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Christopher Walken (born March 31, 1943) is an Academy Award-winning American film and theatre actor. Walken is a prolific actor who has spent more than 50 years on stage and screen. He has appeared in over 100 movie and television roles, including The Deer Hunter, The Dead Zone, A View to a Kill, At Close Range, King of New York, Batman Returns, True Romance, Pulp Fiction, The Funeral and Catch Me If You Can, and in TV's Kojak and The Naked City. Walken gained a cult following in the 1990s as the Archangel Gabriel in the first three The Prophecy movies, as well as his frequent guest host appearances on Saturday Night Live. In the United States, films featuring Walken have grossed over $1.8 billion. In 1979, Walken won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Deer Hunter, where he played a disturbed Vietnam veteran alongside Robert De Niro. Walken was nominated again in 2002 for Catch Me if You Can. He won the Clarence Derwent Award for his performance in The Lion in Winter in 1966 and an Obie for his 1975 performance in Kid Champion. He has played the main role in the Shakespeare plays Hamlet, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, and Coriolanus. Walken debuted as a film director and script writer with the short five-minute film Popcorn Shrimp in 2001. He also wrote and acted the main role in a play about Elvis Presley titled Him in 1995. Christopher Walken is that rare actor who made the successful transition from child player to adult star. Born and raised in Astoria, Queens, he studied dance as a youngster and, from the age of 10, appeared in live musicals and dramas in the so-called "Golden Age of Television" in the 1950s. (He also occasionally traded off with his brother Glenn playing the character of Mike Bauer on the CBS daytime serial "Guiding Light" between 1954 and 1956.) The tall, angular blue-eyed performer was in his mid-teens when he made his Broadway debut (then billed as 'Ronnie' (short for Ronald) Walken) in Archibald MacLeish's award-winning verse play "J.B." in 1959. Walken was born Ronald Walken (named after actor Ronald Colman) into a Methodist family in Queens, New York. His mother, Rosalie, was a Scottish immigrant, and his father, Paul Walken, was a German immigrant. Both of his parents were bakers. Throughout his youth, Walken worked after school in the family bakery, Walken's Bakery, which was situated on Broadway and 30th Street in the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York. Walken often worked alongside a young immigrant girl interested in learning all about the food business, Lidia Motika, who grew up to become acclaimed restaurateur and TV cooking show host Lidia Bastianich; the two have remained close ever since. Influenced by their mother's own dreams of stardom, he and his brothers Ken and Glenn were child actors on television in the 1950s. Walken studied at Hofstra University on Long Island but did not graduate. Walken initially trained as a dancer in musical theatre before moving on to dramatic roles in theatre and then film. Walken first appeared on the screen as a child extra in numerous anthology series and variety shows during the Golden Age of Television. After appearing in a sketch with Martin and Lewis on The Colgate Comedy Hour, Walken decided to become an actor. He landed a regular role in the 1953 television show The Wonderful John Acton as the show's narrator. During this time, he was credited as "Ronnie Walken". Over the next 20 years, he appeared frequently on television, landed an experimental film role in Me and My Brother, and had a thriving career in theatre. In 1964, he changed his name to "Christopher" at the suggestion of a friend who believed the name suited him better. He nowadays prefers to be known informally as "Chris Walken". By the middle of the next decade, he had adopted a new first name, Christopher, and was landing chorus roles in Broadway musicals like "Baker Street". While few chorus players segue to dramatic roles, Walken was an exception when he received good notices for his King Philip in the historical drama "The Lion in Winter" (1966). Later that same year, he tackled his first Shakespearean role in "Measure for Measure". Over his long and distinguished career, the actor came to be consider a galvanizing stage performer and wowed critics and audiences in such diverse fare as the title roles in "Macbeth" (1974) and "Kid Champion" (1975), Chance Wayne to Irene Worth's Alexandra Del Lago in "Sweet Bird of Youth" (1975), "Hurlyburly" (1984-85), "Coriolanus" (1988) and his own one-person "Him", (1995, about Elvis Presley). After a four-year absence, Walken returned to his stage roots starring opposite Blair Brown in a musical adaptation of James Joyce's short story "The Dead.” A versatile and highly-skilled performer, Walken