating first battle of the Vietnam War. 'It's beyond moral strength. He's not of this earth,' intones the actress.

'Mel is as fine an actor as there is alive, and he didn't get that way without a reservoir of moral courage to match his artistic talent,' says a philosophical Randall Wallace, who wrote and directed We Were Soldiers (he also penned Braveheart). 'Mel has walked the long, lonely streets of his own soul, and that has given him a depth and a strength.'

The 46-year-old Gibson, who was born in Peekskill, New York, but moved with his family to Australia as a young boy (his mother is an Australian citizen), first charmed audiences worldwide in 1979 with his edgy performance in the small Australian film Mad Max. Later that year, Gibson won the Australian Film Institute's Best Actor award (equivalent to the US Oscar) for Tim, a now little-known but first-class film based on Australian novelist Colleen McCullough's book about a mentally challenged young man.

His performance in 1981's Gallipoli earned him a second award from the AFI, which led him to America for his US debut in 1984's The Bounty. But it was 1987's Lethal Weapon - which would grow into a four-film franchise - that certified his glittering star status, the legacy of which is the $25 million salary he commands for starring roles.

He has used that power and influence to move from slug-it-out and shoot-'em-up roles to epic films such as Braveheart, The Patriot and We Were Soldiers - the latter a film that touched him deeply.

'It's a great story, a true story - and a great book,' said Gibson, who played the heroic role of Lt Col Hal Moore, an accomplished military strategist who led the first American troops onto Vietnamese soil, unfortunately with horrific results.

'These are tough men who are incredibly compassionate, and they have big soft hearts. And they've been wounded, all of them, whether they took a slug or not. So it was heart-rending. I really sympathised with them.'

Signs of things to come

Gibson now heads up the cast of his latest film Signs, from writer/director M Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable). The psychological thriller has Gibson playing Graham Hess, a former priest who turned his back on God after his wife's death. He wakes up one day to find a giant crop circle in his cornfield. Similar patterns turn up around the globe virtually overnight and send the world into a frenzy, convinced that they are the sign of an imminent alien invasion. While the film is part science fiction thriller, the real heart of the story surrounds Hess finally coming to terms with his anger at God.

Following Signs, there is his next film The Singing Detective, just finished production and expected for release in 2003.

There's no doubt Gibson is hardworking but he somehow manages to tie it in with his well-known devotion to his family. Married to Robyn Moore since 1980 (they reportedly met through a dating service), together the couple has seven children - sons Edward and Christian, who are twins, William, Louis, Milo and Tommy, and daughter Hannah.

Gibson is rare in Hollywood in that he has successfully shed the image in which he was cast early on - as a sex symbol with meager acting talents. As the hugely popular actor ages, the iconic Mad Max and Lethal Weapon franchises of his career may begin to fade against his more ambitious dramatic roles in films such as We Were Soldiers, The Patriot, Hamlet and Braveheart - not to mention more roles behind the camera (he won an Oscar for Best Director for the latter.)

As Mel once said: 'I like directing much better. It's more fun, that's all there is to it. It's essentially the same job, which is storytelling, but you have more control over the way you want to tell the story. It's a high. I love it.'

No doubt he will enjoy the same enduring success behind the camera as he has in front of it.