[3] His exposure to film began early in life when his grandmother, Lily Mullins, would frequently take him to the movies, despite Gervais being under the legal age of fourteen years at the time.
He entered the Jesuit order at the Stanislaus Novitiate in Guelph, Ontario, on September 7, 1950, taking his initial vows towards ordination in 1952.
[1] He then studied theology at 403 Wellington Street in Toronto from 1960 to 1961 and completed his courses at Regis College in North York, Ontario, from 1961 to 1964.
[2] He began to develop a key interest in films studies while taking his theology courses in the early 1960s.
[1][2] Gervais completed his tertianship, the final formal period of formation within the Society of Jesus, from 1964 to 1965 in Saint-Martin-d'Ablois, France.
[1] For a specific course called Film Ideas, Gervais screened one movie a week at the now abandoned Empress Theatre in the Notre-Dame-de-Grâce neighborhood of Montreal.
[2] He authored several biographies on notable film directors, including a 1973 book on Pier Paolo Pasolini.
[2] Though a resident of Loyola College or the nearby area for most of his adult life,[1] Gervais was a Boston Bruins fan.
[2] In 2009, he moved to the Rene Goupil Jesuit Infirmary in Pickering, Ontario, where died from complications of dementia on March 25, 2012, at the age of 82.