has alternated comfortably between lead and supporting roles in a variety of genres. In nearly every case, there is a quality of eccentricity that colors his performances, making him perfectly cast as villains or larger-than-life figures. After a bit role in 1968's "Me and My Brother", he made an impression as a young electronics expert in "The Anderson Tapes" (1971), an intriguing Sidney Lumet-directed thriller. Walken first demonstrated a flair for comedy in the small but indelible role of Diane Keaton's possibly psychotic brother in Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (1977). For his brilliant depiction of the self-disintegration of a war ravaged Vietnam soldier obsessed with playing Russian roulette in Michael Cimino's "The Deer Hunter," he received a 1978 Best Supporting Actor Academy Award. Walken made his feature film debut with a small role opposite Sean Connery in Sidney Lumet's The Anderson Tapes in 1971. In 1972, Walken played his first starring role in The Mind Snatchers. He plays a sociopathic American soldier stationed in Germany, in a science fiction film which deals with mind control and normalization. Woody Allen's 1977 film Annie Hall has Walken playing the suicidal brother of Annie Hall (Diane Keaton); In 1978, he appeared in Shoot the Sun Down, a western filmed in 1976 and co-starring Margot Kidder. Along with Nick Nolte, Walken was considered by George Lucas for the part of Han Solo in Star Wars. The part eventually went to Harrison Ford. Walken won an Academy Award for best supporting actor in the controversial 1978 film, The Deer Hunter. He plays a young Pennsylvania steelworker who is emotionally destroyed by the Vietnam War. To help achieve a gaunt appearance for the role, Walken ate nothing but bananas and rice for a week. Walken's first film of the 1980s was the controversial Heaven's Gate, helmed by Deer Hunter director Michael Cimino. Walken also starred in the 1981 action-adventure The Dogs of War directed by Jack Cardiff. Walken then played schoolteacher-turned-psychic Johnny Smith in David Cronenberg's 1983 adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone. That same year, Walken also starred in Brainstorm alongside Natalie Wood and, in a minor role, his wife Georgianne. In 1985, Walken played a James Bond villain, Max Zorin, in A View to a Kill. Walken dyed his hair blond to befit Zorin's origins as a Nazi experiment. He also played the leading role of Whitley Strieber in 1989s Communion, an autobiographical film written by Streiber and based on his claims that he and his family were subject to alien abductions. At Close Range starred Walken as Brad Whitewood, a rural Pennsylvania crime boss who tries to bring his two sons into his empire. Following his Oscar win, the actor was featured in a string of projects that utilized his unique style to full effect. Walken reunited with Cimino to play a gunslinger in the disastrous "Heaven's Gate" (1980), although he came out unscathed. On the small screen, he offered a memorable turn as a Method actor in "Who Am I This Time?" (PBS, 1981), directed by Jonathan Demme, while in films he paid tribute to his theatrical background as the oily villain who performs a sinuous dance number in the underrated "Pennies From Heaven" (1981). In one of his rare leading roles, Walken was perfectly cast as a man cursed with the ability to see the future in "The Dead Zone" (1983). Cutting a colorful figure, he essayed the campy nemesis to Roger Moore's James Bond in "A View to a Kill" (1985) then turned chilly as the abusive father in "At Close Range" (1986). The decade also saw him enliven "Biloxi Blues" (1988) as an oddball drill sergeant and real-life author Whitley Streiber who claimed visitation by aliens in "Communion" (1989). The Comfort of Strangers, an art house film directed by Paul Schrader, had the distinction of providing a role for Walken that disturbed even him. He plays Robert, a decadent Italian aristocrat who lives with his wife (Helen Mirren) in Venice, in addition to having extreme sexual tastes and murderous tendencies. King of New York, directed by Abel Ferrara, stars Walken as ruthless New York City drug dealer Frank White, recently released from prison and set on reclaiming his criminal territory. In 1992, Walken again played the leading villain in Batman Returns as millionaire industrialist Max Shreck. Walken's next major film role was opposite Dennis Hopper in True Romance, scripted by Quentin Tarantino. His so-called "Sicilian scene" has been hailed by critics as the best scene in the film, and is the subject of four commentaries on the DVD.[citation needed] Walken has a supporting role in Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, as a Vietnam veteran giving his dead comrade's son the family's prized possession, a gold watch, while explaining in graphic detail how he had hidden it from the Vietcong by smuggling it in his own rectum. Later in 1994, Walken starred in A Business Affair, a rare leading role for him in a romantic comedy. Walken manages to once again feature his trademark dancing scene, as he performs the tango. In 1995, he appeared in Wild Side, The Prophecy, and the modern vampire flick The Addiction (his second collaboration with director Abel Ferrara and writer Nicholas St. John). In the 1996 film Last Man Standing, Walken plays a sadistic gangster. That year, he played a predominant role in the video game Ripper, portraying Detective Vince Magnotta. Ripper made extensive use of real-time recorded scenes and a wide cast of celebrities in an interactive movie. In 1998, Walken played an influential, gay, New York theater critic in John Turturro's film Illuminata. In 1999, Walken played Calvin Webber in the romantic comedy Blast from the Past. Webber is a brilliant but eccentric Cal Tech nuclear physicist whose fears of a nuclear war lead him to build an enormous fallout shelter beneath his suburban home. The same year, he appeared as The Headless Horseman in Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow starring Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci. Walken also starred in two music videos in the 1990s. His first video role was as the Angel of Death in Madonna's 1993 "Bad Girl" video, the second appearance was in Skid Row's "Breakin' Down" video. As the 90s dawned, Walken began a collaboration with director Abel Ferrara in which he often portrayed crime lords as in "The King of New York" (1990) and "The Funeral" (1996). Although he played a stalwart farmer who finds unlikely romance with an Eastern woman (Glenn Close) in three TV-movies ("Sarah, Plain and Tall" CBS 1991; "Skylark" CBS 1993: and "Sarah: Plain and Tall: Winter's End" CBS, 1999), the seemingly always employed actor shone in a variety of supporting turns in features ranging from a gangster in the Quentin Tarantino-scripted "True Romance" (1993) to the pivotal role of a Vietnam veteran explaining the strange history of a gold watch in Tarantino's seminal "Pulp Fiction" (1995). Walken rounded out the decade with a string of over-the-top comic characters that encompassed the exterminator doing battle with a single rodent in "Mouse Hunt" (1997) and an effete early 20th Century drama critic in John Turturro's valentine to his wife and the theater, "Illuminata" (1998). Walken continued to branch out into ever-loopier character parts: He gave voice to the brutal insect Cutter in the CGI-animated "Antz" (1998), played the vicious Headless Horseman for Burton's "Sleepy Hollow" (1999), appeared a retro dad living in a bomb shelter in the Brendan Fraser comedy "Blast From the Past" (1999),starred in the indie crime drama "The Opportunists" (2000), played a cop named McDuff in the off-kilter telling of "Macbeth" set in a 1970s fast food joint in "Scotland, PA" (2001) and appeared as part of David Spade's white trash ensemble in the comedy "Joe Dirt" (2001), took a supporting role in the lackluster Julia Roberts comedy "America's Sweethearts" (2001); portrayed the mesmerist Count Cagliostro in "The Affair of the Necklace" (2001) and was one of the few live-action actors in the Disney kid's film "The Country Bears" (2002). In 2000, Walken was cast as the lead, along with Faith Prince, in James Joyce's The Dead on Broadway. A "play with music", The Dead featured music by Shaun Davey, conducted by Charles Prince with music coordination and percussion by Tom Partington. James Joyce's The Dead won a Tony Award that year for Best Book for a Musical. Walken had a notable music video performance in 2001 with Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice. Directed by Spike Jonze, it won six MTV awards in 2001 and also won best video of all time in April 2002, in a list of the top 100 videos of all time, compiled from a survey of musicians, directors, and music industry figures conducted by a UK music TV channel VH1. In this video, Walken performs a tap dance around the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Los Angeles. Walken also helped choreograph the dance. Also in 2001 Walken played a gangster in the witness protection program in the David Spade comedy Joe Dirt and an eccentric film director in America's Sweethearts. Walken played Frank Abagnale, Sr. in Catch Me If You Can. It is inspired by the story of Frank Abagnale, Jr., a con artist who passed himself off as several identities and forged millions of dollars worth of checks. His portrayal earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor. Walken also had a part in the 2003 action comedy film The Rundown starring Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Seann William Scott, in which he plays a ruthless despot. 2002 The Country Bears was Nominated Razzie Worst Supporting Actor 2003 Gigli and Kangaroo Jack was Nominated Worst Supporting Actor. Walken even surprised fans with his far-out but always-graceful dance moves in the Fat Boy Slim music video "Weapon of Choice," which was in heavy rotation on MTV in 2001. Just when it seemed that Walken had given up serious acting to specialize in self-parody, the actor turned in a moving and poignant performance in director Steven Spielberg's "Catch Me If You Can" (2002), playing the father of teen con artist Frank Abagnale, Jr. (Leonardo DiCaprio), the youngest man ever to make the FBI's Most Wanted list. Walken's turn as the once-prosperous businessman whose life is torn asunder by an IRS investigation was a revelation, reminding audiences of the actor's ability to convey the genuine pathos behind a tortured man, all the while putting on a positive spin for the son he adores—the actor subsequently received an Academy Award nomination for his supporting performance. That triumph was followed by a comedic turn as a mafioso in the less-than-stellar comedy "Kangaroo Jack" (2003) and an kooky but out-of-place turn as a police detective in the dismal flop "Gigli" (2003) opposite Ben Affleck and Jennifer Lopez, but Walken still had his share of scene-stealing roles in hit movies ahead of him, delivering yet another offbeat villain with a penchant for speech-making as the evil gold mine owner of "The Rundown" (2003) who's forced to team up with The Rock and Seann William Scott. Further strategic guest roles followed in films of varying genres and qualities, some successful--like his turn as Denzel Washington's sympathetic friend in the revenge thriller "Man on Fire" (2004)—and other not—such as his role as the bizarre J-Man in the horribly unfunny Ben Stiller-Jack Black comedy "Envy" (2004). Walken next played the formidable Mike Wellington, the Mayor of Stepford, CT, who secret, singular vision surrounding spouse-subservient women of "The Stepford Wives" (2004) proves too seductive for most of the community's men to resist. He was better utilized in the Owen Wilson-Vince Vaughn comedy "Wedding Crashers" (2005), playing the powerful politico father of leading lady Rachel McAdams—refreshingly, Walken was allowed to play this one straight, without overdoing the quirks that had begun to define him. Then it was on to director Tony Scott's hyperkinetic pseudo-biopic "Domino" (2005) as a reality TV show producer who becomes embroiled in the life of model-turned-bounty hunter Domino Harvey (Keira Knightley). He then costarred in the Adam Sandler comedy vehicle “Click” (2006), playing a strange Bed, Bath and Beyond clerk who gives an overworked architect (Sandler) a remote control that can rewind, fast-forward or pause his life. But when the remote gets stuck on fast-forward, he begins to miss all the important events in his life, realizing that it’s better to accept to bad with the good than to let his life pass before his eyes. The hard-working actor next filmed “Citizen Brando” (lensed 2006), half documentary, half fictional take on a young man’s fascination with Marlon Brandon and the American Dream, then went right into “Balls of Fury” (lensed 2006), a comedy about a washed-up ping pong champion going undercover for the government to ensnare a crime lord who hosts an annual tournament in which all the losers are executed. Hilarity ensues. Walken next costarred in “Man of the Year” (2006), playing the ailing talent manager of a popular talk show host (Robin Williams) whose surprise run for the presidency shocks the nation when he actually wins thanks to a glitch in voting machines. As “Man of the Year” took a critical drubbing while awaiting release, Walken was already busy at work on his next feature, “Hairspray” (lensed 2006), an adaptation of the 2003 musical which was itself adapted from John Waters’s 1988 film in which he played Wilbur Turnblad opposite John Travolta as the rather large and androgynous Edna. Most recently, he played the role of Morty, a sympathetic inventor who's more than meets the eye, in the comedy Click and also appeared in Man of the Year with Robin Williams and Lewis Black. He costarred in the 2007 film adaptation Hairspray where he is seen singing and dancing in a romantic duet with John Travolta, as well as an eccentric but cruel crime lord and ping-pong enthusiast Feng, in the 2007 comedy Balls of Fury opposite Dan Fogler. Walken is currently in the movie Five Dollars a Day, in which he plays a con man proud of living like a king on five dollars a day. He recently completed filming on The Lonely Maiden, a comedy co-starring Morgan Freeman about security guards in an art museum. Walken can now be found in Universal Studios' "Disaster" attraction, (formerly Earthquake and the Magic of Effects". Walken portrays the owner of 'Disaster Studios' and encourages guests to be extras in his latest film 'Mutha Nature'. Walken is projected on a clear screen, much like a life-sized hologram, and interacts with the live action talent. Walken has attracted a strong cult following as an actor. He is often imitated for his deadpan affect, sudden off-beat pauses, and strange speech rhythm. He is revered for his quality of danger and menace, but his unpredictable deliveries and expressions make him invaluable in comedy as well. He has been parodied on Dave the Barbarian by an unusual unicorn named Twinkle. He is one of the most frequently impersonated actors in Hollywood; notable Walken impressionists include Eddie Izzard, Kevin Spacey, Kevin Pollak, Jay Mohr, Phil Mondiello, Johnny Depp and Jake Gyllenhaal. He is also frequently referenced in various other works of pop culture, such as in the Fountains of Wayne song "Hackensack". Walken remains one of the most popular portrayers of villains among film fans, with a page dedicated entirely to him on the movievillains.com website. MTV's Celebrity Deathmatch also aired a match between Walken and Gary Oldman to determine who was the greatest cinematic villain. On Feb. 15, 2008, he accepted Harvard's award as Hasty Pudding Man of the Year. Walken has hosted the comedy sketch and satire TV series Saturday Night Live on six occasions, and has a standing offer from Lorne Michaels to host the show when Walken's schedule permits. One of his more famous SNL performances was a spoof of "Behind the Music" featuring a recording session of Blue Öyster Cult's "(Don't Fear) The Reaper." In the guise of record producer Bruce Dickinson (not to be confused with Bruce Dickinson, the lead singer for Iron Maiden), Walken makes passionate and slightly unhinged speeches to the band, and is obsessed with getting "more cowbell" into the song. Walken also spoofed his role from The Dead Zone in a sketch titled "Ed Glosser: Trivial Psychic", in which the title character had the ability to accurately predict meaningless, trivial future events ("You're going to get an ice cream headache. It's going to hurt real bad...right here for eight, nine seconds.") He also spoofed his role from A View to a Kill in a sketch titled "Lease with an Option to Kill", in which he reprised his role as Max Zorin. Zorin, who had taken on some qualities of other notable Bond villains (Blofeld's cat and suit, Emilio Largo's eye patch), was upset that everything was going wrong for him: his lair was still under construction, his henchmen had jump suits that did not fit, and his shark tank lacked sharks, instead having a giant sea sponge. A captive James Bond, portrayed by Phil Hartman, offered to get Zorin "a good deal" on the abandoned Blofeld volcanic lair if Zorin let him go, to which he reluctantly agreed. In another appearance, he performed a song and dance rendition of the Irving Berlin standard "Let's Face the Music and Dance". Finally, the "Colonel Angus" sketch, in which Walken played a dishonored Confederate officer, laden with ribald double entendres. Walken's SNL appearances proved so popular that he is one of the few SNL hosts for whom a Best of...SNL DVD is available (an honor usually reserved only for SNL cast members). On every appearance, he has performed in "The Continental", a recurring sketch in which Walken is a "suave ladies' man" who in reality can't say or do anything to keep women from giving him the cold shoulder. Though he is outwardly chivalrous, his more perverted tendencies inevitably drive away his date over his pleading objections. For instance, he invites a woman to wash up in his bathroom. Once she is inside, it becomes obvious that the bathroom mirror is a two-way mirror when the Continental is seen lighting up a cigarette. Walken is scheduled to host Saturday Night Live once again on April 5, 2008. Walken was the subject of a hoax controversy in October 2006 from a fake website started that August by members of internet forum General Mayhem, which announced he was running for President of the United States. Some fans believed it was authentic until Walken's publicist dismissed the claims. When asked about the hoax in a September 2006 interview with Conan O'Brien, Walken was amused by the hoax, and when asked to come up with a campaign slogan, replied "What the Heck?" and "No More Zoos!" Walken has been married to Georgianne Walken (née Thon) since 1969. She is a casting director, most notably for The Sopranos. They live in rural Connecticut. In regards to his villainous roles preceding him when meeting new people, Walken says that "when they see me in a movie they expect me to be something nasty... that's why it's good to defy expectations some times." Walken has a genetic condition called heterochromia, a difference between the color of each of a person's eyes (one is blue, while the other is brown). |
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